| Gabe Paul | |
|---|---|
 Paul c. 1977 | |
| General manager, executive | |
| Born: January 4, 1910 Rochester, New York, U.S. | |
| Died: April 26, 1998(1998-04-26) (aged 88) Tampa, Florida, U.S. | |
| Teams | |
As general manager
As executive | |
| Career highlights and awards | |
Gabriel Howard Paul (January 4, 1910 – April 26, 1998) was an American executive inMajor League Baseball who, between 1951 and 1984, served asgeneral manager of theCincinnati Reds,Houston Colt .45s,Cleveland Indians andNew York Yankees. He also waspresident and part-owner of the Indians and president andlimited partner of the Yankees.
Born inRochester, New York, and ofJewish descent,[1][2][3] Paul got his start in the game at age ten as a shoeshine boy for theRochester Tribe of the AAInternational League and later attended Monroe High School.[4][5] Eventually, he worked forWarren Giles, who became business manager of the renamed Rochester Red Wings when theSt. Louis Cardinals purchased the team in1928. When Giles took over the front office of theCincinnati Reds in1937, Paul became the Reds’ traveling secretary. The 1940 season saw turbulence upon the suicide of catcherWillard Hershberger. Paul was the last person to speak to Hershberger before the latter's death, as Paul was asked by managerBill McKechnie to reach out to him.[6]
After returning from military service during World War II, Paul was promoted to vice president.
InOctober 1951, when Giles was elected president of theNational League, Paul took his old mentor's job as Cincinnati general manager. The Reds were then a losing outfit with a weak farm system. Paul rebuilt the minor league department and began to scout and signAfrican-American andLatin American players. Seven years afterJackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball upon joining theBrooklyn Dodgers, the Redsintegrated their team on April 17, 1954, whenNino Escalera andChuck Harmon made their debuts. Cincinnati became the seventh of the eight National League clubs to integrate; the eighth, thePhiladelphia Phillies, would insert their first black player into their lineup on April 22, 1957.
In1956 at age 20,Frank Robinson, the club's first black superstar, had the best rookie season in NL history, hitting 38home runs, scoring a league-leading 122runs, and compiling anOPS of .936. In1958, Cincinnati unveiled another star African-American player, rookieoutfielderVada Pinson, who would enjoy a long MLB career and, with Robinson, help lead the1961 Reds to the National League pennant. Paul also signed a working agreement with theHavana Sugar Kings of the Triple-AInternational League, giving the team access to topCuban talent such asshortstopLeo Cárdenas and future "Big Red Machine" iconTony Pérez. In addition, the Reds produced Cuban stars such asoutfielderTony González,second basemanCookie Rojas, andpitcherMike Cuellar—among many others—who made their mark with other MLB clubs.
The Cincinnati team of the mid-1950s—then temporarily nicknamed theRedlegs because of theanti-communism of the time—captured the country's imagination as a team of sluggers. With a lineup that included Robinson,Ted Kluszewski,Gus Bell,Wally Post andEd Bailey, the1956 Redlegs hit 221 home runs, tying the major-league team record then in place. They also won 91 games to finish third, only two games behind the pennant-winningBrooklyn Dodgers. Paul was named Executive of the Year byThe Sporting News. The following year,Baseball CommissionerFord Frick had to intervene when the Reds were accused ofencouraging fans to stuff the ballot to elect Reds players to start in the field, namely by having local newspapers print ballots with Cincinnati players already filled in. Eight Reds players won the voting, but Frick named three players (Willie Mays,Hank Aaron,Stan Musial) to replace three Reds. The1957 Major League Baseball All-Star Game was the last time fans were allowed to vote until 1970.
The Reds failed to improve upon their 1956 mark during Paul's tenure, however, and after a disappointing1960 season, Paul resigned. He left after ownerPowel Crosley Jr. started to entertain offers to move the Reds out of Cincinnati in favor ofNew York; the Brooklyn Dodgers andNew York Giants had left the City and moved toLos Angeles andSan Francisco respectively following the 1957 season, and the Reds were considered a serious option to return National League baseball to the nation's largest city.[7] The uncertainty of the Reds' situation led Paul to agree to serve as GM of the expansionHouston Colt .45s. He later called it the worst mistake of his life.[8]Bill DeWitt succeeded him as GM in Cincinnati.[9] In nine seasons as general manager, the Reds had a winning season twice (1956, 1958) while finishing above fourth place once (the 1956 team finished two games out of a pennant). The next year, with a core assembled by Paul and an owner that passed suddenly in March, the Reds advanced to the1961 World Series, winning their first pennant in decades.
