Roosevelt and Kennesaw Mountain Landis
The Judge's father Abraham Landis was a surgeon with the 35th Ohio during the Civil War. During the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, a nearly spent cannonball hit him below his left knee shattering the bone. He didn't lose his leg, but it took him out of the war. It was a lucky break, and his Mom Mary Landis decided to call their new baby son after the mountain where her husband had been wounded.
In 1905 TR appointed Landis to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He didn’t waste any time getting started. In 1907 he fined Standard Oil of Indiana over 29 million dollars for violating the Hepburn Act that outlawed railroad rebates. While his decision was reversed, Landis was just the sort of judge TR wanted on the bench. Landis was determined to rein in big business.
In one ruling he found a 73-year-old gangster guilty of criminal activity and sentenced him to 15 years in jail. The crook told Landis he was too old to serve the entire sentence and Landis told him, “Well, do your best.”
After the 1919 Black Sox scandal between the Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago White Sox, baseball owners brought in Landis to clean up the game. He would serve as Baseball's 1st Commissioner from 1920 until his death in 1944.
