by Mike Dudnikov

January 8 2009

Barney Dreyfuss immigrated to a nation not particularly hospitable to Jews and succeeded magnificently in a sport not any more inviting.

Dreyfuss was born in Germany in 1865 and came to America at the age of 16 to avoid conscription in the army. He settled in Paducah, Ky., where he found employment as a bookkeeper in a bourbon distillery.

He worked long hours, six days a week, as well as attending night classes to improve his English. The heavy schedule overtaxed his frail constitution and a doctor advised Dreyfuss to get some outdoor activity. The enterprising young man decided to form a semipro baseball team on which he played second base.

When the distillery expanded to Louisville in 1889, Dreyfuss came along and over time invested his savings in the Louisville Colonels baseball team, which entered the National League in 1892. After the 1899 season, the league dissolved four teams, one of which was Louisville. Dreyfuss borrowed funds to acquire half-ownership in the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1900 and brought along a trio of players from his old team who would eventually be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame: Honus Wagner, Rube Waddell, and Fred Clarke.

The Pirates flourished under Dreyfuss’ ownership. They won six National League titles (1901-03, 1909, 1925, and 1927); in 1902 they won the pennant by a margin of 27-and-a-half games, a record that still stands more than 100 years later.

In 1903, Dreyfuss brokered a peace with the rival American League, arranging for the first World Series. The Pirates lost to the Boston Pilgrims (known today as the Red Sox), but Dreyfuss donated his entire share of the receipts to his team, making them the only losing team in Major League history whose players received more money than the winners.

In 1909 Dreyfuss built Forbes Field, the first concrete and steel triple-tier stadium, with the then-unheard-of seating capacity of 25,000. His critics labeled it Dreyfuss’ Folly, claiming no park that size could be filled; 30,000 showed up on Opening Day. Dreyfuss refused to allow ads to be placed inside the ballpark to avoid spoiling the beauty of the field of play and the fan experience, foregoing substantial revenues. He also led the fight to rid the sport of gamblers and to institute the position of commissioner. Kenesaw Mountain Landis’ appointment is considered one of his legacies.

In 1930, Dreyfuss turned over the day-to-day running of the team to his son, Samuel, who died the following year from pneumonia at the age of 34. Dreyfuss took over the team again that year but died in 1932 from the same malady.

Dreyfuss had an incredible desire to win but an even steelier determination to be true to his sense of honor and dignity. That philosophy may have cost him another World Series championship in 1927 when the powerhouse New York Yankees swept Pittsburgh in the Fall Classic.

Hazen “Kiki” Cuyler, the Pirates’ best player and a future Hall of Famer, did not play a single inning in the four games, which became the subject of much discussion and controversy. Cuyler and the media gave various reasons, including the outfielder’s refusal to follow his manager’s directions and a generally poor attitude. A subsequent story in a Pittsburgh newspaper revealed that Cuyler’s frustrations with his decreased playing time had resulted in a violent reaction, including a stream of anti-Semitic invective directed at Sam Dreyfuss. In response, Barney Dreyfuss directed that Cuyler not be used during the Series. In November, Cuyler was traded to the Cubs.

In the 33 years he owned the team, the Pirates were synonymous with excellence. Branch Rickey called Dreyfuss the best judge of players he had ever seen. In addition to Clarke, Wagner, and Waddell, Dreyfuss brought on board Hall of Famers Max Carey, Pie Traynor, Paul and Lloyd Waner, and Cuyler. John Heydler, then-president of the National League, seconded the appraisal. Dreyfuss “discovered more great players than any man in the game, and his advice and counsel always were sought by his associates,” he said.

After many years of being passed over for Hall of Fame consideration, Dreyfuss was finally inducted as a member of the Class of 2008; he probably deserves enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as well — as co-owner of the nation’s first professional football franchise, the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, which captured the league championship in 1898.

Mike Dudnikov, a longtime resident of Union Township and a die-hard Dodgers fan, first learned about Dreyfuss from the book Great Jews in Sports by Robert Slater.

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