By Patrick Mondout

Morgan Gardner Bulkeley was the first President of the National League. He had been a president of Aetna Life Insurance Company and would later serve as both a Senator and Governor from Connecticut.

Bulkeley was born in Middlesex County, Connecticut in 1837, and moved with his parents to Hartford, Conn., in 1846. He moved to Brooklyn, N.Y. when he was 15 and stayed until he was 35. He served in the Thirteenth Regiment, New York National Guard, during the Civil War. Bulkeley returned to Hartford in 1872 and began a career in the life insurance business that eventually led to a term as president of the Aetna Life Insurance Co.

His success at Aetna allowed him to pursue another passion: baseball. He was an official with the Hartford Dark Blues of the National Association beginning in 1875 and, when the team graduated to the National League in 1876, because the latter's first president.

He also dabbled in politics, serving in the Hartford city council in 1874 and he became a member of the board of aldermen in 1875. After leaving baseball, he became mayor of Hartford (1880-1888), then Governor of Connecticut (1889-1893), and later as a Republican in the United States Senate, where he served one term from March 4, 1905, to March 3, 1911 before losing a re-election campaign. While in the senate, Bulkeley was the chairman of the Committee to Examine Branches of the Civil Service and was on the Committee on Railroads.

Morgan Bulkeley died in Hartford on November 6, 1922 and was laid to rest in the Cedar Hill Cemetery.

Wouldn't it be great if you, me, and four of our closest business associates put our names in a hat and drew one name out with the winner getting to be inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame? That's essentially what happened with Bulkeley, though he could not possibly have imagined it nor did he live long enough to know he would be so honored. The owners of the National league of Base-Ball Clubs decided in 1876 to draw names out of a hat for the various executive positions within the league. Bulkeley's name was selected for president, and on the basis of being the first president of the NL, he was named to the Hall in 1937!

Baseball Executive References