Birthday profile

A. Bartlett Giamatti

A. Bartlett Giamatti, American businessman and academic (died 1989)

Born
April 4, 1938
Died
September 1, 1989
Zodiac sign
Aries
Birth year
1938

About A. Bartlett Giamatti

Angelo Bartlett "Bart" Giamatti ( JEE-ə-MAH-tee; April 4, 1938 – September 1, 1989) was an American professor of English Renaissance literature, the president of Yale University, and the seventh commissioner of Major League Baseball. Giamatti served as Commissioner for only five months before dying suddenly of a heart attack. He is the shortest-tenured baseball commissioner in the sport's history and the only holder of the office not to preside over a full Major League Baseball season. Giamatti's most notable act as Commissioner was to negotiate the agreement resolving the Pete Rose betting scandal in which Rose was permitted to voluntarily withdraw from the sport to avoid further punishment. Fay Vincent, Giamatti's close friend and baseball's first deputy commissioner, became acting commissioner upon Giamatti's death, and was quickly elected by MLB owners to succeed Giamatti as the new commissioner. Son Marcus Giamatti threw out the first pitch before the game. He became the second baseball commissioner to die in office, the first being Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1944.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when A. Bartlett Giamatti was born

A. Bartlett Giamatti was born in 1938. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1938

  • #1 song"A-Tisket, A-Tasket" – Ella Fitzgerald
  • Top movieThe Adventures of Robin Hood
  • Best-selling bookRebecca – Daphne du Maurier

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentJoe Louis knocks out Max Schmeling in round 1
  • Top headlineWar of the Worlds broadcast causes nationwide panic
  • Technology milestoneNuclear fission discovered
  • Defining fadSuperman debuts in Action Comics #1
  • Notable inventionInstant coffee (Nescafé)
  • World population2.30 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • U.S. population129.8M

1938 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in A. Bartlett Giamatti's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19382026
Gas$0.20$3.45/gal
Average home$5,100$435,000
Average income$2,800$67,500
Minimum wage$0.25$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population129.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.