Background
Giles was born on May 28, 1896 in Tiskilwa, Illinois, the son of William Francis Giles, who owned a paint and contracting business, and Isabelle Slattery.
Giles was born on May 28, 1896 in Tiskilwa, Illinois, the son of William Francis Giles, who owned a paint and contracting business, and Isabelle Slattery.
After attending Moline High School and Jubilee College in Oak Hill, Illinois, where he graduated in 1914, Giles entered Staunton (Virginia) Military Academy, where he remained for two years. In the fall of 1916 he entered Washington and Lee University but left shortly thereafter to join the United States Army. He served on the western front as a lieutenant in the infantry and was wounded.
Giles subsequently returned to Moline to work in his father's business. While attending a meeting to discuss how to assure the financial stability of the local baseball team, Giles was so persuasive that he was selected by those present to become the club's new president in 1919. Under his direction the team's fortunes improved dramatically and in 1921 it won the Three I (Iowa, Indiana, Illinois) League pennant. Giles moved in 1922 to the front office of the St. Joseph club in the Western League. There, while making trades, he came to the attention of Branch Rickey, the owner of the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League, who was impressed by his honesty and reliability and selected him to head the Cardinal farm team in Syracuse (later in Rochester) in the International League. With Giles as general manager, this franchise won four pennants and two International League championships between 1928 and 1936. In 1937, Giles became general manager of the financially troubled Cincinnati Reds, then one of the worst teams in major league baseball. He served in this capacity until 1947, when he was elected president as a result of his successes, principal among them winning National League pennants in 1939 and 1940 and a World Series championship in 1940. During World War II, because of his own experience as a young man, he insisted that his draft-eligible players serve overseas. This policy no doubt weakened the franchise in Cincinnati, but it made him extremely popular as a patriotic citizen who put the interests of his country over the interests of his sport. It was the only time he would make baseball take a secondary role, although he always personally took a backseat to the interests of the game in his own career. In 1951 he was elected president of the National League after initially competing with Ford Frick for the position of commissioner of baseball in a seventeen-ballot marathon from which he withdrew, characteristically citing his commitment to the best interests of baseball as having a greater priority than his professional ambitions. While president of the National League, Giles presided over rapid expansion. He insisted that teams that were not well supported in one city should go elsewhere. During his tenure the Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee and then to Atlanta. More important, perhaps, he assured that the sport would remain truly the national pastime by helping baseball tap into the lucrative California market when the New York Giants moved to San Francisco and the Brooklyn Dodgers relocated to Los Angeles. In addition, under his direction the National League expanded from eight to twelve teams, with an eastern and western divisional structure. He also oversaw the development of several new stadiums. Perhaps most significantly, under Giles's leadership the National League moved aggressively to hire both black and Latin American players, thereby getting a head start on the rival American League. An affable yet strong-willed man, Giles developed numerous successful managers and players as well as baseball executives, most notably Gabe Paul, whose career began under Giles's auspices in the 1920's. Giles died of cancer in Cincinnati on February 7, 1979, where he had moved the National League headquarters during his presidency.
President emeritus of the National League (1971), Chairman of the board of directors of the National Baseball Hall of Fame (1971)
Giles married Mabel Jane Foster Skinner in Chicago on October 29, 1932. She died in 1943, and Giles never remarried. Their only child, William Yale Giles, was to follow in his father's footsteps as a baseball executive.
