Allan H. Selig grew up wanting to be another Joe DiMaggio – until the curveball derailed his on-field career.

But from the owner’s box and ultimately the commissioner’s office, the man known as “Bud” became a lifelong friend to the National Pastime – and left an imprint few can match.

Through an unlikely path from Colorado sportswriter to commissioner of baseball, Ford C. Frick oversaw monumental changes and achievements during his 31 years of leadership in the game.

He also helped ensure those achievements would be preserved forever in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Frick was a sportswriter and high school English teacher in Colorado Springs when he was invited to join the staff of the New York American in 1922. It was the first of a series of historic events in Frick’s life when he was, as he put it, in “the right place at the right time.”

Though he served just one six-year term as commissioner of Major League Baseball, Albert Benjamin “Happy” Chandler oversaw significant changes in the game.

A U.S. Senator and former governor of Kentucky, Chandler succeeded Kennesaw Mountain Landis as baseball’s second commissioner in 1945. Chandler became a leading candidate for the job after advocating for the continuation of play during World War II.

In the wake of the Black Sox scandal, in which players of the Chicago White Sox were accused of fixing the 1919 World Series, baseball was in need of a leader who could regain the public’s faith in the game.

“We want a man as chairman who will rule with an iron hand,” said National League President John Heydler. “Baseball has lacked a hand like that for years. It needs it now worse than ever. Therefore, it is our object to appoint a big man to lead the new commission.”

A lawyer by trade, Bowie Kuhn went from working the scoreboard at Washington's Griffith Stadium as a teenager to becoming Major League Baseball's fifth commissioner in 1969.

During his 15-year tenure, baseball experienced dramatic increases in attendance, salaries, revenue and franchise values.