He played in four World Series championships before opening a medical practice, then returned to baseball once more as the American League president.
Bobby Brown, the Yankee infielder who played on four World Series championship teams while pursuing a career in medicine, quit baseball at age 29 to open a cardiology practice and later served as president of the American League, died on Thursday. He was 96. His death was announced by the Yankees. The team did not say where he died or specify the cause. Brown usually missed spring training because of his studies, and he was often platooned by Manager Casey Stengel, but he proved a crucial figure at the plate for the Yankees by the time October arrived. He had a.439 batting average, with 18 hits including five doubles and three triples, while appearing in the World Series every year but one from 1947 though 1951. Brown received a medical degree from Tulane University in 1950 and left the Yankees in the summer of 1952 for medical service in the Army during the Korean War. “My unit landed at Incheon, Korea, on Oct.1,1952, the first day of the World Series,” he told Baseball Digest in 2003. “It was the worst day of my life. I’m trudging up a quay for a quarter of a mile with everything I owned on my back going into Korea, and my team is playing in the World Series. My wife had our first baby when I was flying over the Pacific.” Brown became a battalion surgeon near the front lines and later served at an Army hospital in Tokyo. He was discharged in April 1954, and he played occasionally for the Yankees that spring. He retired in July after eight seasons with a career batting average of.279. Brown completed his cardiology training in 1958 and opened a practice in Fort Worth. Except for a few months’ break in 1974, when he was the interim president of the Texas Rangers, he remained in medical practice until 1984, when he became the American League president — a post that mainly involved disciplining players for their run-ins with the umpires he supervised. Robert William Brown was born on Oct.25,1924, in Seattle, a son of William and Myrtle (Berg) Brown. His father, who had played semipro baseball, encouraged Bobby to play ball.
