Giles, Bill 1934- (William Yale Giles)

PERSONAL:

Born September 7, 1934, in Rochester, NY; son of Warren Giles (a baseball executive); married; wife's name Nancy; children: Mike, Joe, and Chris. Education: Studied at Denison College.

CAREER:

Baseball executive. Nashville Volunteers, Nashville, TN, business manager, 1959; Houston Colt .45s (later called the Astros), Houston, TX, publicity director, 1962-69; Philadelphia Phillies, Philadelphia, PA, director of business operations, 1969, partner, 1981—, general manager, then executive vice president, then president, 1981-97, chairman, 1997—. Military service: U.S. Air Force, 1957-59, served as a navigator for Strategic Air Command.

WRITINGS:

(With Doug Myers) Pouring Six Beers at a Time: And Other Stories from a Lifetime in Baseball, Triumph Books (Chicago, IL), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Bill Giles is a baseball executive. Giles was born on September 7, 1934, in Rochester, New York. Giles is the son of former National League president, Warren Giles, who served in that role from 1951 to 1969. Giles's father was the general manager of the Cincinnati Reds in the 1940s, and young Giles grew up around that team. He was an errand boy and helped with the sound effects in the announcer's booth. In high school Giles played tennis, since he was unable to make the school's baseball team. He studied at Denison College in Granville, Ohio, and played baseball there for a season before returning to tennis. From 1957 to 1959 he played baseball on the base while serving with the U.S. Air Force as a navigator for the Strategic Air Command.

Giles moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1959 to work as the business manager of the Nashville Volunteers in baseball's upper-division minor leagues. There he was responsible for, among other things, running the concession stand. In a Main Line Today article, Giles recollected being able to pour six beers at the same time at that position, realizing that "Now my arthritis is so bad I don't think I could pour one." In 1962 Giles moved to Houston, Texas, to take a position as a publicity director with the Houston Colt .45s, a new expansion team. A few years later, the team changed its name to the Houston Astros and began playing in the newly created Astrodome, a project Giles actively pursued. For the sake of publicity, Giles invited twenty-eight astronauts to consecutively throw out the opening pitch to each member of the Astros team. The space theme permeated the dome, with concession stands named Countdown Cafeterias and female ushers dressed in space suits.

By 1969 Giles had moved to Pennsylvania, where he became director of business operations with the Philadelphia Phillies. Within a year, the team moved from Connie Mack Stadium to the new Veterans Stadium. Giles, with ample experience in publicizing the opening of a new stadium, turned the event into a widely described circus, featuring a high-wire motorcycle act, ostrich races, and a helicopter ball drop. In 1976 he orchestrated a bicentennial celebratory stunt, featuring a horseman riding from Boston to Philadelphia to pass off the game ball to a "rocket man," who flew 150 feet to deliver the ball to the mound for the opening pitch of the game.

In 1981, the year after the Phillies won their only World Series Championship, Giles led a team of investors who bought the Phillies from owner Ruly Carpenter for thirty million dollars. Although Giles personally invested a small fraction of this amount, he was made general partner. The value of the team twenty-five years after its purchase was considered fifteen times that amount. Giles quickly moved up the ranks of the team's executive board, serving as general manager and then executive vice president. He served as president until 1997, when the board asked him to give up daily operations of the team. Giles remained as chairman of the board and refuses to sell his share of the team, a prerequisite for being admitted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas said in a Main Line Today article: "There's no doubt in my mind Bill belongs in the Hall of Fame. … He should already be in, but he loves coming to the park and he loves his association with the team."

In 2006 Giles wrote his memoir, Pouring Six Beers at a Time: And Other Stories from a Lifetime in Baseball, with the assistance of Doug Myers. Giles recounts growing up inside of baseball and the pranks he pulled as a child with his father's teams. Reviews for the memoir were mostly positive. Dave Studeman, writing in Hardball Times, described Pouring Six Beers at a Time as a "very entertaining new book." Studeman added that "it's full of good stories about baseball and people." Studeman particularly noted a story Giles retold about Houston Astros general manager Paul Richards, claiming that Richards offered a full-team swap to the Detroit team manager in 1967. Studeman later located information showing that Richards was not general manager of the Astros that year, pondering: "I don't understand why publishers don't fact-check memoirs such as Giles'." Booklist contributor David Pitt said, however, that the writing is full of "enthusiasm" and "is downright contagious," concluding that the book "delivers a wild ride through baseball history."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Giles, Bill, and Doug Myers, Pouring Six Beers at a Time: And Other Stories from a Lifetime in Baseball, Triumph Books (Chicago, IL), 2006.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 2007, David Pitt, review of Pouring Six Beers at a Time, p. 40.

Main Line Today, March 8, 2007, J.F. Pirro, author profile.

ONLINE

Hardball Times,http://www.hardballtimes.com/ (July 26, 2007), Dave Studeman, review of Pouring Six Beers at a Time; (August 2, 2007), Dave Studeman, review of Pouring Six Beers at a Time.

Internet Movie Database,http://www.imdb.com/ (December 15, 2007), author profile.

Major League Baseball Web site,http://www.mlb.com/ (April 8, 2003), Ken Mandel, author interview.

National Broadcasting Corporation Web site,http://www.nbc.com/ (December 15, 2007), author profile.

Philadelphia Phillies Web site,http://philadelphia.phillies.mlb.com/ (December 15, 2007), author profile.