In 2023, Paul was elected to theCincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum.[10]
Craig Cullinan Jr. and George Kirksey, who each had served as key figures in pushing major league baseball in Texas, hired Paul. However, their small shares in the team meant thatRoy Hofheinz would assert his authority in trying to manage the team in all affairs. Paul brought to Houston key Cincinnati executives or scoutsTal Smith,Bill Giles,Bobby Mattick andPaul Florence, and began to lay the foundation for the team's1962 debut, but he did not stay long. After six months, he reportedly received a standing offer from theCleveland Indians to take over their front office, following the January 1961 resignation ofFrank Lane.[11] In late April 1961, Paul returned toOhio to assume command of the Indians, leaving the Colt .45s almost a year before the team ever played an official game.
The Indians of the early 1960s were a middle-echelon team in theAmerican League that had contended for a pennant only twice (1955 and1959) since its1954 AL title. It had lost its most popular gate attraction, sluggerRocky Colavito, in a Lane-engineered trade just before the1960 season, and the young players summoned from the team's farm system failed to capture the city's imagination. On November 26, 1962, Paul became a part-owner, as well as president, treasurer and general manager. Some sources describe him as replacingWilliam R. Daley as principal owner. In truth, at the same time Paul bought into the Indians, Daley remained chairman and recruited a number of new investors who saw him as head of the franchise. The Indians continued to tread water in the standings and struggled badly at the gate. On multiple occasions, the Indians were rumored to be headed elsewhere. In 1964, the club'sboard of directors authorized Paul to investigate transferring the Indians to one of three cities:Oakland,Dallas orSeattle. But a new stadium lease with the city of Cleveland staved off the move.[11][12] Two years later, Daley sold the team to frozen food magnateVernon Stouffer, who retained Paul as general manager.
On the field, Paul brought to Cleveland pitching starsSam McDowell andLuis Tiant, and in1965 reacquired Colavito in a bid to win more games and more fans. But, after an encouraging1968 season, the Indians plummeted in the standings. For a while, between 1969 and 1971, Paul gave up most of his powers tofield managerAlvin Dark in an effort to change the club's fortunes. He returned as GM fulltime in 1971, where he presided over the position until January 1973. In his total tenure of twelve seasons as Indians general manager, the team had a record of .500 or better three times while finishing above fourth place once (1968), all while going through nine different managers (which included five interim hires).
In 1971,George Steinbrenner, a ship-building magnate born in Ohio, had tried to buy the Indians fromVernon Stouffer but was rejected. After the failure, he told Paul to keep his ears open in case an offer to buy a team came up. The following year, Paul informed Steinbrenner thatCBS was looking to sell theNew York Yankees. Weeks later, Steinbrenner had lined up a syndicate that would purchase the team. Eight days after Steinbrenner's group announced their acquisition of the Yankees onJanuary 3, 1973, Paul sold his interest in the Indians and joined the syndicate.[13] Installed as club president that year after the April departure of minority ownerE. Michael Burke and the year-end election of GM/interim presidentLee MacPhail to the presidency of the American League, Paul helped Steinbrenner rebuild the once-proud Yankees into a champion. In1974, Paul was selected MLB Executive of the Year for the second time in his career, as the Yankees finished second in theAmerican League East Division and improved by nine games from the1973 edition. The final piece of the puzzle was the hiring ofBilly Martin as manager in 1975, which Steinbrenner did over the objections of Paul. Then, the Bombers won their first American League pennant in twelve years in1976.
