Ban Johnson (1864-1931), American baseball promoter, creator of the American League. He was born Byron Bancroft Johnson in Norwalk, Ohio, and educated at Oberlin and Marietta colleges. In 1900, after working as a sportswriter for a Cincinnati newspaper, Johnson created the American League from the disbanded Western League and was its president until 1927. Ten years later he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Johnson formulated the plans for reorganizing professional baseball and proposed the annual contest between pennant-winning teams known as the World Series.