William Hulbert Marquee Hall of Fame 1995

William Hulbert founded the National League in 1876 and established that the league, not any single club, set and enforced its rules. Born in October 1832 and dead in April 1882, he appeared on eleven Hall of Fame ballots before the Veterans Committee elected him in 1995.

He ran the Chicago White Stockings and was unhappy with the National Association, which let players jump contracts and clubs skip road trips. In 1876 he organized the National League to replace it, with fixed schedules, exclusive territories and contracts that held. He expelled New York and Philadelphia in its first season for not finishing their western trips, and two more clubs later, which established that the league outranked its members.

He also banned gambling and threw out four Louisville players for fixing games in 1877. He died in office at forty-nine. Every league in North American professional sport is built on the structure he insisted on, and he is one of the last of that generation the Hall got around to.