Minor League Owner and Executive
In 1939, Bush and two partners, Indiana banker, Frank E. McKinney and Tom Yawkey, bought the Louisville Cardinals of the American Association for $100,000. Bush and McKinney saw a quick opportunity to recoup their investment, selling Louisville shortstop and future Hall of Famer Pee Wee Reese on July 27, 1939 for a reported $75‚000 and players to be named. Yawkey voted against the sale, but Bush and McKinney voted for it. After the 1940 season, Bush and his partners sold the Louisville franchise.
In 1941, Bush and McKinney bought the Indianapolis Indians, Bush's hometown team for whom he had been a player in 1908 and a manager from 1924 to 1926. Bush served as the team president and general manager, and took over as the field manager for 1943 and part of 1944.
The Cleveland Indians bought the Indianapolis franchise in 1951, and Bush worked for a time as a scout for the Boston Red Sox. Four years later, the Indianapolis team became a community-owned team through a public stock offering. Bush became the first president of the community-owned team, a position he held until 1969.
Bush spent 65 years (1907–1972) playing, managing or working in some capacity in professional baseball. In 1972, Bush was working as a scout for the Chicago White Sox at age 84. While scouting at spring training in Florida, Bush fell ill and died three weeks later after returning home to Indianapolis. He was 84.
Read more about this topic: Donie Bush
Famous quotes containing the words minor, league, owner and/or executive:
“If, for instance, they have heard something from the postman, they attribute it to “a semi-official statement”; if they have fallen into conversation with a stranger at a bar, they can conscientiously describe him as “a source that has hitherto proved unimpeachable.” It is only when the journalist is reporting a whim of his own, and one to which he attaches minor importance, that he defines it as the opinion of “well-informed circles.””
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best—it’s all they’ll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money—provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don’t need it.”
—Peter De Vries (b. 1910)
“An ancient prophecy ... pronounced, That the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it!”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“More than ten million women march to work every morning side by side with the men. Steadily the importance of women is gaining not only in the routine tasks of industry but in executive responsibility. I include also the woman who stays at home as the guardian of the welfare of the family. She is a partner in the job and wages. Women constitute a part of our industrial achievement.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)