Well, for all practical purposes he has controlled them for a long time, but as of today it became official, with the other owners approving his elevation at the Owners’ Meetings. The official press release:
[in Major League Baseball’s offices, circa Nineteen dickety-two or whenever it was current ownership rules came into effect]
MLB Dude 1: Hey, with all of the multi-member ownership groups these days we probably need a way to make sure we know who speaks for the clubs.
MLB Dude 2: Yeah, you’re right. What if we have two 50% stakeholders in a team disagreeing about something and we don’t know whose vote to accept?
Dude 1: Exactly. Let’s let them sort it out amongst themselves. For our purposes, we should have one person who is, in effect, in control.
Dude 2: Good idea. We can call it “the Control Guy.”
Dude 1: Well -- and I know this sounds insane -- but now that the Nineteenth Amendment has passed, it’s possible that one day a woman may be in charge of a club.
Dude 2: You think? How could that happen? Do they have voting and property rights now?
Dude 1: They’ve always had property rights. We’ve just systematically kept them from exercising them fully via our white male hegemony.
Dude 2: Oh yeah. Reminds me: I didn’t get the minutes from last month’s hegemony meeting. Can you get me a copy?
Dude 1: Sure. In the meantime, let’s just call it “Control Person,” because the last thing we need is Alice Stone freakin’ Blackwell crawling up our backsides.
Dude 2: Great. “Control Person” sounds kind of corny, but it’s just a placeholder. We’ll come up with another, more appropriate and official sounding title later.
Dude 1: Agreed. Now, how do we keep the Irish from owning teams? I just heard that one “Cornelius McCourt” is interested in purchasing the Brooklyn club ...
