HuWhite Andrew

Emphasis added.

Meet HuWhite high-IQ cognitive elitist Andrew Freedman.

Chroniclers of the game have rarely been kind to Andrew Freedman…According to one team historian, Freedman was “naturally arrogant (with) a bad temper at the end of a very short fuse.” In much the same vein, Bill James memorably described him as “George Steinbrenner on Quaaludes with a touch of Al Capone” and “just this side of a madman” while another commentator has awarded Freedman the distinction of being “the most loathsome team owner in baseball history.”…

…The future Giants boss was born into a Manhattan family of middle-class German-Jewish immigrants on September 1, 1860…In time, Freedman would become a financial adviser…Freedman quickly amassed a fortune via sale of property at inflated prices to local businessmen, city contractors, and others requiring the favor of his patron, Boss Croker. By the time he reached the age of 30, Freedman had become a very wealthy man.

…Freedman’s background had not conditioned him to public criticism. Combative and surprisingly thin-skinned, Freedman reacted badly. He began by firing his managers. Davis, Jack Doyle, and Harvey Watkins would all be relieved of duty during the 1895 season. Freedman also had trouble with his players, particularly star hurler Amos Rusie, who chafed under the owner’s disciplinary measures. Nor did Freedman enjoy cordial relations with his fellow magnates, most of whom found Freedman abrasive and impossible to get along with. Unwiser still, Freedman got into fights — at times, literally — with the writers on the Giants beat. In short order, Freedman managed to alienate most of the baseball world. In the meantime, his Giants team staggered home a disappointing ninth-place finisher (out of the 12-team National League)…

…Frustrated by the franchise’s failings, Freedman turned soon petulant. Team assessments went unpaid, fines imposed on Mets players were ignored, and desired league expansion was blocked by Freedman…

…Unhappily for Freedman, his fortunes fared little better with the Giants that season. Crippled by the absence of Rusie, who sat out the entire year rather than capitulate to tight-fisted salary terms, the Giants finished the 1896 season a distant seventh, 27 games behind pennant-winning Baltimore. In the offseason, the Freedman/Rusie impasse was finally resolved via the unsolicited intervention of fellow N.L. team owners who — without Freedman’s knowledge or approval — quietly induced Rusie to return to the Giants for the 1897 season by settling $5,000 on him. Indignant when he found out, Freedman refused to contribute to the settlement and fumed at the magnates’ intrusion into his running of the Giants…

…But as Freedman’s commercial interests flourished, his reign as a major-league team owner was about to enter a malevolent period that would beget serious repercussions for the game.

In late July 1898, Freedman paid a now infrequent visit to the Polo Grounds to take in a game against Baltimore. In the fourth inning, Ducky Holmes, a former Giant, struck out. On his way back to the bench, Holmes responded to the gibes of New York fans by referring to Freedman as a Sheeny, an anti-Semitic putdown. When umpire Tom Lynch refused an enraged Freedman’s demand that Holmes be ejected from the grounds, Freedman ordered the Giants off the field. Lynch thereupon forfeited the game to the Orioles. In the aftermath, Freedman insisted upon league action against Holmes, branding his remark not only personally offensive but “an insult to the Jewish people and the Hebrew patrons of the game.” The season-long suspension of Holmes thereafter imposed by the league provoked an ugly reaction. Boston players circulated a petition denouncing Freedman’s “spirit of intolerance, of arrogance and prejudice toward players, a spirit inimical to the best interests of the game,” while Sporting Life decried punishment of Holmes for the “trifling offense” of “insulting the Hebrew race.” Holmes’ lawyer, meanwhile, obtained injunctive relief from a friendly local judge and Holmes ended up spending only a few days on the sidelines.

Needless to say, Freedman bristled over the outcome, playing every Giants game versus Baltimore under protest for the remainder of the season. But what truly incensed Freedman was not so much the resolution of the Ducky Holmes affair but the position taken by his fellow owners. Branding the suspension illegal (because it had been imposed without a hearing), the other National League magnates had sided with Holmes and urged the league board of directors to lift the suspension. To Freedman, a proud man sensitive to slights, this stance and Holmes’s reinstatement represented nothing less than league countenance of a gross personal insult. And Andrew Freedman would not abide it.

Freedman’s revenge would take the form of a punishing financial lesson for the other N.L. owners…Thus, Freedman could well absorb the injury that would accompany his singular plan for retribution — ruination of the league’s most important financial asset, namely, Freedman’s own New York Giants franchise. By whatever methods required, Freedman would ensure that the Giants began fielding noncompetitive teams. Immediately thereafter, Giants fortunes nosedived. The 1899 season would see the Giants plummet to 60-90, a full 42 games behind pennant-winning Brooklyn. Repelled by the situation and with no end in sight, fans began avoiding Giants games in droves. As intended, the attendance falloff delivered a crippling blow to the finances of the league, particularly hurting the smaller market teams that had come to rely on healthy receipts from Giants contests…With their horizons bleak and certain of Freedman’s ruthlessness, the owners soon entreated for peace. But reconciliation with Freedman would come at a high price. First and foremost was submission to Freedman’s demand…an important matter of principle to Freedman, the league refunded the $1,000 fine imposed on the Giants for forfeiting the Ducky Holmes game — with 6 percent interest…

…The eight years of Freedman stewardship are generally adjudged the darkest in New York Giants history….Worse yet, Freedman’s peevish battles — with players, umpires, fellow owners, league officials, the sporting press — and his ferocious vindictive streak drained vitality from the National League’s flagship enterprise and hurt the game itself in the process…

…Although scorned by baseball, Freedman was held in high esteem by the business and social elites of the Gilded Age…

As reflected above, Andrew Freedman…lacked the temperament and baseball expertise required for success as a team owner. In the final analysis, both baseball and Andrew Freedman would have been better off if they had never made acquaintance.

Oy vey!  The intolerance!  The anti-Semitism!  The hatred!  It’s a holocaust!