Ed Doherty (baseball executive)
Ed Doherty | |
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| Born | March 30, 1900 Washington Senators franchise (now the Texas Rangers), from the expansion team's formation following the 1960 season through the end of the 1962 campaign. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, he was a graduate of Providence College's Class of 1924.[1]
Minor league executiveDoherty joined Washington after spending the previous 7½ seasons as president of one of the three Eastern League and the Louisville Colonels of the American Association.
After assuming the Association's presidency in 1953, he led the league through a tumultuous time during which it lost (or would lose) some of its most important cities—traditional powers Dallas and Fort Worth , during that period.
Doherty was one of the most vocal opponents of Major League Baseball expansion, leading the minor leagues' resistance to rumored plans at the 1959 baseball winter meetings. The expansion Senators Doherty was appointed by the new Senators' first majority owner, Elwood "Pete" Quesada, a retired United States Air Force general, and his first task was to sign a manager and draft players. He selected as his skipper Mickey Vernon, longtime Washington fan favorite from the 1940s and 1950s as a first baseman and two-time batting champion, and a member of the 1960 World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates coaching staff. He drafted well-known veterans such as Dick Donovan, Bobby Shantz, Gene Woodling and Dale Long in the expansion lottery, then traded Shantz to Pittsburgh to acquire a package of players that included pitcher Bennie Daniels, who would lead the 1961 Senators in victories. Predictably, the new Senators struggled in their won 20 games for Cleveland. During the season, Doherty and Vernon were publicly criticized by owner Quesada because of the Senators' poor showing. At the close of the campaign, Quesada sold his share in the Senators, and Doherty was replaced as GM by George Selkirk, the former New York Yankees ' star.
Doherty's departure from the Senator front office did not signal the end of his career in baseball, nor with the team. He returned to the minor leagues in 1963 as general manager of the Hall of Famer then in his first year at the Washington helm.[5]
Two years later, Doherty died at age 71 in Winchester, Massachusetts. He was elected to the Providence College Athletics Hall of Fame in 1971, the year of his passing. References
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