Joseph Iglehart
Joseph Alexander Wilson Iglehart was an American financier who also served as an executive for the Columbia Broadcasting System and two Major League Baseball franchises.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland on November 15, 1891, he graduated from The Boys' Latin School of Maryland in 1910 and Cornell University in 1914. He served in the American military during World War I, becoming the youngest major in the United States Army at the time of his appointment in 1917.
After the war, he was employed as an investment banker by the Wall Street stockbrokerage firm W.E. Hutton & Co., where he eventually became a partner. He was later associated with CBS as an investor, chairman of the finance committee and, for 47 years starting in 1932, a member of the board of directors.
He was one of the investors in a Clarence Miles-led group that successfully purchased the St. Louis Browns from Bill Veeck on September 29, 1953, moving the franchise to Baltimore and renaming it the Orioles for the season. He was appointed the team's chairman of the board after Miles' resignation in early November, 1955. Iglehart eventually became the largest individual shareholder, with a 32% stake in the ballclub, which emerged as a legitimate pennant contender by on the strength of its scouting, player development and farm system.
When the New York Yankees' sale to CBS was finalized on September 9, 1964, he found himself in violation of an MLB rule concerning conflict of interest. He ended up selling his 64,000 shares to another original Orioles investor, the National Brewing Company, for $1.6 million on May 25, 1965. The brewery gained controlling interest at 65%, with its president, Jerold Hoffberger, succeeding Iglehart as board chairman.
Oddly enough, the day after the sale, the National Gypsum Company, another enterprise of which he was on the board, rechristened in his honor a deep sea tanker that was converted into what was then the world's largest self-unloading cement-carrying laker - the J.A.W. Iglehart.
After leaving the Orioles, he served on the Yankees' board of directors until the team was sold in January, 1973 to an investment group led by George Steinbrenner. He spent one more season with the Bronx Bombers as a consulting partner.
Iglehart died in Lutherville, Maryland on November 16, 1979, just one day after his 88th birthday.
The lake freighter J.A.W. Iglehart was named after him.
