Who's That With Charlie?. Charles S. Mechem

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      AFTER A FEW years, three of my colleagues and I were made partners in the firm, and our responsibilities correspondingly increased. The friendships I made and the professional development that I experienced have been extremely important parts of my life.

      These were busy and exciting years. My work with the Reds, including a highly publicized and controversial transfer of ownership from the longtime owners (the Crosley family) to baseball executive Bill DeWitt was exciting, especially to a baseball fan like me. Anyone from Cincinnati will be interested (and amazed) to know that the price Bill paid for the Reds in 1962 was $4.625 million. The most recent sale of the club to a group headed by Bob Castinelli was $270 million. Talk about an increase in value! Even at the price DeWitt paid, the sale was challenged in court. There were claims that higher offers had been made and rejected by the Crosley Foundation, the charitable foundation that held 90 percent of the stock in the ball club. The litigation was settled with DeWitt confirmed as owner after making some concessions, particularly agreeing to keep the club in Cincinnati for an extended time.

      Bill was a life-long baseball man, and his son Bill Jr. has continued the tradition and is now the principal owner and the managing partner of the St. Louis Cardinals. Bill Sr. was very good to me, and I very much enjoyed working with him. One of the things that I enjoyed the most was the couple of occasions that I went with him to the meeting of the National League owners. These meetings were almost always held in New York City, and all of the owners attended. While I don’t remember much about the business that was discussed at the meetings, I remember vividly some of the participants. Most particularly I remember Walter O’Malley, Horace Stoneham, Gussie Busch, and Judge Hofheinz. O’Malley, of course, was the man who moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in an unprecedented act that shook the baseball world. He was smart, shrewd, and dominated the National League. He was clearly the most powerful force at the league meetings that I attended. Horace Stoneham was well known for following O’Malley’s lead by moving the New York Giants from the Polo Grounds in New York City to San Francisco. Gussie Busch was the patriarch of the Busch family and owned the St. Louis Cardinals. He was a small man but very impressive. He was obviously used to control and leadership. I also remember two odd things about him. One was that, probably to help him stop smoking, he carried a plastic replica of a cigarette, complete with filter and ash, that he would hold in his hand and occasionally “smoke.” I also remember that he always had near his seat a pail of ice that contained some cold beer, undoubtedly Budweiser. And, finally, Judge Hofheinz, who was the great showman from Houston who built the Astrodome and put the Astros in it. He was one of the greatest promoters in the history of the sport and was a huge character in every way. These were giants in the baseball world, but they were also colorful and fascinating characters and made a lasting impression on this young lawyer.

      EQUALLY EXCITING WAS the opportunity to represent the group of Ohioans who persuaded the legendary Paul Brown to come back to Cincinnati and start the new National Football League franchise, the Cincinnati Bengals.

      My relationship with Paul began when, as a young lawyer, I was asked by a group of Cincinnati and Columbus businessmen to represent them in their attempt to get the next professional football franchise to be awarded by the National Football League to go to Cincinnati. The then Commissioner, Pete Rozelle, had made it clear that his respect for Paul Brown was such that if Paul wanted to come back into professional football, the franchise was his. I say “come back” into professional football because a few years before, Paul had been unceremoniously fired by Art Modell, owner of the Cleveland Browns. It is a controversial story with both Brown and Modell having their point of view and their supporters, but one fact was crystal clear—Paul Brown was angry and very anxious to return to professional football and prove that Modell had made a mistake.

      Two of my dearest friends together—Paul Brown and Neil Armstrong.

      I went with a couple of representatives of the ownership group to La Jolla, California, where Paul was then living with his wife, Katie. He was being compensated by the Browns in a separation agreement that required him only to file a few scouting reports each year to guarantee the payment of the agreed-upon amount. (I used to kid Paul that his forced isolation in La Jolla reminded me of that of a deposed banana republic dictator.) But this wasn’t what Paul Brown wanted. He wanted back into football!

      After three days of intense negotiations, we finally arrived at an agreement by which Paul would come back to Cincinnati and form a professional team. That team was the Cincinnati Bengals, and the similarities to the Cleveland Browns were eerie. СКАЧАТЬ