Clarence Henry "Pants" Rowland (February 12, 1879 – May 17, 1969) was a Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

 manager

Manager (baseball)

In baseball, the field manager is an individual who is responsible for matters of team strategy on the field and team leadership. Managers are typically assisted by between one and six assistant coaches, whose responsibilities are specialized...

 for the Chicago White Sox

Chicago White Sox

The Chicago White Sox are a Major League Baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois.The White Sox play in the American League's Central Division. Since , the White Sox have played in U.S. Cellular Field, which was originally called New Comiskey Park and nicknamed The Cell by local fans...

 from 1915 through 1918 who went on to become a major figure in minor league baseball

Minor league baseball

Minor league baseball is a hierarchy of professional baseball leagues in the Americas that compete at levels below Major League Baseball and provide opportunities for player development. All of the minor leagues are operated as independent businesses...

. He was born in Platteville, Wisconsin

Platteville, Wisconsin

Platteville is the largest city in Grant County in southwestern Wisconsin. The population was 11,224 at the 2010 census, growing 12% since the 2000 Census. Much of this growth is likely due to the enrollment increase of the University of Wisconsin–Platteville...

. In his varied career, he was a barkeep

Bartender

A bartender is a person who serves beverages behind a counter in a bar, pub, tavern, or similar establishment. A bartender, in short, "tends the bar". The term barkeeper may carry a connotation of being the bar's owner...

, catcher

Catcher

Catcher is a position for a baseball or softball player. When a batter takes his turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. This is a catcher's primary duty, but he is also called upon to master many other skills in order to...

, scout, major league umpire

Umpire (baseball)

In baseball, the umpire is the person charged with officiating the game, including beginning and ending the game, enforcing the rules of the game and the grounds, making judgment calls on plays, and handling the disciplinary actions. The term is often shortened to the colloquial form ump...

, minor and major league manager, and a boisterous baseball executive.

Career

He started in baseball at age nine, where he earned his nickname, "Pants", from base-running antics while wearing his father's overalls at games of the Dubuque (Iowa) Ninth Street Blues.

Rowland served as a reserve catcher in the minors. Never a great player, his love of the game drove him to find other occupations. Pants worked as a scout in the so-called "Three-I" League (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa) for the Dubuque Miners. He worked his way into a managerial job, which proved to be his early calling.

He then became the manager of the Triple-I League Peoria Distillers. After the 1914 season, on December 17, Charles Comiskey

Charles Comiskey

Charles Albert "The Old Roman" Comiskey was a Major League Baseball player, manager and team owner. He was a key person in the formation of the American League and later owned the Chicago White Sox...

, possibly as much for his legendary cheapness as for Rowland's talent, surprised White Sox fans and Chicago journalists when he called on Pants to manage the White Sox.

In his first year, Rowland and the White Sox finished 93-61, third in the American League

American League

The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the American League , is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league based in the Great Lakes states, which eventually aspired to major...

; the next year, he finished second. And in 1917, he led them to an 100-54 record and a World Series

1917 World Series

In the 1917 World Series, the Chicago White Sox beat the New York Giants four games to two. The Series was played against the backdrop of World War I, which dominated the American newspapers that year and next....

 title when they beat the New York Giants

San Francisco Giants

The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the National League West Division....

. Disagreements with Comiskey got him fired the following season, which, given the state of affairs at the White Sox that were leading up to the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal, probably saved his reputation.

In 1938, as a scout for the Chicago Cubs, he was tasked with the unenviable job of obeying owner P. K. Wrigley's orders to buy a washed-up Dizzy Dean

Dizzy Dean

Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean was an American Major League Baseball pitcher. He was the last National League pitcher to win 30 games in one season. Dean was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953....

's contract at any cost. Rowland signed the ragged righty for $185,000, one of the most expensive loss-leader contracts in baseball history.

Rowland's all-time record was 339-247 in 591 games, a .591 winning percentage. Kid Gleason

Kid Gleason

William J. "Kid" Gleason was an American professional athlete and Major League Baseball player and manager. Gleason is best known as the manager of the 1919 Chicago White Sox, the team made infamous by the Black Sox scandal, in which Gleason's players conspired to intentionally lose the World...

 succeeded Rowland as the next manager of the White Sox.

He later served as an American League umpire for seven years, calling games with the likes of Babe Ruth

Babe Ruth

George Herman Ruth, Jr. , best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935...

.

He returned to the front office during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Rowland was the president of the Los Angeles Angels

Los Angeles Angels (PCL)

The Los Angeles Angels were a team based in Los Angeles, California that played in the Pacific Coast League from 1903 through 1957, after which they transferred to Spokane, Washington to become the Spokane Indians. Los Angeles would later become the host city to a Major League Baseball team, the...

 in 1944, where he earned The Sporting News' title of No. 1 minor-league executive.

