Wow! eBook
Judge and Jury: The Life and Times of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis
Author(s): David Pietrusza (Author)
- Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing
- Publication Date: 23 Oct. 2001
- Language: English
- Print length: 581 pages
- ISBN-10: 1888698098
- ISBN-13: 9781888698091
Book Description
Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis is most famous for his role as the first Commissioner ever to rule organized baseball. But before he came into his legendary position as baseball’s final say, Landis already had built a reputation from his Chicago courtroom as the most popular and most controversial federal judge in World War I-era America. Judge and Jury is the first complete biography of the Squire, from the origins of his unusual name through his career as a federal judge and his clean-up after the infamous Black Sox scandal.
Editorial Reviews
From the Author
New Bio Provides Insightful Study of Baseball’s First Czar
History has transformed Kenesaw Mountain Landis into a one-dimension figure: the stern, scowling ruler of baseball for a full quarter of a century–banishing wrongdoers, scowling at owners, blocking integration. In the half century since his death this cardboard image has crowded out the real Landis and the subtleties and contradictions that made him not only dictator of baseball but also the most famous, the most popular–and, yes, the most controversial–federal judge in America. His imperious rule did indeed rescue baseball from the depths of the Black Sox Scandal. His measures were harsh and often inconsistent to observers–but one of his least popular decisions, the banishment of third baseman Buck Weaver may have been his most significant move in cleaning up the game and keeping it clean. Whatever his decisions were, they revealed his innate sense of public relations and what was necessary to restore baseballs good name–and to maintain his own standing in the popular pantheon. Modern historians now center on Landiss role in the baseballs continuing segregation–and have made him into a convenient scapegoat for a attitudes and actions of an entire society. Judge & Jury strips away the myths and facile explanations to reveal the real Landis–and the real America. But to merely focus of Landiss baseball career would be to overlook his controversial career as an unpredictable jurist. His historic $29 million fine of John D. Rockefellers grasping Standard Oil trust was but the most sensational aspect of a two-decade long career on the bench. Through his court room troop such fascinating figures as figures as Big Bill Haywood and his radical IWW, bootleggers and gamblers, con men like S. J. Pandolfo, religious cultists, and the arsenic-dispensing murderer Herman Billick. cultists. He could be harsh –sentencing anti-war dissenters to the maximum penalties– or he could be lenient in the extreme — if the spirit moved him. That lenience to the downtrodden nearly led to his impeachment. Above all Landis was a shrewd and crafty wielder of power, who sprang from a talented family of politicians and journalists and who understood better than any of his contemporaries what was necessary to succeed in the modern world of media-created heroes.
History has transformed Kenesaw Mountain Landis into a one-dimension figure: the stern, scowling ruler of baseball for a full quarter of a century–banishing wrongdoers, scowling at owners, blocking integration. In the half century since his death this cardboard image has crowded out the real Landis and the subtleties and contradictions that made him not only dictator of baseball but also the most famous, the most popular–and, yes, the most controversial–federal judge in America. His imperious rule did indeed rescue baseball from the depths of the Black Sox Scandal. His measures were harsh and often inconsistent to observers–but one of his least popular decisions, the banishment of third baseman Buck Weaver may have been his most significant move in cleaning up the game and keeping it clean. Whatever his decisions were, they revealed his innate sense of public relations and what was necessary to restore baseballs good name–and to maintain his own standing in the popular pantheon. Modern historians now center on Landiss role in the baseballs continuing segregation–and have made him into a convenient scapegoat for a attitudes and actions of an entire society. Judge & Jury strips away the myths and facile explanations to reveal the real Landis–and the real America. But to merely focus of Landiss baseball career would be to overlook his controversial career as an unpredictable jurist. His historic $29 million fine of John D. Rockefellers grasping Standard Oil trust was but the most sensational aspect of a two-decade long career on the bench. Through his court room troop such fascinating figures as figures as Big Bill Haywood and his radical IWW, bootleggers and gamblers, con men like S. J. Pandolfo, religious cultists, and the arsenic-dispensing murderer Herman Billick. cultists. He could be harsh –sentencing anti-war dissenters to the maximum penalties– or he could be lenient in the extreme — if the spirit moved him. That lenience to the downtrodden nearly led to his impeachment. Above all Landis was a shrewd and crafty wielder of power, who sprang from a talented family of politicians and journalists and who understood better than any of his contemporaries what was necessary to succeed in the modern world of media-created heroes.
