On This Date in Sports September 1, 1989: The Death of the Commissioner
Major League Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti suffered a massive heart attack and died at the age of 51 while vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard. The former President of Yale had only been in the commissioner’s office for six months, succeeding Peter Ueberroth on April 1st after serving as President of the National League for two years. Giamatti’s tenure was marred by the Pete Rose investigation and a lifetime ban.
Angelo Bartlett Giamatti was born on April 4, 1938, in Boston. Raised by educators in Massachusetts, Giamatti attended Yale and followed their example, becoming a Professor of Literature at his Alma Mater. Bart Giamatti married Toni Marilyn Smith, a High School teacher, in 1960. Together, they had three children: Paul, Marcus, and Elena. Marcus and Paul Giamatti would both become actors when they grew up.
In 1978, at the age of 40, Bart Giamatti became the youngest President in the history of Yale University. A longtime baseball fan, Giamatti, a fan of the Boston Red Sox, once stated that his dream job was to be President of the American League. In 1986, he got his chance to be President of the National League, succeeding Chub Feeney.
After two years as President of the National League, Bart Giamatti was chosen unanimously to be the seventh Commissioner of Major League Baseball, replacing Peter Ueberroth, whose term ended on April 1, 1989. Among Giamatti’s initiates as President of the National League was to push for hiring more African Americans in executive and management positions. When Giamatti left the National League, he was replaced by Bill White, who became the highest-ranking African American in the history of baseball.
When Bart Giamatti began serving as commissioner at the start of the 1989 season, baseball had begun an investigation into the gambling activities of Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose. The investigation of Rose became the story of the 1989 season as John Dowd was hired to see if he bet on baseball and if he bet on the Reds. Baseball, since the 1919 Black Sox scandal, had established rules stating that betting on your own team would lead to a lifetime banishment. When John Dowd published his report to the commissioner, Rose was forced to accept a lifetime ban on August 24th.
Eight days after the Pete Rose ban, Bart Giamatti was spending the start of Labor Day Weekend at his vacation home in Martha’s Vineyard. While there, in the middle of the afternoon, Giamatti went into cardiac arrest. A short time after arriving at the hospital, he was pronounced dead. After his death, there were questions as to what caused Bart Giamatti, who was only 51, to have a heart attack. Some attributed the heart attack to the stress caused by the Peter Rose situation, where he was forced to hand down a lifetime ban, the all-time hits leader. Most, though, blamed the fact that he was slightly overweight and a heavy smoker for his sudden heart failure.