Researching Tom Wright

Wright attended Upper Canada College, the University of Toronto and York University earning a Bachelor of Physical Education and a Master of Business Administration. His wife Ginnie Grand Wright's family were the founders and former owners of office supply chain Grand & Toy. He was born in Toronto, Ontario.

Wright's tenure with the CFL was largely successful, however several members of the board were said to be dissatisfied and wanted him replaced. It was announced on July 5, 2006, that Wright had informed the CFL that he would not be seeking a contract extension as league commissioner, thus ending his tenure as the 11th CFL commissioner. On March 28, 2007, Mark Cohon was officially announced as Wright's successor as league commissioner.

In 2009, Wright authored Jim Balsillie's relocation application report to move the Phoenix Coyotes NHL team from Phoenix, Arizona, to Hamilton, Ontario, when the Coyotes went bankrupt.

On May 25, 2010, the Ultimate Fighting Championship announced Wright as the director of operations for UFC Canada. On October 19, 2016, the UFC's Canadian office in Toronto experienced massive layoffs, with approximately 80 percent of the department being let go including Tom Wright.

Wright was signed by the Boston Red Sox as an amateur free agent in 1942. After his first professional season, he entered the United States Army Air Forces, where he served in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II and missed the 1943–45 seasons. He returned to baseball in 1946, and led the Class C Carolina League in batting average (.380) and hits (an even 200), while making the CL All-Star team. His performance earned him a three-level promotion to the Double-A Southern Association for 1947, where he batted .325 and was also named an All-Star. Then, in 1948, he hit over .300 (at .307) for a third straight season, this time in the Triple-A American Association. On September 15,, he made his Major League debut with the Red Sox—tripling as a pinch hitter in his first big-league at bat. Wright then returned to Triple-A for the entire campaign. He won the American Association batting championship (hitting .368) and collected 200 hits, second in the league. During the September 1949 pennant race, he made five pinch-hitting appearances for the Red Sox.

Wright spent all of on Boston's roster, hitting .318 in part-time and pinch-hitting duty, with 54 games played and 115 plate appearances. Of his 34 hits, only seven went for extra bases, all doubles. He then returned to Triple-A for much of, getting into only 28 games with Boston, 13 as a starting outfielder, and batting only .222. After the season, he was traded to the St. Louis Browns on November 28, 1951. In, Wright would set personal bests in games played (89) and hits (50), but he batted only .253 with two home runs and the Browns traded him after 29 games in St. Louis to the Chicago White Sox on June 15. He was a reserve outfielder for the ChiSox for the next year and a half, playing behind Minnie Miñoso, Sam Mele and Jim Rivera. During spring training on March 27,, he was traded for the third and last time, to the Washington Senators. But Wright was still unable to break into the everyday lineup, appearing in 76 games, half of them as a starting outfielder.

He spent most of and in minor league baseball, except for eight appearances as a pinch hitter and one game for Washington as a pinch runner at the tail end of 1955 and the beginning of 1956. On April 18, 1956 he played his final game after nine seasons in the big leagues. Wright retired after the 1957 minor league season.

In 341 MLB games played, Wright registered 175 hits, including 28 doubles and 11 triples, as well as six home runs and 99 RBI. He batted .255 lifetime.

Wright died September 5, 2017, aged 93.

Initially he trained at Hey House in Saughall, Cheshire for the Fawcett brothers, whom his father had bred and trained for, before moving his training to the Caeau, near Hope, Flintshire. In his later years he lived at Saighton, Cheshire. Training greyhounds for coursing Tom Wright employed many different methods to ensure his dogs successes; hanging pig carcasses from a tree encouraging the dogs to jump to strengthen their hind legs and teaching them to jump drainage ditches that they may encounter during the coursing.

1895 saw the dominance of the Wright family in the Waterloo Cup competition, Joe trained the winner Thoughtless Beauty, Tom trained the runner up Fortuna Favente and another brother Robert Kelsell Wright slipped the dogs in the final. In the White Lion public house in Brampton, Cumberland he purchased the greyhound bitch Fair Future for £5 from the landlord. The bitches litters yielded amongst the first Waterloo Cup winning greyhound for the Fawcett brothers and Tom Wright.

The following is a list of the Waterloo Cup winning greyhounds that he trained:*1896 Fabulous Fortune*1900 Fearless Footsteps*1901 Fearless Footsteps*1902 Farndon Ferry*1903 Father Flint

Acknowledged by Charles Blanning and Sir Mark Prescott as one of the great trainers of all time, he died at his daughter's house in Whitford, Flintshire, in 1956.

His son Ralph was the manager at Hove greyhound stadium, and his son John also trained greyhounds, winning the Waterloo Cup 4 times.

