George Weiss

George Martin Weiss never played professional baseball, never managed a game, and had such a severe fear of public speaking that he turned down the American League presidency because the job required making speeches. He built the New York Yankees farm system, served as general manager during a run that produced 10 pennants and seven World Series championships in 13 seasons, hired Casey Stengel when nobody else wanted him, and then constructed the expansion New York Mets from nothing. His wife, Hazel, explained why he declined the league presidency. "You have to go all over and talk," she said. "He wouldn't do it."

New Haven

Weiss was born on June 23, 1894, in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Conrad, was a German immigrant who ran a grocery store. Weiss served as business manager of the baseball team at Hillhouse High School and attended Yale University, but left after his father's death to run the family business. Baseball, not groceries, interested him.

While still a teenager, he promoted exhibition games featuring Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson. He borrowed $5,000 in 1919 to purchase the New Haven franchise in the Eastern League. Writers called the team the "Weissmen." He won three Eastern League championships during the 1920s and sold 26 players for roughly $300,000, establishing himself as one of the sharpest evaluators of talent in the minor leagues.

On a December 1923 train ride to the winter meetings aboard the Twentieth Century Limited, the train crashed outside Forsyth, New York. His manager, Wild Bill Donovan, was killed along with eight others. Weiss survived with severe back lacerations and spent months convalescing.

The Yankees Farm System

Ed Barrow and Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert hired Weiss in 1932 to build a farm system that could rival Branch Rickey's operation in St. Louis. Weiss expanded the system from four affiliates to 20 by 1947. His two crown jewels were the Newark Bears and the Kansas City Blues. The 1937 Newark Bears won the International League pennant by 25 and a half games and are still regarded as one of the greatest minor league teams ever assembled.

The players Weiss developed read like a Hall of Fame ballot in themselves. Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, Joe Gordon, Charlie Keller, Vic Raschi, Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubek, and Gil McDougald all came through his system. Many signed for less than $7,000 each. During his tenure as farm director, the Yankees won pennants in 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1942, 1943, and 1947.

General Manager

After the Yankees won the 1947 World Series, co-owner Larry MacPhail got drunk at the Biltmore Hotel celebration, confronted Weiss, and fired him. Weiss stayed calm and suggested they discuss it when MacPhail was sober. MacPhail resigned the next day, and Weiss was promoted to general manager.

His first major move was hiring Stengel in October 1948, a choice the press mocked because Stengel had failed with Brooklyn and Boston. Stengel and Weiss then won five consecutive World Series, from 1949 through 1953. The Yankees won 10 pennants in Weiss's 13 seasons as general manager, and his record was 1,243-756 (.622). He won the Sporting News Executive of the Year award four times (1950, 1951, 1952, and 1960), more than anyone else at the time.

Weiss was a shrewd trader who exploited a pipeline of deals with the Kansas City Athletics during the mid-to-late 1950s. The most consequential brought Roger Maris to New York in December 1959. Maris won consecutive MVP awards in 1960 and 1961.

Weiss and Stengel were both forced out after the 1960 World Series loss to Pittsburgh. The front office announced it as a voluntary retirement. Stengel made clear publicly that it wasn't. Weiss said less, but didn't sound happy either.

Integration

The Yankees were slow to integrate, and Weiss bore significant responsibility. Elston Howard debuted on April 14, 1955, as the first black player in Yankees history, eight years after Jackie Robinson broke the color line and after every other New York team had already integrated. Weiss said black prospects had to fit the "Yankee mould" before being promoted. He had acquired Vic Power through the farm system but traded him before he could reach the majors. Whether the delay reflected Weiss's personal views, the owners' preferences, or institutional complacency remains debated, but the result was the same.

The Mets

Joan Whitney Payson hired Weiss as president of the expansion New York Mets on March 1, 1961. He hired Stengel to manage again and filled the roster with aging veterans who had played for the departed Dodgers and Giants, a calculation designed to appeal to abandoned National League fans in New York.

The 1962 Mets went 40-120. They finished last from 1962 through 1965, then climbed to ninth in Weiss's final year. But in 1964, the Mets outdrew the pennant-winning Yankees at the new Shea Stadium, 1.73 million to 1.3 million, proof that Weiss understood something about the city beyond wins and losses.

More importantly, he built a farm system that produced Cleon Jones, Ed Kranepool, Tug McGraw, Ron Swoboda, and Bud Harrelson. The 1969 "Miracle Mets" who won the World Series were built on infrastructure Weiss put in place.

He retired in November 1966 at 72 and died on August 13, 1972, in a nursing home in Greenwich, Connecticut, at 78. In his home in Greenwich, he had kept a "Baseball Room" filled with memorabilia, original player contracts, and personalized mementos from Cobb, Johnson, Joe DiMaggio, and Mantle. For a man who was cold and distant in public, he was surprisingly sentimental about the game when nobody else was watching. The Veterans Committee elected him to the Hall of Fame in 1971.