Frank Navin

Frank Joseph Navin (April 18, 1871 – November 13, 1935) was the principal owner of the Detroit Tigers in Major League Baseball for 27 years, from 1907 to 1935. He also served as vice president and acting president of the American League.

Early years (1902-1910)

Born in Adrian, Michigan, Navin was one of nine children of Irish immigrants. He attended the Detroit College of Law and worked as both a lawyer and accountant.

In 1902, Navin was a bookkeeper at the insurance offices of Samuel F. Angus, when Angus led a syndicate that purchased the Detroit Tigers. Angus put the 31-year-old Navin in the front office of the ballclub, where he served as "secretary, treasurer, business manager, farm director, chief ticket seller, advertising manager, and any other position that demanded immediate attention." (Van Dusen, Ewald & Hawkins, "The Detroit Tigers Encyclopedia" (Sports Publishing 2003), p. 203) [cite book
title=The Detroit Tigers Encyclopedia
author=Jim Hawkins, Dan Ewald, George Van Dusen
year=2003
publisher=Sports Publishing LLC
isbn=1582612226
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=UJVas2JMjLUC&pg=PA202&lpg=PA202&dq=frank+navin+encyclopedia&source=web&ots=MrPAVVWBaD&sig=qq_HlmtSpKwvPW_bteX2NtgDdV8] In 1903, Navin bought $5000 in stock in the team, reportedly with money won in a card game. Navin had an eye for talent and built a team that won three straight pennants from 1907-1909. His signing of Ty Cobb and Hughie Jennings was instrumental in the development of the Tigers championship teams.

After Angus sold his interest in the Tigers to William Yawkey, Navin stayed on with the team. In 1907, just before the 1907 World Series, Yawkey sold 50% of the team to Navin. In January 1908, Navin became president of the Tigers, but Yawkey remained a silent partner until his death in 1919.

Baseball was not a side business for Navin. It was his principal business and passion. Navin once said: "No game is cleaner, healthier or more scientific. (Baseball brings) thousands of devotees out into the open air and the sunshine and distracts them from every contaminating influence." (Van Dusen, Ewald & Hawkins, "The Detroit Tigers Encyclopedia", p. 33) And legendary Detroit News sports editor H. G. Salsinger wrote that "Navin was one of the few owners who knew the playing end of the game as well as the business end."

Reputation as a penny-pincher

Despite his love of the game, Navin was also a businessman and developed a reputation as a penny-pincher. A 1904 letter he wrote to Hall of Famer Sam Crawford adds to the reputation. After hitting .338 for the Tigers in 1903, Crawford took his used uniform home to Wahoo, Nebraska, prompting Navin to send the following letter: cquote|Kindly forward last season's uniform to the Detroit Ball Club at once, so it can be put in shape for spring practice. As those uniforms are paid for by the Detroit club, they are, of course, the property of the Detroit club and should have been returned at the close of last season. (Van Dusen, Ewald & Hawkins, "The Detroit Tigers Encyclopedia", p. 33)

Navin's tough negotiations and salary battles with Tiger players are legendary. In the 1920s, Tigers slugger Bob "Fats" Fothergill always had a weight problem, and Navin constantly rode Fothergill about it. When Fothergill came to Navin's office in the winter to negotiate his contract, he wore a big, heavy overcoat to conceal the weight he had put on in the offseason. Navin figured out what Fothergill was up to and turned the heat way up in his office. Navin then sat back and engaged Fothergill in a long, drawn-out conversation about his family, hunting, and anything but the contract. As sweat poured off of Fothergill, Navin suggested that he take off the coat, but Fothergill insisted he was comfortable. When the conversation finally got around to the contract, Fothergill wanted to get out of Navin's hot office so badly that he accepted Navin's first offer. Donald Honig, "Baseball When the Grass Was Real: Baseball from the Twenties to the Forties..." (Nebraska Press 1993), pp. 43-44) [cite book
title=Baseball When the Grass Was Real
author=Donald Honig
year=1993
publisher=U of Nebraska Press
isbn=0803272677
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=m7mwvZEkfasC&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=bob+fothergill&source=web&ots=TfzfYbYVIb&sig=gxsClxBobfF-oUY5ZxE4VviqvBU]

Years later, when pitcher Elden Auker was called up to the Tigers in 1933, Navin told him: "Elden, we're bringing you up here as a starting pitcher. We think you have an opportunity to be a major league pitcher. I don't have a lot of money. My philosophy for starting pitchers is when they give you the ball, I expect you to pitch nine innings. I can't afford to pay you to start a ballgame and pay three or four others to finish it." ("Old-Timer's Advice to Today's Pitchers: Throw"," The New York Times, March 28, 2006)

, "but tight-fisted Tigers owner Frank Navin wouldn't come up with the $40,000 the Seals were asking." (Clifton Blue Parker, "Big and Little Poison: Paul and Lloyd Waner, Baseball Brothers" (McFarland 2002), p. 30) [cite book
title=Big and Little Poison
author=Clifton Blue Parker, Paul Waner, Lloyd Waner
year=2002
publisher=McFarland
isbn=0786414006
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=-m2seLQAIQAC&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=%22frank+navin%22+%22paul+waner%22&source=web&ots=rUjd0aViJq&sig=0cjCHBiV1lVHIOXxptQxzm21XdY] Cobb, who was the team's manager, was angered at Navin's refusal to sign Waner. "It got so I couldn't stand to look at Navin." (Richard Bak, "Peach: Ty Cobb In His Time and Ours" (2005), pp. 142-143)

Later years (1911-1935)

In 1911, Navin tore down the Tigers' longtime home, Bennett Park, and built a new concrete-and-steel facility on the same site with a seating capacity of 23,000. The new park, named "Navin Field," opened on April 20, 1912. Later renamed Briggs Stadium and then Tiger Stadium, the park built by Navin remained the Tigers' home until 2000. In 1924, as Detroit grew, Navin built a second deck on his stadium, increasing the seating capacity to 30,000.