It was as president of the Pacific Coast League

Pacific Coast League

The Pacific Coast League is a minor-league baseball league operating in the Western, Midwestern and Southeastern United States. Along with the International League and the Mexican League, it is one of three leagues playing at the Triple-A level, which is one step below Major League Baseball.The...

 that Rowland came to real prominence.

"Pacific Coast baseball men are fed up with playing Santa Claus to the major leagues," said a TIME magazine

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

 article in December of 1944, "...They do not like losing their Buck Newsomes, Joe Di Maggios and Ted Williamses. They think postwar air travel may well lure some big league club to pick up a Los Angeles franchise (the St. Louis Browns nibbled at it two years ago). Above all, they await the day when they can support a third big league of their own."

Rowland was the cheerleader for the PCL battle cry of independence. Air travel was still primitive, and the PCL teams had near major-league standing in the rapidly-growing cities of the Western United States. He took on major league baseball commissioners Kenesaw Mountain Landis

Kenesaw Mountain Landis

Kenesaw Mountain Landis was an American jurist who served as a federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and as the first Commissioner of Baseball from 1920 until his death...

 and Happy Chandler

Happy Chandler

Albert Benjamin "Happy" Chandler, Sr. was a politician from the US state of Kentucky. He represented the state in the U.S. Senate and served as its 44th and 49th governor. Aside from his political positions, he also served as the second Commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1945 to 1951 and...

, trying to free the league from losing players to the American and National League for a minuscule $7,500.00 buyout of their contract.

He went to the 1944 winter meetings of the NABPL (National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues) in Buffalo with a two-plank agenda. He proposed that minor leagues get $10,000 (a compromise figure) instead of $7,500 when one of their players is drafted by a major-league club. He also suggested that if & when the major leagues invade minor-league territory, the incumbent minor-league owners should get first crack at the major franchise.

To his surprise, Rowland won support for both of his proposals. Kenesaw Mountain Landis

Kenesaw Mountain Landis

Kenesaw Mountain Landis was an American jurist who served as a federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and as the first Commissioner of Baseball from 1920 until his death...

, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball opposed the PCL proposal, and threatened to "outlaw" the league if it tried to move up in the world. The former judge, who had been brought in by the owners of baseball to clean up the mess from the 1919 Chicago scandal, held anyone connected with the organization at that time in particularly low esteem. Pants' ties to the last season of pre-Black Sox ball tarred him with the same brush in the eyes of the man called the "baseball tyrant."

Rowland tried his hand at establishing the PCL as a major league with Landis' successor, Happy Chandler

Happy Chandler

Albert Benjamin "Happy" Chandler, Sr. was a politician from the US state of Kentucky. He represented the state in the U.S. Senate and served as its 44th and 49th governor. Aside from his political positions, he also served as the second Commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1945 to 1951 and...

. Chandler and his fact finding team that included National League

National League

The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League , is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional...

 and American League

American League

The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the American League , is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league based in the Great Lakes states, which eventually aspired to major...

 presidents Ford Frick

Ford Frick

Ford Christopher Frick was an American sportswriter and executive who served as president of the National League from to and as the third Commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1951 to . He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1970...

 and Will Harridge

Will Harridge

William Harridge was an American executive in professional baseball whose most significant role was as president of the American League from 1931 to 1958...

 begged off again.

At a meeting in September 1951 in San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, Rowland lead the charge of the club owners, who voted to serve an ultimatum on the majors. If they did not get exemption from the player draft, the PCL would become an 'outlaw' major league.

"We're all living or dying together in this deal, and if the majors won't go along, to hell with 'em," said C. L. "Brick" Laws, owner of the Oakland team in a Time Magazine story on the PCL.

Without the blessings of major league baseball, and the implied threat that they could come into the Coast League at any time with one of their clubs, or an expansion club, Rowland was not able to secure the backing for any of his teams that would bring both facilities and teams up to major league standards.

Death

Rowland died in Chicago, Illinois, the hometown of the team he managed. He is interred in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Worth, Cook County, Illinois.

Legacy

Rowland was a 1964 inductee in the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame

Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame

The Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame is a promenade in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, dedicated to honoring distinguished members of Wisconsin's sports history. New members are honored at a biennial banquet.-History:...

. He was inducted into the Pacific Coast League

Pacific Coast League

The Pacific Coast League is a minor-league baseball league operating in the Western, Midwestern and Southeastern United States. Along with the International League and the Mexican League, it is one of three leagues playing at the Triple-A level, which is one step below Major League Baseball.The...

Hall of Fame in 2005.

External links

• Baseball-Reference.com - managing record
• Minor League News - Biography and PCL Hall of Fame induction