WILLIAM SHEA

'William Alfred "Bill" Shea' (June 21, 1907 – October 2, 1991) was a lawyer who is best known for his part in the return of National League professional baseball to New York City after the departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants after the 1957 season, and for the stadium that bears his name. He was also hired by Nassau County to persuade the NHL to grant a team to the then new Nassau Coliseum, resulting in the New York Islanders, who began play in 1972.
Shea began undergraduate work at New York University, where he was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity, and later graduated from Georgetown and Harvard Law schools. In 1957, New York mayor Robert Wagner asked him to chair a committee to return the National League to New York. Shea first tried to bring an existing franchise to New York, but the Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Phillies, and Pittsburgh Pirates all refused his overtures. When requests for expansion were declined, Shea, along with Branch Rickey, announced the formation of the Continental League in 1959. The Continental League would have been a third major league and would have begun play in 1961.
The threat of a third major league forced Major League Baseball to discuss expansion. Two teams would be added to the American League in 1961 (the Los Angeles Angels and replacement Washington Senators), and two more to the National League in 1962 (the New York Mets and Houston Colt .45s). With New York virtually assured of one of the new teams, Shea abandoned the idea of the Continental League. The Mets played their first game on April 11, 1962. In 1964, the Mets played their first game in their new stadium in Flushing, Queens; named Shea Stadium after its patriarch.
Rumour has it that Chipper Jones' second son, Shea, was named so because of Chipper's success at at the Mets' Stadium.
Aside from his baseball ownership, Shea was a one time owner of the Boston Yanks of the NFL.

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★ William A. Shea: Father of the Continental League