A. Bartlett Giamatti

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Angelo Bartlett "Bart" Giamatti ( dʒiəˈmɑːti ; born April 4, 1938 in Boston , Massachusetts , † September 1, 1989 in Oak Bluffs , Massachusetts) was President of Yale University and later the seventh commissioner of Major League Baseball . Giamatti was involved in the deal that ended the 1989 Pete Rose betting scandal.

origin

"Bart" Giamatti was the son of Maria Claybaugh Walton and John Valentine Giamatti. His father was a professor of Italian language and literature at Mount Holyoke College . Giamatti's paternal grandparents were Italian immigrants, and his grandfather, Angelo Giammattei, emigrated to the United States from Telese , a town near Naples , around 1900 . Giamatti's maternal grandparents, from Wakefield , were Helen Buffum Davidson and Bartlett Walton, who studied at Phillips Academy Andover and Harvard College .

Life

Giamatti grew up in South Hadley , Massachusetts. He attended South Hadley High School and the Overseas School of Rome and graduated from Phillips Academy in 1956. At Yale University he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon - (Phi Chapter) fraternity. He graduated magna cum laude in 1960. In the same year he married Toni Marilyn Smith, who taught English at the Hopkins School in New Haven , Connecticut for more than 20 years until her death in 2004 . The couple had three children together: Hollywood actors Paul and Marcus and jewelry designer Elena.

In the film Sideways , a photo of the film character Miles Raymond (played by son Paul Giamatti) can be seen with his late father. This is an original recording by Paul Giamatti.

Giamatti's friend and successor as baseball commissioner, Fay Vincent , wrote in The Last Commissioner that Giamatti was an agnostic .

Academic life

Giamatti received his doctorate in 1964, in which he also published an essay volume by Thomas Goddard Bergin as co-editor, together with the then doctoral student of philosophy T. K. Seung . He became Professor of Comparative Literature and Author and Masters from Ezra Stiles College at Yale University. Giamatti briefly taught at Princeton University , but for most of his academic life at Yale . His scholarly work focused on the literature of the English Renaissance, particularly the English poet Edmund Spenser , and the relationships between English and Italian Renaissance poets . His writings on the pastoral influence in literature and the influence of Ludovico Ariosto in English literature are also significant .

As a teacher, he became known for rejecting the view that the Renaissance represented an abrupt cultural change. Much more he emphasized the continuity between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. He viewed the Protestant Reformation as a "Protestant deformation ."

When his tenure as Masters at Ezra Stiles College ended in 1972, his students gave him a moose head that was ceremoniously displayed in the dining room.

Giamatti was President of Yale University from 1978 to 1986, succeeding Hanna Holborn Gray , and then the youngest president in the history of the university. He presided over a bitter strike by clerical and technical workers in 1984-85. During his tenure as president of the university, he was also a member of the Board of Trustees at Mount Holyoke College . Giamatti became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1980 . Since 1982 he was an elected member of the American Philosophical Society .

baseball

Giamatti had a lifelong interest in baseball (he was a big fan of the Boston Red Sox ). In 1986 he was appointed President of the National League , and from 1988 appointed Commissioner of Baseball. During his tenure as President of the National League, Giamatti put the emphasis on the need to improve the ballpark. He also fought for minority rights by filling managerial and coaching positions, as well as general leadership positions in Major League Baseball.

During his time as National League president he banned Pete Rose for 30 games after he attacked referee Dave Pallone on April 30, 1988. Pete Rose accepted a compromise in 1990 that banned him from baseball for life, but in return the Commissioners of Baseball decided not to publish the results of the investigation. Later that year, Giamatti also banned Dodgers' pitcher Jay Howell .

death

While staying at his vacation home on Martha's Vineyard , Giamatti died of a massive heart attack at the age of 51. His close friend Fay Vincent succeeded him as commissioner for Major League Baseball. Giamatti was the second baseball commissioner after Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who died during the active tenure.

On October 14, 1989, before Game 1 of the 1989 World Series , Giamatti, to whom this World Series was dedicated, was honored with a minute of silence. His son Marcus threw the first pitch before the game. Before the first game of the 1990 MLB season at Fenway Park , the widow Toni Giamatti threw the ceremonial first pitch. She repeated this honor again before Game 7 of the 1997 World Series. The headquarters of the Eastern Regional Little League in Bristol, Connecticut is named Giamattis. A. “Bart” Giamatti was inducted posthumously into the Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in 1992.

James Reston, Jr. explained in his book Collision at Home Plate: The Lives of Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti that Giamatti suffered from Charcot's foot disease and an inherited neuromuscular disorder of peripheral nerves.

Works

  • Master Pieces from the Files of TGB , ed. Thomas K. Swing and A. Bartlett Giamatti (1964).
  • The Earthly Paradise and the Renaissance Epic (1966)
  • Play of Double Senses: Spenser's Faerie Queene (1975)
  • The University and the Public Interest (1981)
  • Exile and Change in Renaissance Literature (1984)
  • Take Time for Paradise: Americans and their Games (1989)
  • A Free and Ordered Space: The Real World of the University (1990)
  • A Great and Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A. Bartlett Giamatti (ed. Kenneth Robson, 1998)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Giammati Collection at Mount Holyoke College
  2. ↑ A. Bartlett Giamatti (PDF) in the Yale yearbook (English)
  3. ↑ Biography on MLB
  4. ^ Former first lady of Yale passes away . In: Yale Daily News , Sept. 23, 2004.
  5. ↑ Members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (PDF; English)
  6. ↑ Member History: A. Bartlett Giamatti. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 18, 2018 .
  7. ↑ A. Bartlett Giamatti. In: Sports Ecyclopedia. Retrieved August 29, 2020 (American English).
  8. ↑ Tragdey as a pleasure . In: Michigan Quarterly Review (English)
  9. ↑ Pete Rose / A. Bartlett Giamatti Agreement (English)
  10. ↑ Controversy over Pete Rose
  11. ↑ littleleague.org ( Memento from January 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) PDF (English)
  12. ↑ A. Bartlett Giamatti. November 8, 2012, accessed August 29, 2020 (American English).
personal data
SURNAME Giamatti, A. Bartlett
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Giamatti, Angelo Bartlett; Giamatti, beard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American literary historian, university president and sports official
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH September 1, 1989
Place of death Oak Bluffs , Massachusetts