William D. Cox

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William Cox
Born
William Drought Cox

(1909-11-08)November 8, 1909
New York, New York
DiedMarch 28, 1989(1989-03-28) (aged 79)
Mount Kisco, New York
NationalityAmerican
OccupationSports Executive

William Drought Cox (1909–1989) was an American businessman and sports executive.

Early life

Cox was born in 1909, growing up on Riverside Drive on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He graduated from high school at the age of 15, then attended New York University and Yale University. After working in commercial and investment banking, he joined a lumber firm, becoming that company's president at the age of 27. He later founded his own lumber brokerage.[2]

New York Yankees (AFL III)

Cox first entered the sports world when he headed a group that bought the

pilings used to reinforce the Panama Canal
during the war.

Philadelphia Phillies

In

John B. Kelly Sr., buying the Phillies for $190,000 and a $50,000 note on March 15, 1943.[2]
At the age of only 33 at the time, he was the youngest owner in the league.

At the time Cox took over, the Phillies had been the dregs of the National League for a quarter century; they had finished above .500 only once since

Washington Senators
, as manager.

However, Cox was a very hands-on owner; as Rich Westcott of the Society for American Baseball Research put it, he tried to run the Phillies "with the same strict regimen with which he ran his lumber company." He'd played baseball at Yale, and still thought of himself as a star athlete. Believing the team needed to be better conditioned, he hired his high school track coach, Harold Bruce, as team trainer. Cox even suited up for workouts, and frequently showed up at the clubhouse before and after games. All of this grated on Harris, and when he protested against Cox's interference, Cox fired him on July 27 at a press conference, without bothering to inform Harris. The players threatened to go on strike in protest, but Harris urged them to drop those plans after Cox threatened legal action.

Despite this, the Phillies showed signs of respectability for the first time in years, and they finished 64-90, a healthy 22-game improvement from 1942, to get out of the cellar for the first time in five years. Although they were still a long way from contention, the long-beleaguered Phillies fans appreciated what Cox was trying to do. The Phillies attracted over 466,000 fans, more than double their 1942 gate and their best attendance since 1916. At the time of Harris' firing, the Phillies had already won 38 games, just four fewer than they had won in the previous season. More importantly in the long run, the farm system had begun developing the players who would help lead the Phillies to the 1950 World Series.

On July 28, Harris dropped a bombshell at his hotel room in Philadelphia: he had evidence that Cox was betting on his own team. When Landis got wind of Harris' charges, he launched an immediate investigation. Initially, Cox denied any wrongdoing, but conceded that some of his business associates bet on the Phillies. As the investigation progressed, Cox changed his story and admitted making some "sentimental" bets on the Phillies, and he claimed that he didn't know it was against the rules. This made no difference to Landis, who suspended Cox indefinitely on November 23, 1943.[6]

Cox immediately resigned as team president, but appealed Landis' ruling 11 days later. At the December 4 hearing, Harris testified that he'd heard Cox's secretary asking about the odds for a game between the Phillies and

banned from baseball
by Landis; he is the last owner to be banned for life as of 2024.

Bob Carpenter Sr., scion of the Delaware-based duPont family, bought the team with his son for an estimated $400,000 on Nov. 23, 1943, the same day that Cox was banned.[2] The Carpenter family maintained ownership until 1981.

Professional soccer leagues

In 1960, Cox led entrepreneurs in creating the

North American Soccer League
.

Cox retired to other business interests and died in Mount Kisco, New York in 1989.

References/external links

References

  1. ^ http://sports.nyhistory.org/bill-cox/
  2. ^ a b c Westcott, Rich (October 1, 2008). "Philadelphia Phillies team ownership history". sabr.org. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  3. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2005-03-29. Retrieved 2009-01-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. ^ Revisiting Bill Veeck and the 1943 Phillies, The National Pastime, 2006 issue, page 109. Retrieved 2012-05-12.
  5. ISBN 978-0-8027-1778-8
    .
  6. ISBN 0395361451
    .
  7. ^ International Soccer League history
  8. ^ Dennis J. Seese, The Rebirth of Professional Soccer in America: The Strange Days of the United Soccer Association (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) p19
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