FORMER CHICAGO INSURANCE MOGUL BILL BARTHOLOMAY, WHO OWNED ATLANTA BRAVES, DIES
ATLANTA — Former Braves owner Bill Bartholomay, a Chicago-area insurance executive who moved the franchise from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966 to become Major League Baseball’s first team in the South, has died. He was 91.
Mr. Bartholomay, a former president of Chicago’s Near North Insurance, died Wednesday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, according to his daughter, Jamie.
According to an obituary in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, doctors described the illness as “a respiratory infection that was not the coronavirus COVID-19.”
A family statement said: “While Bill spent a great deal of time in New York, Palm Beach and Atlanta, Chicago was his home. He was devoted to his community and strongly believed in giving back. He served as a director, trustee or member of many civic, business and educational institutions including: Commissioner and president of the Chicago Park District (serving under four mayors over 22 years), commissioner of the Chicago Public Building Commission, Trustee of the Illinois Institute of Technology, Board of Directors of the Museum of Science and Industry, Adler Planetarium,
Lincoln Park Zoo and Lake Forest College where he established two scholarships benefitting minorities and women.”
Braves Hall of Famer Hank Aaron said on his Twitter account that Mr. Bartholomay “was the greatest owner I ever had the pleasure to play for. He understood the game of baseball more than so many others. I’ve known him for a long time and he’s helped me in more ways than you can imagine. I will surely miss my friend.”
According to the Journal-Constitution, Mr. Bartholomay, who grew up in north suburban Winnetka, led a group that bought the Milwaukee Braves for $6.2 million in 1962. They decided in 1964 to move the franchise to Atlanta and completed the move in 1966 after a series of Wisconsin court battles.
The Bartholomay group sold the Braves to Ted Turner in 1976 for $11 million, the Journal-Constitution said. But Mr. Bartholomay retained a partial interest and remained the team’s chairman until November 2003, when he assumed an emeritus role.
As an executive whose dad and grandfather had been in the insurance brokerage business, he helped sell many insurance policies for player contracts to big-league clubs.
Mr. Bartholomay served in the 1990s and early 2000s as president of Near North Insurance, a clout-heavy firm dragged into the headlines in the 2000s when its owner, Mickey Segal, was convicted in connection with financial irregularities at the company. Mr. Bartholomay joined Willis Group Holdings in 2003.