Bowie Kuhn Marquee Hall of Fame 2008

Bowie Kuhn was a lawyer for National League owners before they made him commissioner in 1969. Born in October 1926 and dead in March 2007, he appeared on six Hall of Fame ballots before the executives committee elected him in 2008, the year after his death.

He worked as a scoreboard boy at Griffith Stadium as a teenager. His tenure held the first players' strike in 1972, the arbitration ruling that ended the reserve clause in 1975, free agency after it, and the strike of 1981. He fought the Players Association on each and generally came off worse.

He suspended George Steinbrenner, blocked Charlie Finley from selling his best players, and ordered Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle out of the game over casino jobs, which his successor reversed. The owners declined to renew him in 1984.