Atlanta Braves Franchise history: Emil Fuchs saves the franchise
Atlanta Braves fans love to complain about the club’s current owners, I have no idea how they’d deal with the problems faced by Emil Fuchs.
Records show that 19 ownership groups or corporations owned the franchise now known as the Atlanta Braves. Of those, only a handful had any success; one nearly drove himself into the poorhouse trying to attain it. I’ve written about some of the successes in the past; this post is about the grand failure.
The first success of the 20th century came under the ownership of James E. Gaffney, a former foot-patrolman for the NYPD who worked his way up to millionaire status through his connections with Tammany Hall.
Gaffney knew nothing about baseball; he purchased the team acting as an angel for John Montgomery Ward, three days after Christmas, 1914. Aside from money, Gaffney is responsible for changing the name from the Rustlers to the Braves. Not coincidentally Braves was also the nickname for Tammany Hall; the headdress logo also mirrored that of Tammany Hall.
Ward hired Gene Stalling to manage the team that became known as the Miracle Braves. Success eluded the team following the miracle run and following the 1916 season, Gaffney sold the team to a former college football coach, Percy Haughton. After three years of losing Haughton sold the team to Broadway producer George W. Grant.
Like Haughton, Grant lost money for three years and was looking to sell the team; enter our hero(?) Judge Emil Fuchs. Fuchs was a close friend of Giants owner John McGraw and loved baseball.
McGraw and Fuchs were socializing at the Lambs Club in New York City (with) George M. Cohan, famous for the WWI song “Over There,” and noted concessions operator Harry M. Stevens, who made a fortune when he realized a hotdog at a ballgame was a winning idea. “Why, there’s George Washington Grant,” McGraw exclaimed, pointing out the owner of the Boston Braves. “Did you know you can buy his ball club for half a million dollars?”. . .
Fuchs told McGraw he’d buy the team if he could convince his friend Christy Mathewson would act as GM. Mathewson agreed, and along with banker James MacDonough and coal mining millionaire Albert H. Powell, purchased the team — for either $300K or $500K+ depending on your source — on February 20, 1923.
It’s commonplace today, for Atlanta Braves fans go to a ballgame and see a live concert after the game; Fuchs and Mathewson tried that and more to increase attendance.
Mathewson was the baseball brain of the group. Like Derek Jeter in Miami, his was the name people knew. His name and knowledge were all he contributed because doctors told Mathewson, who had tuberculosis after being gassed in WWI, taking the job would shorten his life.
Mathewson and Fuchs wanted the team to focus on families, which meant doing things that brought more ladies and kids to the ballpark.
More from Tomahawk Take
- Atlanta Braves 2012 Prospect Review: Joey Terdoslavich
- Braves News: Braves sign Fuentes, Andruw’s HOF candidacy, more
- The Weakest Braves Homers Since 2015
- Atlanta Braves Sign Joshua Fuentes to Minor League Deal
- Braves News: New Year’s Eve comes with several questions about the 2023 Braves
On May 1, 1923, the Braves signed a contract with movie and vaudeville magnate Marcus Loew to “stage night motion pictures, band concerts, fireworks and vaudeville at Braves Field this summer.”
They followed that in July by creating ladies’ night, allowing ladies to enter the ballpark free every Wednesday. Unfortunately, the team continued to finish seventh and the cost of putting on the shows became too much to allow it to continue.
History at Braves’ Field
Two historic events took place at Braves field in 1925; the Braves offered the first radio broadcast of a regular-season game and hosted the NL Jubilee game celebrating 50 years of the National League. The Braves won both games beating the Giants 5-4 on April 14, and beating the Cubs 2-1 on a walk-off, inside-the-park homer by Dave Harris in the 11th.
The club finished fifth in 1925 and continued to try new ideas to be better and draw fans. In 1928, the Braves acquired Rogers Hornsby from the Giants. Hornsby batted .387/.498/.632/1.130 posted a 202 OPS+, led the league with 107 walks, and finished fifth in the league with 21 homers, but the Braves finished seventh.
