Landis’ name pulled off MVP plaques after 75 years

NEW YORK — The name of the former baseball commissioner who never had a Black player in the majors during his long reign is being pulled off all future MVP plaques after more than 75 years.

Kenesaw Mountain Landis won’t be depicted on the annual awards presented by the Baseball Writers’ Association of the America, the group said Friday. The decision came after 89% of its membership voted this week for removal.

“We will no longer be associated with the Landis name, and the MVP plaques will be nameless in 2020,” BBWAA president Paul Sullivan wrote.

“Hopefully when some sense of normalcy returns in 2021 we can have a healthy debate over whether to add a new name or just leave it as the BBWAA MVP award,” he said.

In a story by The Associated Press in late June, former MVP winners Barry Larkin, Mike Schmidt and Terry Pendleton said they favored pulling Landis’ name because of concerns over his handling of Black players.

Larkin, the Black shortstop voted NL MVP in 1995 with Cincinnati, applauded the decision.

“To me, the MVP award should be something that’s all positive,” Larkin told the AP on Friday. “There shouldn’t be a cloud over it.”

“I was always aware of the Landis name and what it meant to slow down the color line in Major League Baseball,” he said, adding, “I think the MVP honor stands on its own. It doesn’t need a name.”

Told of the BBWAA’s ruling, Pendleton, the Black third baseman who won the 1991 NL honor with Atlanta, texted: “It’s the right thing to do!!!”

MLB will redesign the trophies, said Jack O’Connell, BBWAA secretarytreasurer. The AL and NL winners awards in this virus-shortened season will be announced on Nov. 12.

Landis became MLB’s first commissioner in 1920 and no Blacks played in the majors during his control that ended with his death in 1944. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 with the National League’s Brooklyn Dodgers and Larry Doby followed later that year with the American League’s Cleveland Indians.

Landis’ legacy is “always a complicated story” that includes “documented racism,” official MLB historian John Thorn has said.