Bobby Brown (third baseman)


Robert William Brown is an American former professional baseball third baseman and executive who was the president of the American League . He also was a physician who studied for his medical degree during his eight-year playing career with the New York Yankees.

Biography

Education

Born in Seattle, Washington, Brown attended Galileo High School in San Francisco, then Stanford University and UCLA, before receiving his medical degree from Tulane University. During his time at Stanford, he and another student were involved in the rescue of a Coast Guardsman from a plane crash, for which Brown received a Silver Lifesaving Medal.

Playing career

Sometimes known as "Golden Boy" during his baseball career, Brown played 548 regular-season games for the Yankees, with a lifetime batting average of.279 and 22 home runs. In addition, he appeared in four World Series for New York, batting.439 in 17 games. Brown batted left-handed and threw right-handed. He missed seasons due to military service during the Korean War.
Brown had a bases-loaded triple in Game 4 and a two-run triple in the championship-clinching Game 5 of the 1949 World Series. He tripled again in the final game of the 1950 World Series.
A famous apocryphal story that has made the rounds for years in baseball circles concerns the time when Brown's road roommate was star Yankee catcher Yogi Berra, who had little formal education. The two were reading in their hotel room one night — Berra a comic book and Brown his copy of Boyd's Pathology. Berra came to the end of his comic, tossed it aside, and asked Brown, "So, how is yours turning out?"
Brown is the last living member of the Yankees team that won the 1947 World Series. There are no living players who played on an earlier World Series-winning team.

Baseball executive career

Brown practiced cardiology in the Dallas-Fort Worth area until May, when he took a leave of absence to serve as an interim president of the AL Texas Rangers — then, returned to medicine following the season. In, he succeeded Lee MacPhail as AL president and held the post for a decade; Gene Budig replaced him. In 1992 and 1993, Brown presented the World Series Trophy instead of the Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig. The presidencies of both the American League and the National League were eliminated in, and their duties were absorbed by the office of the Commissioner.

Legacy

A decorated veteran of two wars, a noted baseball player who served on five championship teams, an accomplished physician, and the former President of the American League, Brown is considered to have few equals in the history of major league baseball. He is a regular at the Yankees' annual Old-Timers' Day celebrations.
On March 26, 1957, Brown was a contestant on the game show To Tell The Truth.
Brown's wife of more than 60 years, Sara, died on March 26, 2012. They were married in October 1951, shortly after the 1951 World Series.