8. Jerold Hoffberger
A lover of sport and horse racing and a brewer of an iconic local beer, Jerry Hoffberger blazed a trail in the 1950s when he essentially bought the Baltimore Major League Baseball territory from Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith with the stroke of a pen and a National Bohemian sponsorship in the nation’s capital. Along with an attorney Clarence Miles, he put together a syndicate that bought the St. Louis Browns for $2.5 million and moved them to Baltimore as the Orioles in 1954.
In 1965, he bought the controlling interest in the team and brought in Frank Cashen, formerly his advertising director in the beer world, as executive vice president. The Orioles went on to win four AL pennants and two World Series from 1966-71. He sold the team to Edward Bennett Williams in 1979 for $9 million.
He saw the Baltimore Orioles before anyone in the world envisioned them. And it’s still hard to pass a bar in East Baltimore that doesn’t have one of his beer lights. He IS the “Boh Man.”
See next page for No. 7
