Buddy LeRoux

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Edward G. "Buddy" LeRoux Jr. (1930 – January 7, 2008) was a club owner in American Major League Baseball. LeRoux, a general partner in the Boston Red Sox from 1978 through 1986, became a successful businessman after beginning his sporting career as an athletic trainer for the Boston Celtics, Boston Bruins and — from 1966 through 1974 — the Red Sox themselves. A native of Woburn, Massachusetts, LeRoux graduated from Woburn High School and Northeastern University and was a veteran of the United States Marine Corps.

LeRoux invested in real estate and a series of physical therapy and rehabilitation hospitals during the 1970s and by 1977 he was a wealthy man — wealthy enough to assemble a group of investors seeking to purchase the Red Sox from Jean Yawkey, the widow of Tom Yawkey, the team's longtime owner who had died in 1976. LeRoux recruited Red Sox vice president Haywood Sullivan, one of Mrs. Yawkey's favorites among her husband's employees, as a member of his syndicate. In 1978, Mrs. Yawkey herself joined it as well, and when the American League approved the sale, the club had three general partners: LeRoux (in charge of business operations), Sullivan (general manager) and Mrs. Yawkey (club president).

But LeRoux and his limited partners grew restive when the Red Sox fell from contention and attendance dropped at Fenway Park. Part of the club's decline was due to fiscal belt-tightening and refusal to sign free agents, although it was not clear which general partner ordered the policy. In the event, in 1983, the team suffered its first losing campaign since 1966. On June 6, 1983, at a night benefitting former Red Sox star Tony Conigliaro, incapacitated at age 37 by a heart attack, LeRoux took advantage of a crowded press box by announcing that he and his limited partners were exercising an option in their partnership agreement to overthrow Sullivan and Yawkey and take command of the club. Boston called it the Coup LeRoux.

The two ousted general partners immediately filed suit against LeRoux, were granted an injunction, and then battled him in court over the next 12 months. The trial revealed unflattering details about all the principals and how the Red Sox were run, and in the end, LeRoux lost. He was removed as the team's vice president, administration, and his allies were purged from management. Within two years, Mrs. Yawkey had bought him out for a reported $7 million^[1] to become majority general partner in the team.

LeRoux then largely faded from the public eye, although from 1986-89 he did own Boston's Suffolk Downs thoroughbred racetrack. By the late 1980s, he had filed assets of $100 million, "including oil wells, greyhound racing dogs and antique cars." ^[2]^[3]^[4]

LeRoux died at age 77 from natural causes in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, on January 7, 2008.