Warren Giles

Warren Crandall Giles (28 May, 1896 - 7 February, 1979) was a National League executive in Major League Baseball.

Giles served as an infantry officer in France during World War I.

Giles was elected president of the Moline, Illinois baseball club in the Three-I League in 1919 and began a 50-year career in baseball that saw him rise all the way to the presidency of the National League. Giles rose to prominence as the business manager of the Rochester Red Wings of the International League, one of the top farm teams in the St. Louis Cardinals organization, from 1928 through 1936. He then served as general manager and team president of the Cincinnati Reds from 1937 to 1951, a tenure that included pennants in by|1939 and by|1940.

During his 18-year reign as chief of the National League (1951 to 1969), he presided over several historic events, including the birth of expansion baseball, several franchise moves — most notably, the opening of the West Coast territory by the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants in by|1958 — and the construction of numerous new stadiums. ("Who needs New York?" was his notorious reply when asked if the NL would seek to replace the Dodgers and Giants on the East Coast.)

Giles' presidency also saw the NL widen its advantage over the American League in the signing of African-American and Latin American players, resulting in a dominance of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. In clubhouse meetings before the midsummer classic, Giles famously would exhort the NL players to uphold their league's honor, and after the advent of interleague trading without waivers in November 1959, he lobbied against the trade of National League superstars to the Junior Circuit to preserve the NL's hegemony. (He was successful until his former team, the Reds, traded Frank Robinson to the American League after the 1965 season.)

Giles was elected to the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame in by|1969, and the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in by|1979, shortly after his death in Cincinnati at age 82. Giles is interred in Riverside Cemetery in Moline, Illinois. The National League Championship Series Trophy is named in his honor.

Giles' son, Bill Giles, served as an executive with the Reds, Houston Colt .45s/Astros and the Philadelphia Phillies, and has been a part-owner and top executive with the Phillies since 1981.

External links

* [http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/Giles_Warren.htm Baseball Hall of Fame]
* [http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/G/Giles_Warren.stm Baseball Library.com] - biography and career highlights