Chandler, 92, Dies; Aided Integration : Baseball: As commissioner in 1947, he stood up to owners and allowed Robinson to become major league’s first black player.

A.B. (Happy) Chandler, former governor of Kentucky, U.S. senator and the baseball commissioner who helped end segregation in the sport, died Saturday at 92.

“Happy was somebody I loved like my own father,” said another former commissioner, Bowie Kuhn. “He was as fine and memorable a person as the game ever produced, and that’s over 150 years.

“He was a Hall of Famer in baseball and richly belonged there, and a hall of famer in politics, too.”

Chandler’s son Ben said his father died in his one-story brick home in this town of 7,500 about 10 miles west of Lexington.

Woodford County coroner Steve Ward said Chandler’s death was cardiac-related and that he may have died of a heart attack or a stroke.

“He’s been in failing health for some time, but he was a pretty tough old bird,” Ben Chandler said.

“Happy fought death as he lived his life, with a strong will and a gleam in his eye,” Kentucky Gov. Wallace Wilkinson said.

“It is difficult to find the words to encompass all Happy has meant to our Commonwealth. No one ever loved Kentucky more. It is hard to say goodby.”

Despite Southern roots including a grandfather who rode with Confederate Gen. John Morgan, Chandler defied baseball’s team owners and ended racial segregation in the sport.

Chandler, who was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1982, is best remembered as commissioner for approving the transfer of Jackie Robinson’s contract to Brooklyn Dodger owner Branch Rickey in 1947 despite a 15-1 opposing vote by team owners.

Because of Chandler’s work, and Robinson’s excellence on the field, baseball soon came to embrace such black stars as Willie Mays, Roy Campanella and Hank Aaron.

The same year, he also banished Dodger Manager Leo Durocher from baseball for a year for gambling. “He was very much known as the players’ commissioner, probably the last one who was thought of in that way,” Kuhn said. “He was instrumental in creating the great pension that players benefit from today.”

Chandler’s long career was one of paradox, often with racial overtones.

One year after he helped Robinson become the first black player in the major leagues, Chandler embraced the so-called Dixiecrats, a southern faction that had broken from the Democratic Party, and the Dixiecrats’ segregationist presidential nominee, Strom Thurmond.

As governor, Chandler used National Guard troops to enforce integration of schools in two Kentucky towns. But in 1968, he wanted the vice president’s spot on George Wallace’s third-party presidential ticket. Wallace, as governor of Alabama, had proclaimed “segregation forever.”

Chandler’s racial sentiments were questioned again in 1988, when he used a racial epithet during a committee meeting of the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees, to which he had been appointed at 89 by his protege, Wilkinson.

Chandler’s attempt to explain his use of the epithet--he said he had used it from boyhood as a term of affection for blacks “and they didn’t dislike it”--led to calls for Chandler’s resignation or removal from the board, but he weathered the storm.

Chandler’s champions never wavered, however.

One of the first blacks to follow the trail blazed by Robinson was Don Newcombe, a right-hander with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the late 1940s and 1950s.

“Some of the things (Chandler) did for Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe when he was commissioner of baseball--those are the kinds of things we never forget,” Newcombe said.

According to Newcombe, Chandler cared about blacks and baseball “when it wasn’t fashionable to care or give a damn about black baseball players.”

Chandler’s stand on the Robinson issue might have been partially to blame for his dismissal as commissioner in 1951. Several baseball experts, including some owners, said baseball erred by firing a man who was not a rubber stamp for the game’s money men.

In Kentucky, Chandler was a central figure in politics and University of Kentucky athletics. He was a state senator at 32, lieutenant governor at 33, governor at 37, U.S. senator at 41 and, after his stint in baseball, governor again at 57.

“When I got into politics, I decided to move fast,” Chandler said. “Only four of us ever were elected governor twice. It’s the one job I prize above all others.”

After leaving the governor’s office for the last time, Chandler returned to his law practice.

Chandler was a quarterback at Transylvania College, a private school in Lexington. He coached football at Centre College, women’s basketball at Kentucky and high school boys’ basketball at Versailles.

Because of his toothy smile, Chandler became known as Happy.

Chandler often summed up his career for interviewers: “Just say I was sober and I meant to do every damn thing I did.”