Baseball exec, schedule expert
NEW YORK — Katy Feeney, a baseball executive for four decades and a daughter of former National League President Chub Feeney, has died. She was 68.
Ms. Feeney died Saturday while visiting relatives in Maine. She had not shown any sign of illness, baseball officials said. She had retired from baseball in December after working her final postseason.
Ms. Feeney was hired by the NL in 1977 and rose to Major League Baseball’s senior vice president of club relations and scheduling. She was among the most prominent women in baseball and the sport’s go- to expert on the complicated rules governing the schedule.
Shewas a familiar-presence at the sport’s most prominent games and meetings, thoughtfully remembered everyone’s name around the game and almost always sported a stylish hat from a vast collection she built during hermany travels.
“All of us at Major League Baseball are shocked and saddened by the news of Katy’s passing,” the commissioner’s office said in a statement Sunday. “She was one of the game’s most dedicated executives. Overseeing the schedule, Katy long held one of the most challenging positions in the sport.”
“Be it in that capacity, at the All- Star Game or throughout the postseason, Katy’s unmatched work ethic allowed her to serve our clubs with excellence throughout a decorated career,” MLB said.
An avid theatergoer who long took tap- dancing lessons, she was a baseball lifer, born into one of the sport’s long- standing families. Her father, Charles S. Feeney, was a grandson of Charles Stoneham, the New York Giants’ controlling owner from 1919- 36, and a nephew of Horace Stoneham, who owned the team from 1936- 76 and moved it to San Francisco after the 1957 season.
Charles Feeney became a Giants vice president and by 1950 essentially was the club’s general manager. He served as NL president from late 1969 until 1986 and was the San Diego Padres president for a little over a year in 1987 and ’ 88.
A University of CaliforniaBerkeley graduate, Katy Feeney followed her father to the NL office, was promoted to assistant director of public relations in 1979 and became director of director of media and public affairs in December 1986 following the resignation of Blake Cullen.
In that role, she became a friendly voice to media and later fans in the broadcast era as the person who introduced National League players on the podium during the postseason and All- Star Games.
The Giants said she was survived by brothers John, Stoney andWill; sister Mary; and eight nieces and nephews.