John McMullen — who went from savior of the Houston Astros franchise to one of the more reviled owners in Houston professional sports history — died yesterday at his home in Montclair, New Jersey. McMullen was 87 years old.
McMullen was a successful businessman from the New York area who became interested in investing in professional sports in the mid-1970’s when New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner persuaded him to buy a limited partnership interest in the Yankee franchise. That experience prompted McMullen — who was known to be a quite witty man — to observe “[t]here is nothing quite so limited as being a limited partner of George Steinbrenner’s.”

McMullen’s investment in the Yankees led him to buy the Stros franchise from a consortium of asset-based lenders that had taken over control of the franchise after Judge Roy Hofheinz — the Houston businessman who promoted the construction of the Astrodome and the creation of the Stros franchise financial empire — suffered a stroke and experienced severe financial problems in the mid-1970’s. Inasmuch as the lenders were unwilling owners, they did little to market the club and it showed. By the late 1970’s, the Stros were experiencing a sharp decline in attendance and, in fact, 1975 marked the first season in the Astrodome that the club drew less than a million fans. Thus, McMullen’s leadership of a group that acquired the Stros in 1979 was widely viewed locally as a positive development, and McMullen’s engineering of the signing of local legend Nolan Ryan to Major League Baseball’s first million dollar contract in 1980 really re-ignited interest in the Stros and baseball in the Houston area.
Interestingly, despite the caretaker ownership of the Stros by the lenders, the Stros’ baseball management continued to emphasize the Stros’ traditionally strong farm system and, by the time McMullen’s group bought the club, the Stros were a ready to become a contender in the National League. In 1979, the Stros engaged in a feisty pennant race with Cincinnati before finishing 1.5 games behind the Reds in the National League West. With the signing of Ryan and future Hall of Famer Joe Morgan in 1980, the Astros parleyed a dominant pitching staff that included Ryan, J.R. Richard (the season he suffered a tragic stroke), Joe Niekro, Ken Forsch, Vern Ruhle, Joe Sambito and Dave Smith into a division championship and a National League Championship performance that came within three outs of the club’s first World Series before the Stros lost to the Phillies, who went on to win the World Series. Although the nucleus of that club returned and lost a division series to the Dodgers in the strike-shortened 1981 season, the Stros began to drift back to mediocrity after that season and, by 1986, Stros fans were becoming restless that the absentee owner McMullen did not not have the requisite interest in developing a winning ballclub.
In that connection, a couple of off-field incidents in the early 1980’s started to tilt local sentiment against McMullen. First, McMullen fired popular General Manager Tal Smith — who had been the architect of the contending Stros club that McMullen inherited in 1979 — and replaced him with Al Rosen. Three years later, after that Stros club had gone into decline and the local media was beginning to criticize McMullen for his decision to fire Smith, McMullen provided a glimpse of his legendary temper. On April 24, 1983, the Houston Chronicle reported the following:

Houston Astros Chairman of the Board John McMullen, reacting angrily to recent criticism of his team, said Saturday night that Houston’s baseball franchise “was the worst in baseball when I bought it in 1979.
“The 25 men on the field today are better than the Astros’ 25-man team when I bought the club.”
McMullen said he is tired of reading suggestions that Smith was the architect of the Astros’ success.
“How can you keep writing that?” McMullen asked. “You’d better start writing the truth. Tal Smith is a despicable human being. It’s unfair and wrong for people to keep giving him credit.”

