Name William Jr. | Died 1969 | |
William Walsingham, Jr. (Ca. 1909 – April 13, 1969) was an American front office executive in Major League Baseball. He spent the bulk of his 30-year career with the St. Louis Cardinals, owned by his uncle, Sam Breadon, from 1920 through 1947.
Walsingham began as a ticket-taker with the Cardinals, but by the early 1940s he had become a vice president of the Redbirds. When Breadon parted company with his longtime general manager, Hall of Famer Branch Rickey, at the close of the 1942 campaign, Walsingham became the club's chief of baseball operations, although the GM title was not formally assigned to him. He was part of a management triumvirate that included Breadon and the Cardinals' chief scout, Joe Mathes.
Walsingham continued as a vice president of the Cards, GM without portfolio, and a member of its board of directors, after Breadon sold the club to Robert E. Hannegan and Fred Saigh in 1947. In January 1953, Saigh was forced to dispose of the Cardinals after his conviction on income tax charges. Walsingham stepped in as the team's official National League representative and chief executive, as rumors swirled that he would assemble a syndicate to buy the franchise. However, August "Gussie" Busch came forward as the team's new owner; the "beer baron" would operate the Cardinals for the next 36 years.
Walsingham eventually left the Cardinals to become an executive vice president with the Baltimore Orioles (ironically, the transplanted St. Louis Browns, who battled the Cardinals unsuccessfully for the affections of St. Louis fans through 1953) during the 1957 and 1958 seasons. By the end of the 1950s, however, he returned to St. Louis to become an executive with Gussie Busch's Anheuser-Busch brewery.
Walsingham died in St. Louis of a heart ailment at age 59 on April 13, 1969.