List of people banned from Major League Baseball


A ban from Major League Baseball is a form of punishment levied by the Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball against a player, manager, executive, or other person connected with the league as a denunciation of some action that person committed that violated or tarnished the integrity of the game. A banned person is forbidden from employment with MLB or its affiliated minor leagues, and is forbidden from other professional involvement with MLB such as acting as a sports agent for an MLB player. Since 1991, all banned people – whether living or deceased – have been barred from induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Major League Baseball has maintained a list of "permanently ineligible" people since Kenesaw Mountain Landis was installed as the first Commissioner of Baseball in 1920. Although the majority of banned persons were banned after the establishment of the Commissioner's office, some were formally banned prior to that time while a few others were informally "blacklisted" by the Major League clubs. Most persons who have been banned were banned due to association with gambling or otherwise conspiring to fix the outcomes of games; others have been banned for a multitude of reasons including illegal activities off the field, violating some term of their playing contract, or making disparaging remarks that cast the game in a bad light.

History

Before 1920, players were banned by the decision of a committee. There were 14 banned from 1865 to 1920; of those, 12 were banned for association with gambling or attempting to fix games, one was banned for violating the reserve clause, and one was banned for making disparaging remarks.
In 1920, team owners established the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, ostensibly to keep the players in line and out of corruption's way. Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a federal judge, was the owners' ideal candidate for the job and was given unlimited power over the game, including the authority to ban people from the game. He banned many players and various others, often for very small offenses, and at times almost indiscriminately. In his 24 years as commissioner, Landis banned more people than all of his successors combined.
The last living person banned by Landis was William D. Cox, who died in 1989. As of 2019, nobody has died while still ineligible after being banned by one of Landis' successors. The oldest living person on the ineligible list is Pete Rose, who is 78 years old as of 2019.
In 1991, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum voted to bar banned players from induction. In 2005, as a result of the findings of the Mitchell Report, the Major League Baseball Players Association stipulated that multiple violations of the new Major League Baseball drug policy would result in a lifetime ban.

Punishment

A person who has been banned from Major League Baseball is barred from:
Terms such as "lifetime ban" and "permanent ban" are misnomers, as a banned person may be reinstated whether by the decision of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball or following an appeal by the MLBPA on behalf of a banned player to an independent arbitrator empowered to hear and adjudicate such appeals. Furthermore, in the case of Hall of Fame induction, bans have typically extended beyond a person's lifetime.
Among the activities that a banned person is not precluded from participating in include:

Pre-1920

These players were unofficially banned from baseball prior to the creation of the office of Commissioner of Baseball and later had their bans made official by baseball's first Commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
Landis banned a total of nineteen people during his tenure, more than all of his successors combined. Of the nineteen, two were re-instated by Landis, one was re-instated by a successor and sixteen remain banned. As a condition of accepting the Commissioner's post, Landis demanded and got nearly unlimited power to sanction every person employed in the major leagues, from owners to batboys. In practice, Landis only meted out punishment for serious off-field transgressions he believed were a threat to the image and/or integrity of the game. Disciplinary action for the on-field behavior of players, coaches and managers remained the responsibility of the respective league presidents, as it had been prior to the creation of the Commissioner's office.
After Landis died in 1944, there was a long lull before the next banishment. During the tenures of Commissioners Happy Chandler, Ford Frick, Spike Eckert, Bowie Kuhn and Peter Ueberroth, only three players were banned for life.
All three were banned by Kuhn, and all three were later reinstated. By the time of Kuhn's tenure, players had organized the Major League Baseball Players Association and negotiated the first Basic Agreement with the owners. Among other things the Agreement provided, for the first time, an independent process through which active players could appeal disciplinary decisions by League presidents or the Commissioner. As of 2016, no such process exists for personnel who are not members of the MLBPA.
served only five months as Commissioner of Baseball before he died of a heart attack at his Martha's Vineyard home on September 1, 1989.
became commissioner upon the death of Giamatti.
became Commissioner after Fay Vincent's resignation; he was Acting Commissioner between 1992–1998, and was elected to the Office of Commissioner in 1998. In 1999, Selig oversaw the disbandment of the American and National League offices and took over all but a few ceremonial duties formerly performed by the League Presidents, including the discipline of personnel for on-field behavior.
succeeded Bud Selig as the Commissioner of Baseball after Selig's retirement on January 25, 2015.