William Warden Kerr (September 9, 1847 – February 18, 1917) was an American business executive in wholesale grocery, best remembered as controlling owner of the

Pittsburgh Pirates The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Founded as part of the American Associati ...

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Mod ...

team of the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

(NL) from through with

Phil Auten Phillip Lesher Auten (February 1840 – March 7, 1919) was an American business executive in the lumber and mining industries, best remembered as controlling owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates professional baseball team of the National League (NL) f ...

Baseball ownership

Kerr and

were stockholders of the

Pittsburgh Burghers The Pittsburgh Burghers were a baseball team in the Players' League, a short-lived Major League that existed only for the 1890 season. The team included a number of players who had jumped from the National League's Pittsburgh Alleghenys (now the ...

of the

Players' League The Players' National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, popularly known as the Players' League (PL), was a short-lived but star-studded professional American baseball league of the 19th century. The PL was formed by the Brotherhood of Prof ...

in that league's only season in 1890. In early 1893, the two men gained a controlling interest in Pittsburgh's

club, the

Pirates Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

, which had absorbed and merged ownership with the defunct Players' League club, when they and manager

Al Buckenberger Albert C. Buckenberger (January 31, 1861 – July 1, 1917) was an American manager in Major League Baseball. Early life Buckenberger was born in Detroit, Michigan, and began his career as an infielder, and then manager for minor league teams in t ...

bought out the stock of

William Chase Temple William Chase Temple (December 28, 1862 – January 9, 1917) was a coal, citrus, and lumber baron during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was also a part owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from baseball's N ...

. Kerr and Auten sold their majority share of the Pirates to

Barney Dreyfuss Bernhard "Barney" Dreyfuss (February 23, 1865 – February 5, 1932) was an executive in Major League Baseball who owned the Pittsburgh Pirates franchise from 1900 to his death. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008. Drey ...

prior to the 1901 season. Kerr was known throughout the organization for his short temper. He changed managers frequently during his tenure with the Pirates. It was reported that after the 1896 season, in which the team posted a 66–63 record, team

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

Connie Mack left the Pirates due to Kerr's frequent outbursts.

Personal life

Kerr's father, also named

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

, was a physician and the 14th Mayor of Pittsburgh; his mother was from

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. Kerr began his business career with

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...

in Philadelphia, until taking a position with Arbuckles & Co., a coffee and grocery wholesaler, in Pittsburgh in 1876. Kerr's sister, Alice, was married to a member of the Arbuckle family. Kerr stayed with Arbuckles & Co. for 41 years. He married Martha Ellen Bruce of Pittsburgh in 1882; the couple had three sons. Kerr died in February 1917 at his home, following a brief illness.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kerr, William 1847 births 1917 deaths Businesspeople from Pittsburgh Baseball executives Pittsburgh Pirates owners Burials at Allegheny Cemetery

Baseball ownership

Personal life

References

Further reading

External links