Phil Auten

Phillip Lesher Auten (February 1840 – March 7, 1919) was an American business executive in the lumber and mining industries, best remembered as controlling owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates professional baseball team of the National League (NL) from 1893 through 1900 with William Kerr.

[1] In early 1893, the two men gained a controlling interest in Pittsburgh's National League club, the Pirates, which had absorbed and merged ownership with the defunct Players' League club, when they and manager Al Buckenberger bought out the stock of William Chase Temple.

[2] Auten and Kerr sold their majority share of the Pirates to Barney Dreyfuss prior to the 1901 season.

[4] He served in the Union Army during the Civil War, as a member of the Chicago Board of Trade Independent Battery Light Artillery.

[4][6] After the war, he returned to Chicago and resumed his career in lumber, later co-founding a company, Billings & Auten.