Bowie Kuhn’s baseball roots run deep. As a teenager he worked the scoreboard for the Senators at Griffith Stadium. After earning his law degree, Kuhn served as the National League’s general counsel for more than a decade.
In 1969 he was given a one-year term as baseball’s fifth commissioner. Kuhn performed well enough to keep the job for 17 years.
One of the perks of the position as Commissioner of Baseball is interacting with former players. In this letter dated May 8, 1969 Bowie Kuhn writes to Casey Stengel inviting him to Baseball’s Centennial celebration.
It reads in part, “It is with extreme pleasure that I extend to you an invitation to be my guest at the Centennial celebration in Washington, D.C….”.
The rest of the letter is worth reading in this correspondence between two Hall of Famers.