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250:. Soon afterward, Cox was named league president as well. He had ambitious plans for the Yankees, but the outbreak of World War II resulted in several players from the Yankees and other teams either enlisting or being drafted into the military. With several teams' rosters depleted to the point that they could not field viable teams, Cox announced the league would shut down for the war's duration. As it turned out, it never returned. He also supplied the
321:, at least in part because the team's owners had been unwilling or unable to spend the money necessary to build a winner. Cox, however, was not afraid to spend what it took to get the Phillies out of the cellar. He significantly increased the team's payroll and devoted significant resources to player development (including the farm system) for the first time in the history of the franchise. He also hired
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trainer. Cox even suited up for workouts, and frequently showed up at the clubhouse before and after games. All of this grated on Harris, and when he protested against Cox's interference, Cox fired him on July 27 at a press conference, without bothering to inform Harris. The players threatened to go on strike in protest, but Harris urged them to drop those plans after Cox threatened legal action.
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Despite this, the
Phillies showed signs of respectability for the first time in years, and they finished 64-90, a healthy 22-game improvement from 1942, to get out of the cellar for the first time in five years. Although they were still a long way from contention, the long-beleaguered Phillies fans
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On July 28, Harris dropped a bombshell at his hotel room in
Philadelphia: he had evidence that Cox was betting on his own team. When Landis got wind of Harris' charges, he launched an immediate investigation. Initially, Cox denied any wrongdoing, but conceded that some of his business associates
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to take over the franchise. The league sold it to Cox a week later. Although long thought to be false based on press accounts of the time, evidence has surfaced that Nugent indeed planned to sell the
Phillies to Veeck, only to have Landis step in and engineer the sale to Cox. Cox headed a 30-man
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put it, he tried to run the
Phillies "with the same strict regimen with which he ran his lumber company." He'd played baseball at Yale, and still thought of himself as a star athlete. Believing the team needed to be better conditioned, he hired his high school track coach, Harold Bruce, as team
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bet on the
Phillies. As the investigation progressed, Cox changed his story and admitted making some "sentimental" bets on the Phillies, and he claimed that he didn't know it was against the rules. This made no difference to Landis, who suspended Cox indefinitely on November 23, 1943.
349:. At the time of Harris' firing, the Phillies had already won 38 games, just four fewer than they had won in the previous season. More importantly in the long run, the farm system had begun developing the players who would help lead the Phillies to the
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to play against each other in New York City. The
International Soccer League competition lasted for six summers, and would stage matches in other cities during its existence. In 1967, Cox and other sportsmen launched the
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Cox immediately resigned as team president, but appealed Landis' ruling 11 days later. At the
December 4 hearing, Harris testified that he'd heard Cox's secretary asking about the odds for a game between the Phillies and
369:" the secretary replied that it was common knowledge in the Phillies office. On the basis of this and other evidence, Landis ordered that Cox be banned for life, thus making Cox the first non-player to be
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218:. After working in commercial and investment banking, he joined a lumber firm, becoming that company's president at the age of 27. He later founded his own lumber brokerage.
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season, needing an advance from the league just to go to spring training. Realizing there was no way he could operate the team in 1943, he initially planned to sell it to
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At the time Cox took over, the
Phillies had been the dregs of the National League for a quarter century; they had finished above .500 only once since
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appreciated what Cox was trying to do. The
Phillies attracted over 466,000 fans, more than double their 1942 gate and their best attendance since
395:, an annual summer competition that would bring professional soccer teams from various nations, as well as a team of American-born players, the
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in 1941. He also served as the league's president. After changing the team's name to the
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Turn back the clock … 1943: owner William Cox, the last man banned before Pete Rose
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Cox first entered the sports world when he headed a group that bought the
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syndicate that outbid another group headed by construction magnate
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by Landis; he is the last owner to be banned for life as of 2024.
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However, Cox was a very hands-on owner; as Rich Westcott of the
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190:(1909–1989) was an American businessman and sports executive.
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when word got out that Veeck planned to stock the team with
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and tools are available to assist in formatting, such as
586:. Boston, USA: Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 352.
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Do you mean to tell me Mr. Cox is betting on baseball?
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in 10 American cities. After a merger with the rival
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Cox retired to other business interests and died in
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391:In 1960, Cox led entrepreneurs in creating the
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837:Sportspeople involved in betting scandals
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559:Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick
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526:: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (
338:Society for American Baseball Research
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454:http://sports.nyhistory.org/bill-cox/
246:and complete a backfield tandem with
621:(Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) p19
198:Cox was born in 1909, growing up on
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832:Major League Baseball controversies
607:International Soccer League history
402:National Professional Soccer League
325:, who had won two pennants and one
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561:. New York: Walker & Company.
470:Westcott, Rich (October 1, 2008).
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299:Kenesaw Mountain Landis
842:Yale University alumni
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753:Robert R. M. Carpenter
557:Dickson, Paul (2012).
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417:Mount Kisco, New York
296:Baseball Commissioner
276:Major League Baseball
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161:Mount Kisco, New York
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545:The National Pastime
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331:Washington Senators
212:New York University
188:William Drought Cox
129:William Drought Cox
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397:New York Americans
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143:New York, New York
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168:Nationality
119:William Cox
93:August 2022
801:Categories
774:Bill Giles
593:0395361451
513:2009-01-18
441:References
307:Ford Frick
292:Bill Veeck
244:Tom Harmon
194:Early life
178:Occupation
135:1909-11-08
59:verifiable
671:franchise
419:in 1989.
329:with the
204:Manhattan
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522:cite web
476:sabr.org
172:American
48:link rot
663:of the
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