He was captain of the New Zealand team that competed in the 1908 Melbourne Jubilee Australasian Football Carnival, and was one of that team's best players.

He finished his football career playing for the Victorian Football Association (VFA) club Prahran.

A slater and tiler by profession, he played his first senior game for Collingwood, against Essendon, at Victoria Park, on 4 August 1906 (at the time of his enlistment in the army in 1916 his height was measured at 5 ft 8½in, and his weight at 11½stone).

The report of his first match noted that "Wright, a district junior, gave satisfactory promise of future usefulness forward". He played another three matches that season, including Collingwood's losing semi-final against Carlton.

He played another eight senior games for Collingwood in 1907, including Collingwood's losing semi-final against South Melbourne.

After leaving the VFL, Wright went to New Zealand to work. He was appointed New Zealand's captain for the team that played in Jubilee Australasian Football Carnival, where New Zealand defeated both New South Wales and Queensland.

Wright finished his career in the VFA at Prahran, having been granted a permit to play for Prahran in April 1909. He was elected to the committee of the Collingwood Football Club, and continued to serve Collingwood well until he resigned upon his enlistment in the AIF.

Wright had served with the North Melbourne Garrison Artillery for three years (1904–1907); and he enlisted in the First AIF on 3 February 1915, serving first with the 7th Battalion AIF, and transferring to the 59th Battalion on 4 August 1916. A Corporal with the 59th Battalion—he was promoted to corporal on the field on 16 October 1916—Wright fought on the western front during World War I.

He was killed in action on 12 December 1916 and was buried at Delville Wood Cemetery in Longueval, France.

He was born at Bridgend in Kinross, Scotland, to coalminer John Easton Wright and Kathleen Florence, née Jessop. The family moved to Sydney in 1911, living in Redfern and Hurstville. Tom left school at the age of thirteen and became a sheet-metal worker at Wunderlich Ltd, coming under the influence of socialist Paddy Drew, later a founder of the Communist Party of Australia. He joined the Sheet Metal Working Industrial Union of Australia in 1921 and in 1924 became a member of the state management committee, treasurer of the New South Wales branch, and a delegate to the Labor Council of New South Wales (1924–73). He joined the Australian Labor Party and became secretary of the Hurstville branch, but after joining the Communist Party of Australia in 1923 he was expelled from the ALP in 1925. The Bruce-Page government barred him from attending the 1927 Pan-Pacific Trade Union Congress in China, but he went instead to Moscow to a meeting with the Comintern.

Within the CPA he supported Jack Kavanagh's faction, becoming general secretary of the CPA in 1925. Kavanagh's fall in 1929 saw him lose this position, although he escaped expulsion. He recanted his previous loyalties and was restored to the central committee in 1931, remaining a member until 1970. He met Mary Margaret Lamm, née McAdam, at the Unemployed Workers' Movement in Glebe; she was widowed in 1931 and she lived with Wright for a decade before they were married on 23 January 1941 at Five Dock. He increasingly worked as a communist organiser with the unemployed and stood several times as a Communist candidate for state and federal parliament.

In 1936 Wright was elected state secretary of the sheet-metal workers' union, and in 1937 became vice-president of the Labor Council of New South Wales. In 1940 he became federal president of the sheet-metal workers' union, and played a leading role in the amalgamation with the Sheet Metal Working Agricultural Implement and Stove Making Industrial Union, serving as federal president of that body. From 1973 it became known as the Amalgamated Metal Workers' Union; Wright was again state president from 1972 to 1973 and commonwealth vice-president from 1972 to 1974. He was a long-term delegate to the Australian Council of Trade Unions, having been involved in its foundation, and sat on the executive from 1939 to 1941 and from 1961 to 1965.

Wright was key in persuading the Communist Party to support Aboriginal land rights, and he published a book, New Deal for the Aborigines, in 1939. His attacks on Catholic mission policy were replied to by Bishop Gsell. He was involved in the campaigns for civil liberties in the 1930s and peace in the 1940s and 1950s, and supported equal pay for women. After criticising the conciliation commissioners during the 1949 coal strike he faced, but escaped, prosecution, and in 1953 he was elected to Sydney City Council as one of the first two communists (with Ron Maxwell) to sit on that body. He was defeated in 1959 after the elimination of proportional representation. He visited China in 1952 and Cuba in 1963.

Both Wright and his wife left the Communist Party in 1970 after it distanced itself from the Soviet Union. Mary joined the Socialist Party of Australia, while Tom remained aloof from politics thereafter. Among his publications were We Defend Peace (1937), A Real Social Insurance Plan (1937), Lenin and the Trade Unions (1940), The Basic Wage (1943), World Trade Union Federation (1945), United Action Wins (1947), and Australians Visit People's China (1952). He died at Kogarah in 1981 and was survived by his wife and their son.