Happy Chandler biography
Happy Chandler, byname of A.B. Chandler, in full Albert Benjamin Chandler, (born July 14, 1898, Corydon, Kentucky, U.S.—died June 15, 1991, Versailles, Kentucky), American politician and baseball government who served within the U.S. Senate (1939–45) and as governor of Kentucky (1935–39, 1955–59) and who introduced main adjustments to baseball as its commissioner (1945–51), notably overseeing the integration of the game.
Chandler attended Transylvania College, Lexington, Kentucky (A.B., 1921), and, after a 12 months at Harvard Law School, attended the University of Kentucky (LL.B., 1924). Turning to politics after a quick stint in non-public legislation apply, he was elected to the Kentucky Senate in 1929 and have become his state’s lieutenant governor in 1932 and governor in 1935. He modernized the state’s authorities after which resigned in order that he might be appointed to an unexpired seat within the U.S. Senate; he was elected to a full time period in 1942.
After the primary baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, died in 1944, the baseball homeowners selected Chandler to exchange him. During the course of his tenure he turned famous for his independence. He advocated gamers’ rights by supporting a brand new pension plan and a $5,000 minimal wage for major-league gamers; he suspended the Brooklyn Dodgers supervisor Leo Durocher for the 1947 season for “an accumulation of unpleasant incidents…detrimental to baseball”; and he cleared the best way for Jackie Robinson to turn out to be the primary black participant in trendy major-league historical past (regardless of a 15–1 detrimental vote by membership homeowners). The membership homeowners didn't reelect Chandler in 1951.
Paradoxically, Chandler, the backer of Robinson, supported the segregationist Dixiecrats within the 1948 presidential elections. But, after being reelected governor of Kentucky in 1955, he used National Guard troops to implement faculty integration. Then, in one other turnabout, in 1968 he sought, unsuccessfully, the vice presidential spot on segregationist George Wallace’s group.