In May 1912, Navin found himself embroiled in the first player strike in American League history. During a game in New York, Ty Cobb jumped into the stands and attacked a handicapped heckler who had been taunting Cobb with racial epithets. When American League President Ban Johnson suspended Cobb indefinitely, the Tigers voted to strike, refusing to play until the suspension was lifted. When Ban Johnson threatened Navin with a $5,000 per game fine if he failed to field a team, Navin told manager Hughie Jennings to find replacement players. As the Tigers were on the road in Philadelphia, Jennings recruited eight replacement "Tigers" from a neighborhood in North Philadelphia. The replacement Tigers lost 24-2 to the Philadelphia Athletics. The regular Tigers returned after a one-game strike.

In 1920, Navin played a key role in the creation of the office of Commissioner of Baseball and the appointment of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the first Commissioner. The American League owners had become divided into two factions. One faction, the Red Sox, White Sox and Yankees, sought to remove Ban Johnson as the league's president. The other faction, the Tigers, Indians, Athletics, Browns, and Senators, known as the "Loyal Five," supported Johnson. When the Black Sox Scandal broke after the 1920 season, the White Sox, Red Sox and Yankees threatened to pull out of the American League and join a new 12-team National League. The enlarged league would include a new team in Detroit unrelated to the Tigers. However, Navin was in no mood for another war and persuaded the other five clubs to agree to appoint a new National Commission of non-baseball men. Judge Landis was tapped as chairman, but would only accept an appointment as sole commissioner. The owners, desperate to fight the perception that baseball was crooked, readily agreed.

In 1927, when Ban Johnson retired, Navin became the acting president of the American League.

In 1931, Navin was nearly ruined by the Great Depression and by his losses betting on horse racing. Navin had a lifelong love of gambling on horse races, a quirk that was overlooked by his friend, Judge Landis. (Navin also worked for a time as a croupier at a turn of the century gambling house in Detroit. "Van Dusen, Ewald & Hawkins, The Detroit Tigers Encyclopedia, p. 203.") In 1919, Walter Briggs, Sr. had acquired Yawkey's interest in the club, and in 1931, Navin sold part of his interest to Briggs to pay off his debts. However, Navin remained president of the ballclub until his death in 1935.

By 1933, the Great Depression (and a losing team) had cut attendance at Navin Field to a third of what it had been a decade earlier. Navin contemplated selling the franchise and even entertained an offer from Ty Cobb. (Van Dusen, Ewald & Hawkins, "The Detroit Tigers Encyclopedia", p. 50) But Navin decided not to sell and tried to sign Babe Ruth, hoping to revive interest in the team. Instead, he ended up buying Mickey Cochrane from Connie Mack for $100,000. Cochrane proved to the sparkplug that helped the Tigers win two consecutive pennants in 1934 and 1935.

After the Tigers lost the 1934 World Series to the Gashouse Gang from St. Louis, the 64-year-old Navin was reportedly heartbroken, having seen his teams win four American League pennants, only to lose four World Series.

In October 1935, the Tigers finally won their World Series champisonship, and six weeks later, on November 13, 1935, Navin died. Navin had been riding one of his horses at the Detroit Riding and Hunt Club when he suffered a heart attack and fell from the horse. [ [http://www.thedeadballera.com/Obits/Navin.Frank.Obit.html TheDeadballEra.com :: FRANK NAVIN'S OBIT ] at www.thedeadballera.com] Navin was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield, Michigan where the family mausoleum was decorated by Corrado Parducci and is guarded by two tigers by American animalier Frederick Roth.

Notes

ee also

* 1935 Detroit Tigers season

Bibliography

* Burton, Clarence, "Frank J. Navin," "The City of Detroit, Michigan: 1701-1922", vol. III. Detroit: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1922. pp. 772-75.

External links

* [http://www.thedeadballera.com/Obits/Navin.Frank.Obit.html New York Times Obituary for Navin]
* [http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/det/history/owners.jsp Detroit Tigers owners at DetroitTigers.com]
* [http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/N/Navin_Frank.stm Frank J. Navin at BaseballLibrary.com]
* cite book
title=The Detroit Tigers Encyclopedia
author=Jim Hawkins, Dan Ewald, George Van Dusen
year=2003
publisher=Sports Publishing LLC
isbn=1582612226
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=UJVas2JMjLUC&pg=PA202&lpg=PA202&dq=frank+navin+encyclopedia&source=web&ots=MrPAVVWBaD&sig=qq_HlmtSpKwvPW_bteX2NtgDdV8