The key to re-building the Yankees was a series of trades that Paul pulled off. Paul raised some eyebrows among Cleveland fans because less than two months before he became a part of the group purchasing the Yankees and assumed the role of President for the Yankees, he dealt All-Star third basemanGraig Nettles and catcherGerry Moses to the New York Yankees for a group of journeyman players. Then he acquired in succession:Chris Chambliss,Dick Tidrow andOscar Gamble from his former team, the Indians;Lou Piniella from theRoyals;Mickey Rivers andEd Figueroa from theAngels;Willie Randolph,Ken Brett andDock Ellis from thePirates; andBucky Dent from theWhite Sox. Paul also made sure to not go with trades that Steinbrenner wanted to do, such as including a young propsect in a trade namedRon Guidry.[14] He also signedCatfish Hunter andReggie Jackson as free agents. Paul attempted to quit in the 1976 season, but Steinbrenner implored him to stay on, complete with writing a list of promises of independence. Paul stayed on, although he would spend a variety of time during the year keeping the peace between Martin and Steinbrenner, as the latter wanted Paul to "talk about the conduct of the game," to Martin, who was drinking heavily and pursuing women on a constant basis (which included Paul's daughter).[8] The fall of that year was the dawn of free agency, and Paul remained silent while Steinbrenner attempted to courtReggie Jackson despite the objections of Martin (the wooing worked, as Jackson, alongsideCatfish Hunter, ended up being signed by the Yankees).
Paul, whose nickname was the "Smiling Cobra" for his expertise in trades,[15] had his enemies, among them influential Cleveland radio hostPete Franklin, who said of Paul, "Gabe was a master at working the room, of getting to know everybody and knowing where all the bodies are. The thing about Gabe was that while he did work for an owner, he always found a way to get a piece of the team himself. Then it became damn near impossible to fire him because he was part-owner. Gabe's greatest gift was the ability to take care of Gabe."[16] The1977 season was a wild one that saw Paul suffer a cerebral spasm two weeks into the season and then have to convince Steinbrenner to not fire Martin after a June 18 televised scuffle between Martin and Jackson. The Yankees were able to beat theLos Angeles Dodgers in the1977 World Series, Paul's only World Series victory as a general manager and the first world championship for the Yankees since1962. He was reported as savoring the parade, stating “I think one of the biggest thrills I ever had was the ride up Broadway after we won the championship in ’77. It was pouring rain and we were in open cars riding up Broadway. It was the liveliest crowd I ever saw.”
After the year ended, he left the team. He finished with four out of five winning seasons as general manager of the Yankees with two American League pennants and one world championship, the only times that Paul assembled a team that made the postseason (half of the 1977 team was assembled by acquisitions Paul did). Steinbrenner remarked upon his departure by saying, "He was in baseball for 40 years, and did he ever win a pennant before? You think he made all those brilliant moves with this team himself? You think all of a sudden he got brilliant?" Upon Paul's death, Steinbrenner noted that he was "a great, great baseball man. He knew all there was to know in this game and he probably came to me with more trades than all my other general managers combined." Years later, it was discovered that Paul had made a series of tapes that dealt with his time with Steinbrenner, as he would put on a tape recorder and drink scotch after arriving home from work. Paul's son found the tapes and a diary years later in a garage; select portions were later cited in Bill Madden's bookThe Last Lion of Baseball about Steinbrenner.[17][18][19]
AfterAl Rosen was brought into the Bronx as a senior executive in fall 1977—crowding Paul's authority much as Paul's presence did Mike Burke—Paul returned to Cleveland as in1978 at the request of longtime friend and new Indians ownerSteve O'Neill. Paul resumed the presidency of a team which was nearly bankrupt (in 1980, the team was reported to have lost $2 million). Unfortunately, Paul was unable to rouse the Tribe from their doldrums. From 1978 to 1984, the Indians would have a winning record just twice (1979, 1981) while never finishing above 5th in the American League East Division, and Paul retired after the1984 season, having spent nearly six decades involved with baseball, 27 as a general manager.[20]
Having suffered from strokes and a broken hip, Paul died at the age of 88 at a hospital inTampa, Florida after battling an extended illness.[21] He was survived by his wife Mary and his five children. His son Gabe Jr. was also a baseball executive, serving theSeattle Pilots as their traveling secretary in their only season of 1969 before they moved to become theMilwaukee Brewers, and Paul Jr stayed on, serving in a variety of capacities such as stadium operations until 1997.[22]
Paul was played byKevin Conway in the 2007ESPNtelevision mini-seriesThe Bronx Is Burning.