Following that season. Fuchs spent $200K of his own money in support of a referendum allowing Sunday sports in Boston. He was also fined $1,000 “for attempting to influence the vote.” The referendum passed but it didn’t help the team on the field.
Atlanta Braves fans know about losing money and low attendance, but nothing like the situation in Boston as the team entered the 30s.
Fuchs literally put everything he had into the team, but the Red Sox were the new darlings of Boston even though they finished dead last from 1926 through 1932 and didn’t reach higher than fourth until 1938.
Just as the Atlanta Braves built a new ballpark to lure fans, the Boston Braves refurbished Braves’ Field. The club moved the fences in, added the Jury Box seating, and lowered ticket prices as the recession turned into depression. He moved ladies day to Saturday and game times to 2:30 PM so ladies could work a half-day and still attend a game.
As Fuchs watched his money fly away, he took out a loan from Charles Mr. Adams and V.C. Bruce Wetmore, but he was unable to keep up the payments on the loan, and on July 7, 1935 Fuchs tried to buy back the shares owned by Adams and Wetmore. The size of the loan isn’t given, but Fuchs’ first payment was reported as $100K.
The Braves improved in 1933 and 1934, but attendance dropped. leading them to try and get approval for greyhound racing at Braves Field in the evening after the game. League President Ford Frick called it preposterous and but Fuchs was convinced he could persuade the owners if it came to a vote, but Frick never let it come to a vote; he was also looking for new owners for the team.
New Ideas
We’ve seen the Atlanta Braves ticket packages and promotions to increase attendance; in 1935 the Boston Braves offered books of five tickets at five dollars a ticket, good for attendance at any game. The plan raised $30K and along with other ideas that added income, convinced owners to allow Fuchs to remain the owner.
Following the vote, the Braves announced that Babe Ruth would play for the team in 1935. In addition to playing, the team named him assistant manager and made him second vice president of the team. Ruth thought he’d eventually take over as manager, but Fuchs wrote that managing wasn’t a certainty.
“If it was determined after your affiliation with the ball club in 1935, that it was for the mutual interest of the club for you to take up the active management on the field, there would be absolutely no handicap in having you so appointed.”
Ruth read that as, I’m the next manager, and said so publicly. His tenure as a member of the Braves lasted 28 games (he was hitting .181 on May 30) when he asked permission to attend a gala on-board the luxury liner Normandie, in New York for its maiden voyage. Fuchs said no, Ruth said ‘I don’t have to be treated this way’ and retired.
The Atlanta Braves have some bad seasons under their belt, but nothing resembling the 1935 debacle faced by the Boston Braves.
With Ruth gone and the team 9-24, 15.5 games back, Fuchs admitted defeat.
“I am unable to provide such capital, as I have exhausted every personal financial means. My heart and soul is for Boston and New England. They deserve the best, and it occurred to me that it may be my situation, just described, that is handicapping the course. I am willing to sacrifice the large equity I have in the Braves.”
He tried to find a buyer for his share of the franchise, valued at that time at $400K. but no one wanted the debt, so he handed the keys to Adams and left.
The man who couldn’t own a team now owned the Braves.
Adams already owned 65% of the franchise whose total value was estimated at $1.2M, but already had his hands full as president of the Boston Bruins, and was “a major force” in horse racing. He didn’t want any part of the team and like Fuchs, unsuccessfully sought a buyer.
By the end of September, Adams resorted to a public plea to stockholders for money to pay the bills.
“It is so serious, that unless the club finds some immediate financial support there is danger of the loss of its franchise and player assets. Briefly stated, the club now owes $200,000 on demand notes and approximately $50,000 of known current liabilities. … The club has practically no liquid assets with which to meet these obligations.
The Braves finished the 1935 season 38-115, 61½ games behind the Cubs.
Various reorganization plans failed, and on November 26th, 1935, the National League took control of a franchise with an estimated $110K in outstanding debt.
