(1866–1944). Kenesaw Mountain Landis was a U.S. federal judge when he was named the first commissioner of baseball in 1920. He was known for his firm stance against dishonesty or other conduct he regarded as damaging to the sport.
Kenesaw Mountain Landis was born in Millville, Ohio, on November 20, 1866. He was named for a mountain near Atlanta, Georgia, where his father, a Union soldier, was wounded during the American Civil War. Landis attended the University of Cincinnati and in 1891 graduated from the Union College of Law in Chicago, Illinois. He practiced law in Chicago until 1905, when U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him U.S. district judge for the northern district of Illinois. Two years later Landis won nationwide fame by fining the Standard Oil Company more than $29 million for granting unlawful freight rebates. (The decision was reversed on appeal.) During World War I he presided at sedition trials of Socialist and labor leaders.
In 1915 the Federal League, a “third major league” operating outside the structure of organized professional baseball, brought suit against the American and National leagues. The case came before Landis, who neither granted nor denied the injunction that was requested but withheld his decision until the Federal League had disbanded on terms satisfactory to all three leagues. Following the Black Sox baseball scandal, Landis was elected as commissioner of baseball. The office of commissioner replaced the three-man National Baseball Commission, which had failed to deal adequately with the Black Sox Scandal. Landis took office in 1921 and served until he died in Chicago on November 25, 1944. Later that year he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.