FanHouse Bowie Kuhn

One day, he was as big a star in New York's sports galaxy as any. The next day, he was being jettisoned from it after being convicted of violating a federal law and faced with a possible jail sentence.

I'm not referencing Plaxico Burress just yet, however. I'm talking about Yankees owner George Steinbrenner back in 1974. The shipping magnate turned baseball owner was busted for making illegal contributions to President Nixon's 1972 campaign.

Steinbrenner, like Burress, agreed to a plea deal. Fourteen criminal counts against him were cut to one felony and a misdemeanor and The Boss wound up being fined $15,000 and never had to go behind bars. Fifteen years later, President Reagan, in one of his final acts, pardoned Steinbrenner.

Burress won't be so lucky, but he should be.

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The 2008 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot was released last week but the results of that voting, done by the Baseball Writers Association of America, won't be announced until early next year. While the next month will see much debate about the credentials of Mark McGwire, Goose Gossage and Jim Rice, there was nary a peep about the slate of candidates considered by the Veterans Committee in advance of today's announcement of five Hall of Famers.

If there was perhaps they would have avoided the monumental error they made by electing former commissioner Bowie Kuhn but not Marvin Miller. The process used for electing veterans was changed this year from the full group of living members of the Hall to three panels, one for former players, one for managers and umpires and one for executives and pioneers. Kuhn was elected by the latter group.

Miller, who got three of 12 votes from the management panel (seven current or former management execs, two former players and three writers), wasn't thrilled by the results.

"It's demeaning, the whole thing, and I don't mean just to me. It's demeaning to the Hall and demeaning to the people in it."

It's demeaning because it ignores half the story of why Kuhn matters to the game of baseball. That half is Miller's and deserves telling at baseball's most hallowed ground. Instead the panel tried to rewrite history by leaving Miller on the sidelines.

Bowie Kuhn, MLB's Commissioner from 1969-84, is dead today at the age of 80.

Kuhn died at St. Luke's Hospital following a short illness, his spokesman, Bob Wirz said.

Kuhn's tenure, from 1969-84, was the most tumultuous economically in Major League history. His name will be forever linked with Marvin Miller, the first full-time executive director of the MLB Players Association, which came to prominence during the 1970s.

Kuhn, at 44 years old, was the youngest man ever to be elected Commissioner.

In 1977, even though Kuhn was opposed to it, free agency became commonplace in baseball. Another interesting caveat: he once suspended George Steinbrenner for contributing to Richard Nixon's 1972 presidential campaign illegally. He also froze out Micky Mantle and Willy Mays from getting jobs in baseball after their association with a casino.

According to Kuhn's Wikipedia entry, he came up with the idea for the famed POW lifetime baseball passes.

In 1980, during the Iranian hostage crisis, Kuhn sat at a baseball game with Jeremiah Denton, a Navy admiral and former POW in Vietnam. Recalling the event to The Washington Post, Kuhn believed that "that afternoon...the idea of a lifetime baseball pass was discussed," and upon their return from Iran, each of the 52 hostages was given one of these unique passes.

R.I.P. Bowie, R.I.P.