Judge and Jury: The Life and Times of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis

Baseball's first commissioner cast such a long and powerful shadow over the game, it's often hard to untangle his contribution from his personality, and his life from his lasting myth. The truth that emerges from this exhaustive and engaging biography of Judge Landis has no problem matching the outsized legend stride for stride. Landis moved into the public spotlight to clean up the national pastime after the disgrace of the 1919 World Series, but there was much more to this complex man and his complex career. Judge and Jury chronicles the entirety.

A tough, colorful judge, his rulings could be as unpredictable as he was. Landis could be as severe and stubborn as he could be gentle and understanding, characteristics that both defined his decision-making and confused his critics. Noted as a trustbuster--he went head to head with John D. Rockefeller, fining Standard Oil $29 million--he upheld baseball's exemption from antitrust status from the bench. Known for his harsh sentences, he was almost impeached for his leniency to the destitute. As commissioner, he loved the post, the game, and his perceived responsibility as its primary upholder and restorer of virtue: "You have told the world that my powers would be absolute," he warned the owners who hired him. "I wouldn't take this job for all the gold in the world unless I knew my hands were free." In his regime, they pretty much were, and he used them to grab his share of whatever power and glory he could wrap them around. --Jeff Silverman