Apart from the rather acerbic characterization of Smith, the main problem with McMullen’s analysis about the Stros was that it was not true. Accordingly, that little explosion prompted Smith to file a defamation lawsuit against McMullen, which was settled quietly after a U.S. District Court declined to dismiss the lawsuit in this decision. Subsequently, McMullen’s limited partners revolted against him, which was quelled only by McMullen cutting a deal with Don Sanders, a local investment banker who was one of the limited partners. However, promptly thereafter, Sanders alleged that McMullen reneged on the deal that he had cut with Sanders to quell the limited partner revolt, so Sanders also sued McMullen. That lawsuit was also settled quietly after an appeals court in this decision reversed a summary judgment in McMullen’s favor and sent the case back to the district court for a jury trial.
So, with this backdrop, expectations for the Stros were not particularly high in 1986 when, seemingly out of nowhere, the club put together the third best regular season in franchise history (96-66) and won the National League West going away. With another dominant pitching staff that included Ryan, Smith, Mike Scott, Bob Knepper, Jim DeShaies and Danny Darwin, that club came within a game of the World Series as they lost the National League Championship Series to the Mets after a 16-inning 7-6 Game Six loss that remains one of the greatest playoff baseball games in Major League Baseball history. If he had built on that magic 1986 season, McMullen had a chance to restore his reputation in Houston professional sports circles.
However, even with all the goodwill generated by that 1986 Stros team, McMullen sealed his fate along side Bud Adams as one of the most despised owners in Houston professional sports history with two moves in the succeeding years that almost defy explanation. The first, in 1987, was the decision to fire long-time and tremendously popular Stros play-by-play announcer, Gene Elston. Elston was a real pro as an announcer, and his low-key, analytical, and well-prepared approach resonated with Stros baseball fans. There was simply no reasonable explanation for such a move other than pettiness.
But the next move in 1988 was the straw that broke the camel’s back — McMullen’s decision not to re-sign the hugely popular Ryan to a new contract. And not only did he decline to re-sign Ryan, it was the way in which McMullen handled the negotiations with Ryan that angered Houstonians. McMullen directed his General Manager at the time (Bill Wood) to offer Ryan — who had played nine seasons for the Stros, won 106 games and become the face of the organization — a 20% salary reduction. In short, McMullen was marking down a local legend.
So, Ryan rebuffed McMullen’s insult and signed a contract with the Texas Rangers, where Ryan proceeded to stick it to McMullen in the most delicious manner possible, pitching two more no-hitters (giving him a record 7 for his career), winning his 300th victory, throwing his 5,000th strikeout, and giving the Rangers a much-needed drawing card during his five seasons in Arlington. And just to complete the public relations disaster, Ryan went into the Hall of Fame in 1999 as a Ranger despite his long tenure with the Stros and the fact that he has lived in the Houston area for most of his life. Years later, Ryan noted the absurdity of it all when he commented that “if [McMullen] had just come back and said [he] wanted me to stay another year at my same salary, I probably would have taken it and not thought anything about it.” Thankfully, one of the many good things that Drayton McLane has done since acquiring the Stros franchise from McMullen in 1992 was to bring Ryan back into the Stros organization as a consultant and owner of the Stros’ AAA Round Rock minor league franchise.
McMullen’s reputation was toast in Houston after the Ryan debacle. Despite development of some excellent young talent such as Craig Biggio, Ken Caminiti, and Luis Gonzalez, and the acquisition of such great young players as Jeff Bagwell and Curt Schilling, the Stros under McMullen continued to drift as he simply did not have the heart to market the club properly. Gradually, McMullen’s sporting interests turned primarily toward the New Jersey Devils NHL hockey club that he had acquired in the mid-1980’s and which won Stanley Cup Championships in 1990 and 1995. Reflecting his lack of interest in the baseball club, McMullen agreed to have the team take a Major League Record month-long road trip in 1992 so that the Republican Party Presidential Convention could use the Astrodome to nominate George H.W. Bush as its Presidential candidate. Thus, at the end of 1992, McMullen sold his interest in the Stros franchise to McLane, triggering the beginning of an era in which the Stros have become one the most successful clubs in Major League Baseball.
What is most interesting about all this is that McMullen really was a rather remarkable fellow. McMullen earned a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the United States Naval Academy in 1940 and then served in the U.S. Navy from 1940 to 1954, resigning with the rank of commander. During his Naval service, he earned a master of science degree in naval architecture and marine engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctor of mechanical engineering degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
Then, after leaving the Navy, McMullen became renowned in the business world for his leadership in ventures including shipping lines, oil tanker operations, naval architecture and marine engineering, he established John J. McMullen Associates in 1958, a firm of naval architects and marine engineers that became one of the most successful naval architectural firms in the nation. In 1967, McMullen organized MPR Associates, a nuclear consulting firm, and in 1968, he was elected chairman and CEO of United States Lines, one of the country’s leading shipping companies. In 1974, the Bank of England retained him as president and chief executive officer of Burmah Oil Tankers, a company he reorganized and transformed into an efficient and profitable operation. In short, McMullen was a heavyweight in business circles.
Finally, and perhaps most incongruosly given the acrimony with Ryan, McMullen was actually well-liked by most of the players who played for his clubs. Years ago, Jeff Bagwell told me that he and other young players at the time appreciated the fact that McMullen, after each baseball season, would always organize a trip for the players to come up to New Jersey to play golf at McMullen’s course, which just happened to be one of the best in the United States, Pine Valley Golf Club. Similarly, upon retiring after 20 years with the New Jersey Devils hockey team, defenseman Ken Daneyko personally thanked McMullen for his support on and off the ice, particularly McMullen’s support during Daneyko’s stay in an alcohol rehabilitation program:

“Words can’t describe what (McMullen) has meant to me and my wife,” Daneyko said at his retirement ceremony, pausing to compose himself. “It goes way beyond a hockey relationship. He’s the man who instilled values of loyalty and integrity.”

So, even after his tumultuous ownership of the Stros, all Stros fans need to remember that McMullen had the good sense to sell the club to the best owner that the Stros have ever had. So, rest in peace, John McMullen, your life was quite a ride.