Bobby Brown, the New York Yankee infielder who played on four
World Series championship teams while pursuing a career in medicine, quit
baseball at age 29 to open a cardiology practice and later served as president
of the American League, died at his home in Fort Worth, Texas. He was 96.
اضافة اعلان
The death was confirmed by his daughter Kaydee Bailey.
Brown usually missed spring training because of his studies, and
he was often platooned by manager Casey Stengel, but he proved a crucial figure
at the plate for the Yankees by the time October arrived. He had a .439 batting
average, with 18 hits including five doubles and three triples, while appearing
in the World Series every year but one from 1947 though 1951.
Brown received a medical degree from Tulane University in 1950
and left the Yankees in the summer of 1952 for medical service in the Army
during the Korean War.
He was discharged in April 1954, and he played occasionally for
the Yankees that spring. He retired in July after eight seasons with a career
batting average of .279.
Brown completed his cardiology training in 1958 and opened a
practice in Fort Worth. Except for a few months’ break in 1974, when he was the
interim president of the Texas Rangers, he remained in medical practice until
1984, when he became the American League president — a post that mainly
involved disciplining players for their run-ins with the umpires he supervised.
Robert William Brown was born on October 25, 1924, in Seattle, a
son of William and Myrtle (Berg) Brown. His father, who had played semipro
baseball, encouraged Bobby to play ball. He moved with his family to the San
Francisco area as a teenager and played sandlot baseball there with Jerry
Coleman and Charlie Silvera, who would become his teammates on the Yankees.
Brown entered the Navy in 1943 and played for Stanford, University
of California, Lost Angeles (UCLA) and
Tulane while beginning his medical education in a World War II officer training
program.
He signed with the Yankee organization in 1946 for a bonus
estimated at $50,000 or more. He played shortstop for the Yankees’ Newark Bears
farm team that year, hitting .341, and made his major league debut near the
season’s end.
The big money and his blond hair brought him the nickname Golden
Boy.
Joe Page, the Yankees’ star reliever, called him “Quack.”
But Brown dispelled any doubts his teammates might have had. A
left-handed line-drive hitter, he batted .300 in both 1947 and ‘48, mostly
pinch-hitting and filling in for some games behind Billy Johnson, the third
baseman, and Phil Rizzuto, the shortstop, both right-handed batters.
Brown later succeeded Lee MacPhail, a former Yankees executive,
as the American League president.
In a 1983 interview with George Vecsey of The New York Times,
Brown spoke about the challenges he faced as a physician and his decision to
rejoin the baseball world full time in the American League post.
“When you’re on duty, you’re really on,” he said. “The calls can
come at any hour. Making plans is an exercise in frustration. I’m 59 years old.
I’ve been doing this 26 years and didn’t see myself doing it more than a few
more years. You get tired.”
He continued: “I didn’t see myself doing administrative work,
running a rehabilitation center or something like that. I knew I was too young
to stop working, but one of the problems with being a doctor is that you’re
really not trained to do anything else.”
“I really wasn’t ready to give up my practice,” he said, “but
the league presidency was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
In June 1988, Brown imposed a three-game suspension and a $1,000
fine on Billy Martin, the Yankees manager and his former teammate, for throwing
dirt at an umpire who had ejected him after an argument over a call.
He stepped down as league president in 1994.
In his later years, Brown returned to Yankee Stadium on
Old-Timers’ Day and eventually become one of the event’s more senior Yankees,
along with Yogi Berra, who had been his roommate on road trips. That pairing
produced the oft-told (and possibly true) story that while Brown was going
through his medical volumes one night, Berra told him to let him know how his
book turned out.
In addition to his daughter Bailey, Brown is survived by another
daughter, Beverley Dale; a son, Pete, a physician; 10 grandchildren; and 14
great-grandchildren. His wife, Sara (French) Brown, whom he married in 1951,
died in 2012.
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