Kenesaw Mountain Landis (November 20, 1866 – November 25, 1944) was an American jurist who served as a United States federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and as the first commissioner of baseball from 1920 until his death in 1944. He is remembered for his resolution of the Black Sox Scandal, in which he expelled eight members of the Chicago White Sox from organized baseball for conspiring to lose the 1919 World Series and repeatedly refused their reinstatement requests. His iron rule over baseball in the near quarter-century of his commissionership is generally credited with restoring public confidence in the game.
Landis was born in Millville, Ohio. Raised in Indiana, he became a lawyer, and then personal secretary to Walter Q. Gresham, the new United States secretary of state, in 1893. He returned to private practice after Gresham died in office.
President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Landis to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in 1905. Landis received national attention in 1907 when he fined Standard Oil of Indiana more than $29 million (approximately $980 million in 2025) for violating federal laws forbidding rebates on railroad freight tariffs.