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Warren Giles

Baseball is an outdoor sport in which a pitcher pitches a hard, fist sized ball to the hitting area of a batter. The batter hits the hard ball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat made up of wood or metal. The batsman scores by running counter-clockwise within the four markers called the bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. Baseball is sometimes called hardball to differentiate it from similar games such as softball.

Warren Giles was born on May 28, 1896, in Tiskilwa, Illinois and died on February 7, 1979, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His height is six feet one inches with weight 200 pounds. He was inducted with the Hall of Fame in 1979.

In 1951, during the owners' voting for a new Commissioner, Giles and Ford Frick stalemated through 17 ballots until Giles withdrew his name. The following year, he was elected president of the NL and the National League during his 18-year tenure, the affable Giles presided over historic franchise shifts, including those of the Dodgers and Giants to the West Coast and the Boston Braves to Milwaukee and then Atlanta. New NL franchises were added with the Mets, Astros, Padres, and Expos. His son, Bill, became president and part owner of the Phillies.

When Warren Giles was elected president of the Moline club in the Three-I League in 1919, he began a 50-year career in baseball that saw him ascend all the way to the presidency of the National League. Giles also ran the Cincinnati Reds from 1937 to 1951, a tenure that included pennants in 1939 and 1940. During his 18-year reign as chief of the National League, he presided over several historic events, including the birth of expansion baseball, several franchise moves, and the construction of numerous new stadiums.

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