Obituary Note: Nelson Doubleday, Jr.

Shelf Awareness

Nelson Doubleday Jr., the onetime head of Doubleday & Company and part owner of the New York Mets, died yesterday. He was 81.

As the New York Times put it, "Books and baseball defined Mr. Doubleday's life." His grandfather Frank Nelson Doubleday founded the eponymous publishing house. His father, Nelson Doubleday, "built the business into a mass-market powerhouse." And according to legend, great-great-grandfather Abner Doubleday invented baseball.

In 1980, with several partners, Doubleday & Co., which Nelson Doubleday, Jr., controlled, bought the New York Mets baseball franchise. The team prospered, but the publishing company did not, and in 1986, he sold the company--minus the Mets--to Bertelsmann. Doubleday soon became part of Bantam Doubleday Dell, which later became part of Random House, then Penguin Random House (where Doubleday is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group). Nelson Doubleday, Jr., sold his interest in the Mets to partner Fred Wilpon in 2002.