A. Bartlett Giamatti
A Renaissance literature scholar who brought poetic passion to the baseball commissioner's office, fiercely defending the game's integrity.
1938–1989 (age 51)·American baseball commissioner and academic administrator·Birthday: April 4·The Silent Generation
Biography
A. Bartlett Giamatti lived a life of two profound loves: the dense beauty of English poetry and the timeless rhythm of baseball. As a professor and later president of Yale University, he was a charismatic intellectual who believed in the moral power of the humanities. In a stunning career pivot, he left the Ivy League to become president of the National League and then, briefly, Commissioner of Major League Baseball. He saw the game not as a business but as a romantic, civic institution. His tenure was defined by a single, agonizing act: the investigation and subsequent lifetime ban of Pete Rose for gambling on baseball. For Giamatti, this was a tragic necessity to protect the game's soul. He died of a heart attack just days after announcing the ban, his legacy forever that of the scholar who applied his fierce sense of ethics to America's pastime, treating its rules with the gravity of sacred text.
The Silent Generation
1928–1945
Born between the Depression and the end of WWII. Too young to fight, old enough to remember. They became the conformist middle managers of the 1950s — and the civil rights leaders who quietly dismantled Jim Crow.
A. was born in 1938, placing them squarely in The Silent Generation. The events that shaped this generation — world wars, depression, and rapid industrialization — shaped the world they entered and the choices available to them.
#1 When A. Was Born
The biggest hits of 1938
#1 Movie
You Can't Take It with You
Best Picture
You Can't Take It with You
A.'s Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1938Born
Kristallnacht and the escalation toward WWII
Gas: $0.20/galHome: $2,850Min wage: $0.25/hrPresident: Franklin D. Roosevelt"Begin the Beguine" — Artie ShawBest Picture: You Can't Take It with You
1943Started school
Allies invade Sicily; Battle of Stalingrad ends
Gas: $0.21/galHome: $3,290Min wage: $0.30/hrPresident: Franklin D. Roosevelt"I've Heard That Song Before" — Harry JamesBest Picture: Casablanca
1951Became a teenager
First color TV broadcast in the US
Gas: $0.27/galHome: $7,925Min wage: $0.75/hrPresident: Harry S. Truman"Too Young" — Nat King ColeBest Picture: An American in Paris
1954Could drive
Brown v. Board of Education desegregates US schools
Gas: $0.29/galHome: $8,925Min wage: $0.75/hrPresident: Dwight D. Eisenhower"Little Things Mean a Lot" — Kitty KallenBest Picture: On the Waterfront
1956Could vote
Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show
Gas: $0.30/galHome: $10,050Min wage: $1.00/hrPresident: Dwight D. Eisenhower"Heartbreak Hotel" — Elvis PresleyBest Picture: Around the World in 80 Days
1959Turned 21
Fidel Castro takes power in Cuba
Gas: $0.30/galHome: $12,400Min wage: $1.00/hrPresident: Dwight D. Eisenhower"The Battle of New Orleans" — Johnny HortonBest Picture: Ben-Hur
1968Turned 30
Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy assassinated
Gas: $0.34/galHome: $14,950Min wage: $1.60/hrPresident: Lyndon B. Johnson"Hey Jude" — The BeatlesBest Picture: Oliver!
1978Turned 40
First test-tube baby born
Gas: $0.63/galHome: $35,300Min wage: $2.65/hrPresident: Jimmy Carter"Shadow Dancing" — Andy GibbBest Picture: The Deer Hunter
1988Turned 50
Pan Am Flight 103 bombed over Lockerbie
Gas: $0.90/galHome: $74,800Min wage: $3.35/hrPresident: Ronald Reagan"Faith" — George MichaelBest Picture: Rain Man
1989Died at 51
Berlin Wall falls; Tiananmen Square protests
Gas: $1.00/galHome: $79,100Min wage: $3.35/hrPresident: George H.W. Bush"Look Away" — ChicagoBest Picture: Driving Miss Daisy
Key Achievements
- Served as the seventh Commissioner of Major League Baseball in 1989.
- As Commissioner, permanently banned Pete Rose from baseball for gambling on games.
- Became the youngest-ever president of Yale University at the age of 39.
- Was a respected professor and scholar of English Renaissance literature, publishing several acclaimed works.
Did You Know?
He was a devoted Boston Red Sox fan and once wrote, 'The Green Monster is my Great Wall of China.'
His son, Paul Giamatti, is an Academy Award-nominated actor.
Giamatti's academic specialty was the poet Edmund Spenser.
He wrote a famous essay titled 'The Green Fields of the Mind,' which is a melancholic meditation on baseball and the end of summer.
“Baseball breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.”
