Retired Prof. Dave Bohmer '69 Continues Work on Biography of Baseball Legend Ford Frick '15

March 29, 2016

"As a retirement project, David Bohmer, Ph.D., who taught a course at DePauw University on baseball history, is writing the first biography of Noble County native Ford C. Frick," begins an article in Indiana's Kendallville News Sun. Terry Housholder writes, "Frick, one of the most prominent persons to hail from northeast Indiana, was a national baseball executive for more than three decades and commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1951-65. Elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1970, Frick died on April 8, 1978, at the age of 83, and is buried in Bronxville, New York." (photos: at right, Dave Bohmer; below left, 1959 baseball card of Ford Frick)

Frick, a 1915 DePauw graduate, served as commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1951-1965. Frick conceived the idea of the Baseball Hall of Fame and was inducted into DePauw University's Athletic Hall of Fame in 1989.

Housholder notes, "I had the privilege of giving Bohmer a tour of some of Frick’s old stomping grounds recently -- the villages of Wawaka and Brimfield and the town of Rome City. Frick was born in a small, wood-framed house in Wawaka, on Dec. 19, 1894. The family moved to Brimfield, a few miles east, when he was 6. He graduated from Rome City High School in 1910. The house where Frick was born and the schools he attended in Brimfield and Rome City are gone. About the only remaining traces of his past in Noble County are gravesites of his family members in the Cosperville Cemetery in Elkhart Township and Orange Township Cemetery near Rome City ... After graduating from high school, Ford Frick went to Fort Wayne’s International Business College, and then entered DePauw University in Greencastle. After graduating from the university, he moved to Walsenburg, Colorado, where he taught school. He also worked for newspapers in Denver and Colorado Springs."

Frick went on to work as a sportswriter for two New York newspapers and for radio station WOR, and became a friend of Babe Ruth. "In February 1934, he was named the director of the baseball’s National League Service Bureau, the public relations outlet for the National League. In November 1934, Frick became president of the National League. He was elected baseball commissioner in September 1951, retiring in 1965 at the age of 71."

The article points out that Bohmer, a 1969 graduate of DePauw, was senior vice president of Centel Corp. and president of Centel Cable Television Co. before returning to DePauw in 1994 as director of the Center for Contemporary Media. He retired in 2014.

"A history buff and lifelong baseball fan (he roots for the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs), Bohmer was asked to assist with a Winter Term baseball clinic at DePauw a number of years ago. That turned into a Winter Term session on baseball history. Since Frick had ties to DePauw (he served on the DePauw Board of Trustees for many years), it was natural for Bohmer to want to further research his fellow alumnus. Realizing there had never been a book written about Frick, other than Frick’s own memoirs, Games, Asterisks, and People (Crown Publishers 1972), Bohmer decided writing a biography about Frick would be a fun retirement project. Now living most of the year in northern Michigan, he expects to spend possibly the next four years doing additional research and writing before lining up a book publisher."

Housholder adds, "Bohmer has dug deep into Frick’s life and can recall dates and stories about the baseball executive without notes. He’s interviewed Frick’s daughter-in-law,now deceased, his grandson in Colorado and a granddaughter in Maine, and has done extensive research at the National Baseball Hall of Fame library in Cooperstown, New York."

"The more research I do, the more convinced I am that Frick was the most effective commissioner before Bud Selig (commissioner from 1998 to 2015)," Dr. Bohmer tells the paper. "The game changed a lot during Frick’s tenure, from expansion to the franchise movement, and the draft. My assessment is that he understood the realities of the job better than any commissioner until Selig."

Bohmer adds, "Frick, as National League president, supported the integration of baseball and had to sign off on (Jackie) Robinson joining the Dodgers. That was the call of the league president, not the commissioner."

Access the complete story at the News Sun's website.

Learn more about Dave Bohmer's project in this previous summary.

Source: Kendallville (Ind.) News Sun

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