Bowie Kent Kuhn (; October 28, 1926 – March 15, 2007) was an American lawyer and sports administrator who served as the fifth Commissioner of Major League Baseball from February 4, 1969, to September 30, 1984. He served as legal counsel for Major League Baseball owners for almost 20 years prior to his election as commissioner.

Kuhn was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008.

Early life and career
Kuhn was born in Takoma Park, Maryland, the son of Alice Waring (Roberts) and Louis Charles Kuhn, a fuel company executive. His father was a Bavarian (German) immigrant, and his mother had deep roots in Maryland. Kuhn grew up in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School. He then attended Franklin and Marshall College in the V-12 Navy College Training Program before going to Princeton in 1945. Kuhn graduated from Princeton with honors in 1947 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. He then received his J.D. degree in 1950 from the University of Virginia School of Law where he served on the editorial board of the law review.

Following his graduation from law school, Kuhn worked at the New York City law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher because the firm represented the National League. While working in baseball's legal affairs, Kuhn served as a counselor for the NL in a lawsuit brought against it by the City of Milwaukee when the Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta following the 1965 season.

After the owners forced out William Eckert in 1968, Kuhn seemed like a logical replacement for the job of commissioner. He, unlike Eckert, was very aware of the inner workings of Major League Baseball before taking office. Kuhn's closest challengers for the commissionership were Mike Burke, president of the New York Yankees; and San Francisco Giants head of baseball operations Chub Feeney, who instead became president of the National League. At 42, Kuhn remains the youngest commissioner in history.

Actions as commissioner
His tenure was marked by labor strikes (most notably in 1981), owner disenchantment, and the end of baseball's reserve clause, yet baseball enjoyed unprecedented attendance gains (from 23 million in 1968 to 45.5 million in 1983) and television contracts during the same time frame.

Kuhn suspended numerous players for involvement with drugs and gambling, and took a strong stance against any activity that he perceived to be "not in the best interests of baseball".

In 1970, he suspended star Detroit Tigers pitcher Denny McLain indefinitely (the suspension was later set at three months) due to McLain's involvement in a bookmaking operation, and later suspended McLain for the rest of the season for carrying a gun. He barred both Willie Mays (in 1979) and Mickey Mantle (in 1983) from the sport due to their involvement in casino promotion; neither was directly involved in gambling, and both were reinstated by Kuhn's successor Peter Ueberroth in 1985.

Also in 1970, Kuhn described Jim Bouton's Ball Four as "detrimental to baseball" and demanded that Bouton retract it. The book has been republished several times and is now considered a classic.

On October 13, 1971, the World Series held a night game for the first time. Kuhn, who thought that baseball could attract a larger audience by featuring a prime time telecast (as opposed to a mid-afternoon broadcast, when most fans either worked or attended school), pitched the idea to NBC. An estimated 61 million people watched Game 4 on NBC; TV ratings for a World Series game during the daytime hours would not have approached such a record number.

Through the rest of the 1970s and into the 1980s, weekday World Series games were played at night while most weekend games continued to be scheduled in the daytime. An exception came in 1976, when Game 2 was played on a Sunday night to avoid conflicts with NBC's NFL coverage; Kuhn responded to criticism of the scheduling by attending the game, held at Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium, without an overcoat in spite of the chilly nighttime weather. Kuhn's primetime vision has been manifasted, however, as all World Series games are now shown in prime time.

In 1980, during the Iranian hostage crisis, Kuhn sat at a baseball game with Jeremiah Denton, a Navy admiral and former POW in Vietnam who would be elected U.S. Senator later that year from the state of Alabama. Recalling the event to The Washington Post, Kuhn believed that "that afternoon...the idea of a lifetime baseball pass was discussed," and upon their return from Iran, each of the 52 hostages was given one of these unique passes.

Curt Flood

On October 7, 1969, the St. Louis Cardinals traded Curt Flood, catcher Tim McCarver, outfielder Byron Browne, and left-handed pitcher Joe Hoerner to the Philadelphia Phillies for first baseman Dick Allen, second baseman Cookie Rojas, and right-handed ace relief pitcher Jerry Johnson.

However, Flood refused to report to the moribund Phillies, citing the team's poor record and the fact that they played in dilapidated Connie Mack Stadium and played in front of racist fans. Flood forfeited a relatively lucrative US$100,000 contract by his refusal to be traded to the Phillies.

In a letter to Kuhn, Flood demanded that the commissioner declare him a free agent.

Flood's letter to Kuhn
December 24, 1969

Flood v. Kuhn
Kuhn denied his request, citing the propriety of the reserve clause, which was language in contracts that essentially prevented a player from playing with another team even after his contract expired. In response, Flood filed a lawsuit against Kuhn and Major League Baseball on January 16, 1970, alleging that Major League Baseball had violated federal antitrust laws. Flood likened the reserve clause to slavery. It was a controversial analogy, even among those who opposed the reserve clause.

The case, Flood v. Kuhn (407 U.S. 258) eventually went to the Supreme Court. Flood's attorney, former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, asserted that the reserve clause depressed wages and limited players to one team for life. Major League Baseball's counsel countered that Commissioner Kuhn acted in accordance with the rules, which were set up (and therefore his duty to uphold, in so many words) '"for the good of the game."Ultimately, the Supreme Court, acting on stare decisis "to stand by things decided", ruled 5–3 in favor of Major League Baseball, upholding a 1922 ruling in the case of Federal Baseball Club v. National League, (259 U.S. 200).

Charles O. Finley
Though he had a reputation as an owners' commissioner, Kuhn did not avoid confronting at least one owner whom he disliked. He was a major adversary of Oakland Athletics owner Charles O. Finley. A major embarrassment for baseball resulted from Finley's actions during the 1973 World Series. Finley forced player Mike Andrews to sign a false affidavit saying he was injured after the reserve infielder committed two consecutive errors in the 12th inning of Oakland's Game 2 loss to the New York Mets. Andrews's teammates as well as manager Dick Williams rallied to his defense. Kuhn in response forced Finley to reinstate Andrews. In 1976, when Finley attempted to sell several players to the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees for $3.5 million, Kuhn blocked the deals on the grounds that they would be bad for the game. Kuhn's decision may simply have been a revenge tactic aimed at Finley after he attempted to force an owners' vote to remove Kuhn as commissioner in 1975.

Hank Aaron
At the start of the 1974 season, Kuhn inadvertently got into the middle of a small controversy during Hank Aaron's pursuit of Babe Ruth's record of 714 career home runs. Aaron's Atlanta Braves opened the season on the road in Cincinnati with a three-game series against the Cincinnati Reds. Braves management wanted him to break the record at home in Atlanta and were therefore going to have Aaron sit out the first three games of the season. But Kuhn ruled that Aaron had to play two out of three. The result was that Aaron tied Ruth's record in his very first at bat, but did not hit another home run in the series. Kuhn did not attend the game where Aaron broke the record, citing a previous engagement.

Ted Turner
In 1977, Kuhn battled the brash new owner of the Atlanta Braves, Ted Turner. Turner admitted that he had made remarks at a cocktail party about acquiring San Francisco Giants star Gary Matthews, at a time when Kuhn had ordered owners not to speak about potential free agents. Kuhn concluded that Turner's statement was not in the "best interest of baseball" and fined Turner, suspended him from baseball for one year, and penalized his club with the loss of a draft choice. Turner sued but both the trial and appellate courts refused to grant Turner relief, emphasizing the limited-extent of judicial review over baseball and the commissioner's office.

 Melissa Ludtke case 
In 1977, Melissa Ludtke, a reporter for Sports Illustrated, sued Kuhn and the baseball commission for access to the locker room of the New York Yankees. She was denied access to the Yankees clubhouse during the 1977 World Series and asserted her 14th amendment right was violated. She won her suit. The court stated her fourteenth amendment right was violated since the Yankees clubhouse was controlled by New York City. The court also stated that