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Will Harridge

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.

Will Harridge was born 16 October 1883, in Chicago, Illinois. He was elected to Hall of Fame by Veterans Committee in 1972 died on 9 April 1971, in Evanston, Illinois. As a Wabash Railroad ticket agent, Harridge handled travel arrangements for the AL, the American League until Ban Johnson hired him as his private secretary, a position he held from 1911 to 1927. When Johnson resigned as AL president, Harridge became league secretary. When Johnson's successor, E.S. Barnard, died in 1931, Harridge became the third AL president.

He was a soft spoken, reserved, and iron-willed for 28 years. He avoided the spotlight, preferring to handle league matters discreetly behind closed doors. He always said his most difficult moment came in 1931 when he fined Yankees catcher Bill Dickey and suspended him for 30 days during a hot pennant race. Although Harridge advocated the establishment of an annual All-Star Game, which began in 1933, he generally supported the status quo in baseball. He originally opposed night baseball. He was persuaded during WWII, World War II that night games enabled more families to attend games, and he became a supporter of baseball under lights. After retiring as league president in 1958, he served as chairman of the board until his death in 1971.

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