Bill Veeck
The nadir came in 1941, when the Phillies finished with a ghastly 43–111 record, setting a franchise record for losses in a season. A year later, they needed an advance from the league just to go to spring training. Nugent realized he didn't have enough money to operate the team in 1943, and put it up for sale. He found a willing buyer in minor-league executive Bill Veeck, who had the intention of stocking it with Negro league stars. Unfortunately for Veeck, when Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, an ardent segregationist, found out about it, he pressured National League president Ford Frick to have the league take over the Phillies. The story was initially challenged by a 1998 article in the Society for American Baseball Research's "The National Pastime", arguing that Philadelphia's black press made no mention of a sale to Veeck. However, in 2006, Jules Tygiel published an article in the 2006 edition of "Baseball Research Journal" which proved Veeck indeed planned to buy the Phillies. He expanded on it in an appendix, entitled "Did Bill Veeck Lie About His Plan to Purchase the ’43 Phillies?," published in Paul Dickson's biography, "Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick". Joseph Thomas Moore wrote in his biography of Doby, "Bill Veeck planned to buy the Philadelphia Phillies with the as yet unannounced intention of breaking that color line."