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Bowie Kent Kuhn (born October 28, 1926 in Takoma Park, Maryland) was commissioner of Major League Baseball from February 4, 1969 to September 30, 1984. He served as legal counsel for Major League Baseball owners prior to his election as commissioner.
His tenure was marked by labor strikes, owner disenchantment, and the end of baseball's reserve clause, yet baseball enjoyed unprecedented attendance (from 23 million in 1968 to 45.5 million in 1983) and television contracts during the same time frame. Kuhn suspended numerous players for drug involvement and barred both Willie Mays (in 1979) and Mickey Mantle (and 1983) from the sport due to their involvement in casino promotion; both were reinstated (by Kuhn's successor Peter Ueberroth) in 1985. In 1970 Kuhn described Jim Bouton's Ball Four as "detrimental to baseball" and demanded that Bouton retract it. In 1976, when the Oakland Athletics attempted to sell several players to the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees for $3.5 million, Kuhn blocked the deals on the grounds that they would be bad for the game.
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