The Mighty Quinn?
Consider the situation if the new owner of the Atlanta Braves was the former owner of the Red Sox and current GM of the Nationals; conflict of interest anyone?
Unthinkable today, but the man who took over the Boston Braves was former Red Sox president and current Brooklyn Dodger GM, Bob Quinn. When approved Quin became the first person in baseball history to hold the office of president for both an AL and an NL team.
At a December 31st meeting, Fuchs told owners his losses came to at least $700K.
“I paid $450,000 cash for the ball club, and … I borrowed money subsequently to purchase other shares in order to add to my holdings, and that there were several lean years during the period 1922 to 1928 inclusive, before the advent of Sunday baseball, in which financial losses were incurred.”
The Atlanta Braves franchise changed ownership four times since 1953, none of them left a mess like the non-sale of 1935.
Quinn didn’t become an owner of the franchise in 1935. He came in as more of a hired gun to save a failing company, a practice common in big business. The league and Frick swallowed their outrage that a person with ties to legal gambling at a race track own a baseball franchise, and was allowed to continue as principal owner, as long as he didn’t take part in running it publicly.
The league didn’t have the funds to settle the franchise’s outstanding debt and turned down a last-minute bid of $250K from a group wanting to move the team to Baltimore, because it wasn’t enough to clear the books.
Quinn decided his first action was to change the name, no one knows why. He held a contest that drew 1327 names from the people of Boston; the ultimate winner, Bees, was submitted 15 times.
Quinn, Casey Stengel, and future principal owner Louis Perini, finally bought Adams and the rest of the former owners out in 1941 and restored the Braves name.
The Judge
When a franchise like the Atlanta Braves is sold today, MLB requires the ownership group to provide proof they have the liquidity to take on and pay any debt incurred by the club. Unfortunately, Judge Fuchs got nothing.
The Governor of Massachusetts named Fuchs as chairman of the Unemployment Compensation Commission of Massachusetts, where he earned $6500 a year until he left the post in 1938. He filed for bankruptcy that September citing $263,299 in liabilities and no assets.
The following year he partnered in a law practice with his son until 1948, when his son left to join the National Labor Relations Board. He remained a regular at Braves’ home games until the team left Boston in 1953. He attended Red Sox games as well, as a guest of ownership, and was in the clubhouse to shake Ted Williams‘ hand after his last game in 1960.
After his death in 1961, the Sporting news described his legacy.
“His career was not a bright one. There is this, though, to be said. With his own resources, he kept alive a franchise that would have collapsed. He kept it in Boston, where the Braves lasted for almost two more decades before the franchise was moved to Milwaukee. For these efforts, baseball should be grateful to Emil Fuchs, though futile and unrewarding was his role.”
Each year, the Boston chapter of the BBWAA present the Judge Emil Fuchs Memorial Award for “long and meritorious service to baseball.” Recipients include Willie Mays, Pedro Martinez, Bill James, Marvin Miller, Hank Aaron, and Peter Gammons.
That’s a wrap
As Atlanta Braves fans, we get wrapped up in what’s happening today and spend little time appreciating what it to for the franchise to remain in existence today.
Emil Fuchs left a highly successful career as a judge, to pour his heart, soul, and every penny he had into the game he loved. Fuchs and Mathewson set out to do things in a certain way, as James C. O’Leary of the Boston Globe noted when Fuchs acquired the team.
“He wants his team to win, but he wants it to win without resorting to tactics that will injure players, that take an unfair advantage of opponents, or that offend the high ideals of patrons. … The new Braves will stand for only that which is clean and aboveboard. Fuchs wants the Braves to be a family.”
Next. Which road do the Braves take?. dark
Success is relative; while he owned them the Braves never placed higher than fourth; perhaps that’s not “success” as most perceive it. However, I’d say that Fuchs would look at the Atlanta Braves and say, that’s the kind of team I wanted to build.
I call that success.