Joe McDonald, Former Mets, Cardinals and Tigers GM, Dies at 97

Joe McDonald, a baseball lifer who worked as general manager of the New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers, died Aug. 28 at age 97. His son, Jody McDonald, a Philadelphia radio host, confirmed the death publicly more than a week later, on Saturday, Sept. 5, during his show on WIP-FM.

McDonald's career in the sport spanned close to eight decades. Born in Staten Island in 1929, he got his start as a boy helping his father take tickets at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field. "I saw Jackie Robinson play 200 games," McDonald said in a 2017 interview. "He used to come through my gate, with his wife and little baby."

After attending Fordham University, McDonald joined the expansion Mets in 1962 as a statistician. He moved through the organization over the next decade, serving as minor league administrative secretary in 1965 and 1966, director of scouting in 1967, and director of minor league operations from 1968 to 1971.

McDonald was part of the front office that ran the Mets' first three amateur drafts, which produced Nolan Ryan, Ken Singleton and Jon Matlack. Those drafts helped stock the roster that won the 1969 World Series, the Mets' first championship.

The GM Years

McDonald was named Mets general manager in October 1974. His run in the job coincided with one of the franchise's roughest stretches. He was in the front office in 1977 when the Mets traded away Tom Seaver and Dave Kingman in what became known as the "Midnight Massacre," a dismantling of the roster that happened on his watch.

Accounts of McDonald's Mets tenure differ slightly on the end date. Some sources report he stayed with the organization through its 1980 sale, when Frank Cashen took over as GM. Former Mets public relations director Jay Horwitz said McDonald served as Mets GM "from 1975-1979."

From the Mets, McDonald joined Whitey Herzog's staff in St. Louis, first as an assistant general manager and then as the Cardinals' general manager starting in 1982. That season, the Cardinals won the National League pennant and the World Series, giving McDonald his second championship with an organization, following 1969 with the Mets.

"We enjoyed life. We enjoyed developing players," McDonald said in a 2015 interview. "I like to think we had success because we developed half of the players who constituted the Amazin' Mets in 1969. Then when my time was done with the Mets, [Herzog] asked me to join him with the Cardinals and we won another World Series."

McDonald later became a senior executive with the Detroit Tigers, overseeing player procurement and development before serving as the club's general manager in 1991 and 1992.

Back to Scouting

After his run as a GM ended, McDonald returned to what he considered his true calling: scouting. He worked for the Los Angeles Angels and Colorado Rockies before joining the Boston Red Sox as a professional scout in 2004. He didn't retire from scouting until 2019, at age 90, after nearly 80 years that began with his work at Ebbets Field.

In 2012, the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation gave McDonald its Legends of Scouting Award, recognizing a career that outlasted most of the players he signed and developed.

Horwitz, who worked alongside McDonald in the Mets organization starting in 1980, remembered him as a mentor who stayed engaged with the game's people long after his official titles ended. "He would always check in with me to see how some of his players like Lee Mazzilli, Doug Flynn, Craig Swan and Joe Torre were doing," Horwitz wrote. "Joe did interviews for me well into his 90's. He was a great resource. Joe had great stories every time we spoke."

McDonald is survived by his son Jody, among other family members not detailed in available reporting. No public memorial service details had been announced as of Monday, Sept. 7. His overlapping tenure dates with the Mets, reported inconsistently across outlets as either 1974-1980 or 1975-1979, remain the one unresolved detail in an otherwise well-documented career spanning three World Series rings and parts of eight decades in professional baseball.

Sources

Newsweek, The Big Lead, Yahoo Sports, and Jay Horwitz's account on metsinsider.mlblogs.