Ruly Carpenter

Who is Ruly Carpenter?

Robert Ruliph Morgan "Ruly" Carpenter III was the principal owner and president of the Philadelphia Phillies from 1972 to 1981.

Carpenter was born in Wilmington, Delaware. He was three years old when his grandfather, Robert Carpenter, Sr. bought the Phillies in 1943 and gave control of the team to his father, Bob, Jr. He graduated from Yale University in 1962, and joined his father in the Phillies' front office in 1963. In 1965, he suggested that his father hire Paul Owens, a young scout, as farm system director. Owens would eventually become general manager in 1972.

Ruly became team president at 32, when his father stepped down in the 1972 season. From 1976 to 1981, the Phillies won their division five times, including the team's first World Series win in 1980.

Soon after that triumph, however, Carpenter decided to sell the team. With the advent of free agency, salaries were already starting to spiral upward, and he believed that even with his considerable wealth he needed to take on minority investors in order to stay afloat. Unwilling to have to get permission from partners in order to make major decisions, he sold the Phillies to a group headed by Bill Giles for $32.5 million in 1981. By comparison, his grandfather had bought the team in 1943 for $400,000.