Bobby Brown (third baseman)

Robert William Brown (born October 25, 1924) is an American former professional baseball third baseman and executive who was the president of the American League (AL) (1984–1994). He also was a physician who studied for his medical degree during his eight-year playing career with the New York Yankees (1946–1952, 1954).

Biography

Education
Born in Seattle, Washington, Brown attended Galileo Academy of Science and Technology in San Francisco, then Stanford University and UCLA, before receiving his medical degree from Tulane University. During his time at Stanford, he and another student were involved in the rescue of a Coast Guardsman from a plane crash, for which Brown received a Silver Lifesaving Medal.

Playing career
Sometimes known as "Golden Boy" during his baseball career, Brown played 548 regular-season games for the Yankees, with a lifetime batting average of .279 and 22 home runs. In addition, he appeared in four World Series (1947, 1949, 1950, 1951) for New York, batting .439 (18-for-41) in 17 games. Brown batted left-handed and threw right-handed. He missed  seasons due to military service during the Korean War.

Brown had a bases-loaded triple in Game 4 and a two-run triple in the championship-clinching Game 5 of the 1949 World Series. He tripled again in the final game of the 1950 World Series.

A famous apocryphal story that has made the rounds for years in baseball circles concerns the time when Brown's road roommate was star Yankee catcher Yogi Berra, who had little formal education. The two were reading in their hotel room one night — Berra a comic book and Brown his copy of Boyd's Pathology. Berra came to the end of his comic, tossed it aside, and asked Brown, "So, how is yours turning out?"

Brown is the last living member of the Yankees team that won the 1947 World Series. There are no living players who played on an earlier World Series-winning team.

Baseball executive career
Brown practiced cardiology in the Dallas-Fort Worth area until May , when he took a leave of absence to serve as an interim president of the AL Texas Rangers — then, returned to medicine following the season. In , he succeeded Lee MacPhail as AL president and held the post for a decade; Gene Budig replaced him. In 1992 and 1993, Brown presented the World Series Trophy (on both occasions to the Toronto Blue Jays) instead of the Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig. The presidencies of both the American League and the National League were eliminated in , and their duties were absorbed by the office of the Commissioner.

Legacy
A decorated veteran of two wars, a noted baseball player who served on five championship teams, an accomplished physician, and the former President of the American League, Brown is considered to have few equals in the history of major league baseball. He is a regular at the Yankees' annual Old-Timers' Day celebrations.

On March 26, 1957, Brown was a contestant on the game show To Tell The Truth. (Repeats of the episode are occasionally broadcast on the Game Show Network and can also be seen on YouTube.)

Brown's wife of more than 60 years, Sara, died on March 26, 2012. They were married in October 1951, shortly after 1951 World Series.

References

External links

Bobby Brown at SABR (Baseball BioProject)

Category:Major League Baseball third basemen
Category:New York Yankees players
Category:Baseball players from Washington (state)
Category:American League presidents
Category:Baseball executives
Category:Major League Baseball executives
Category:Texas Rangers executives
Category:Stanford Cardinal baseball players
Category:Tulane Green Wave baseball players
Category:American military personnel of the Korean War
Category:Sportspeople from Seattle
Category:UCLA Bruins baseball players
Category:1924 births
Category:Living people
Category:American cardiologists
Category:American military personnel of World War II