Mets Card of the Week: General Managers

METS GENERAL MANAGERS

Regular readers of this site will have noted the recent General Manager project, wherein our writers have assumed the GM role for all 30 MLB teams and endeavored to improve their respective rosters while working under realistic budget constraints.

Well, your faithful site overlords knew better than to include Card of the Week in these reindeer games, no doubt aware of the fact that he would likely trade his top prospects for a handful of magic beans and/or a small sack of shiny rocks.

Instead, we’re going to take a quick look this week at the history of Mets GMs on cards.

First up is the team’s inaugural GM, George Weiss.

Weiss had great success with the Yankees, first as director of the farm system from 1932 through 1947, and then as GM from 1947 to 1960.

In his five years as GM for the Mets, the team finished out of the cellar only once, and drafted Steve Chilcott instead of Reggie Jackson.

His exploits with the Bronx team earned him election to the Hall of Fame in 1971, and as a result he appears on a gold Curteichcolor HOF postcard.

Fun fact: Weiss is the second HOFer whose plaque mentions the Mets, the first being Casey Stengel.

Next up is Fordham grad Johnny Murphy.

Murphy also made his name initially with the Yankees, pitching a dozen years for the team, mostly out of the bullpen.

He came to the Mets as GM in late 1967, and was at the helm when the team won the series in 1969. He passed away unexpectedly of a heart attack in early 1970, the same malady that would take Gil Hodges two short years later.

The card pictured here is a 1934-36 Batter-Up, an innovative die-cut issue that was designed to be punched out of its backing and folded over so that it could be displayed standing up.

Johnny Murphy was replaced in 1970 by Bob Scheffing, who had earned his baseball bona fides as a light-hitting catcher for the Cubs, Redlegs, and Cardinals, and as a Manager for the Cubs and Tigers. This crude but colorful 1948-49 Leaf card captures him in landscape format at the tail end of his playing career.

Scheffing was GM for the 1973 Ya Gotta Believe squad, but is probably best remembered as the architect of the trade that moved Nolan Ryan to the Angels.

After Scheffing, we need to jump ahead to the late Frank Cashen to find the next Mets GM to appear on an officially licensed card.

He is featured in all his bow-tied glory on a special card issued by Topps to recognize Cashen for being honored by the New York Sports Commission as Sportsman of the Year.

Steve Phillips was a light-hitting middle infielder who toiled in the minors for seven seasons, most of those with the Mets, and none above AA. He appeared in a number of minor-league card sets, the last of which was this 1987 Jackson Mets issue.

Phillips joined the Mets front office in 1990, and was named GM in mid-1997, leading to a turbulent roller-coaster ride of a rein that would come to an end in June of 2003.

Omar Minaya had what can best be described as a youthful dalliance with minor-league baseball, logging 96 uneventful at bats as an 18-year old for the 1978 Bend Timber Hawks, and another 54 at bats a few years later for the 1981 Wausau Timbers. So basically, he had a thing for timber…

This brief experience was enough to see Minaya featured in a 1981 Wausau set. During his later tenure as Mets GM, Topps included an autographed card of Minaya (alongside Brian Cashman) in its 2007 Co-Signers offering.

Which brings us to the present, and current GM Sandy Alderson.

An autographed card of Alderson was inserted in Topps 2012 update boxes– it is relatively hard to find, and will set you back $50 if you are so inclined…