Lee MacPhail Dies, Baseball Hall of Fame Member Passes Away at 95
Longtime baseball executive Lee MacPhail, has died. He was 95.
MacPhail who died on Thursday at his home in Delray Beach, Fla., was the oldest member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
"Baseball history has lost a great figure in Lee MacPhail, whose significant impact on the game spanned five decades," Baseball Hall of Fame board chairman Jane Forbes Clark said.
"He will always be remembered in Cooperstown as a man of exemplary kindness and a man who always looked after the best interests of the game," Clark said.
"Lee MacPhail was one of the great executives in baseball history and a Hall of Famer in every sense, both personally and professionally," Commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement.
"His hallmarks were dignity, common sense and humility. He was not only a remarkable league executive, but was a true baseball man," Selig said.
In 1985, MacPhail told The Associated Press in an interview after his retirement that, "There's not much I haven't done off the field other than commissioner."
MacPhail's death was announced by the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He was inducted there in 1998 and was the oldest living member. His death now makes Bobby Doerr the oldest living Hall of Famer. Doerr is 94.
MacPhail's best moment in baseball was in 1983 when he upheld Kansas City's protest on the Pine Tar Game against the New York Yankees, restoring a ninth-inning home run to Royals Slugger George Brett. Brett is also a future Hall of Famer.
According to The New York Times, MacPhail was a calm presence and a conciliator, just like his father Larry MacPhail, who was a top executive of the Cincinnati Reds, Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees.