Peter Ueberroth

Peter Victor Ueberroth

• School San Jose State University
• High School Burlingame High School, Fremont High School (Sunnyvale)

• Born September 2, 1937 in Evanston, IL USA

Biographical Information

Peter Ueberroth came to Major League Baseball after leading the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympic Committee to a rousing success, although he was also criticized for commercializing the games to an extent never seen before that.

Ueberroth served one term as commissioner. He oversaw the 1985 Pittsburgh drug trials and subsequent suspensions and collusion in free agency in 1986 and 1987. He was succeeded by A. Bartlett Giamatti.

Ueberroth was elected Time Magazine Man of the Year in 1984 for his role in the Los Angeles Olympics and appointment as Commissioner. In 1999, he was selected the 38th most powerful sports person of the century by The Sporting News.

Most recently, Ueberroth ran unsuccessfully for governor of California in the 2003 recall election.

In a very strange coincidence, he was born on the same that day that Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, died in Geneva, Switzerland. He was a big sports fan as a youth, working part-time as a golf caddy and attending San Jose State University on a water-polo scholarship. he dreamt of participating in the 1956 Olympics, but did not make the squad. He was a successful executive in the airline and hotel business before being hired by the LAOOC, taking a big pay-cut to take on the challenge of organizing the event within a set budget (recent editions of the games had been financial fiascos, to the point that many thought no one would want to organize them in the future).

Related Sites

• Peter Ueberroth at the SABR Bio Project