Harry Mitchell Grabiner (December 26, 1890 – October 24, 1948) was an American
professional baseball
Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world.
Mod ...
executive. A 40-year employee of the
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and p ...
, he served the team's owners—founding president
Charles Comiskey
Charles Albert Comiskey (August 15, 1859 – October 26, 1931), nicknamed "Commy" or "The Old Roman", was an American Major League Baseball player, manager and team owner. He was a key person in the formation of the American League, and was also ...
, son and successor
J. Louis Comiskey
John Louis Comiskey (August 12, 1885 – July 18, 1939) was an American businessman and the owner of the Chicago White Sox of the American League from 1931 to 1939.
Biography
He was born on August 12, 1885, son of Charles Comiskey. He inherited t ...
, and Lou’s widow,
Grace
Grace may refer to:
Places United States
* Grace, Idaho, a city
* Grace (CTA station), Chicago Transit Authority's Howard Line, Illinois
* Little Goose Creek (Kentucky), location of Grace post office
* Grace, Carroll County, Missouri, an uninco ...
—in a number of capacities, rising from peanut vendor to club secretary, business manager and vice president. He is often listed as the White Sox' first
general manager
A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...
, with a term lasting from as early as through . After leaving the White Sox at the close of the 1945 season, he joined
Bill Veeck
William Louis Veeck Jr. ( ; February 9, 1914 – January 2, 1986), also known as "Sport Shirt Bill", was an American Major League Baseball franchise owner and promoter. Veeck was at various times the owner of the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Br ...
’s ownership syndicate and became a vice president and minority stockholder with the
Cleveland Indians
The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive F ...
from until his death in .
Witness to Black Sox Scandal
As team secretary and top aide to Charles Comiskey, Grabiner was a management eyewitness to the
Black Sox Scandal
The Black Sox Scandal was a Major League Baseball game-fixing scandal in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate led ...
, in which eight White Sox players were accused of conspiring with gamblers to lose the
1919 World Series
The 1919 World Series was the championship series in Major League Baseball for the 1919 season. The 16th edition of the World Series, it matched the American League champion Chicago White Sox against the National League champion Cincinnati Reds. ...
.
Eighteen years after Grabiner’s death, Veeck revealed in ''The Hustler’s Handbook'' (1966) that during his first stint (1959–61) as owner of the White Sox, he had discovered hidden in a Comiskey Park storeroom a diary Grabiner kept during the 1919 season and during subsequent investigations and legal actions in 1920–21. In the chapter “Harry’s Diary,” Veeck quotes from Grabiner’s document and writes, “Beyond any doubt, the White Sox front office had more than some inkling of what was going on from the very first game of the 1919 World Series.” Some accounts state that Grabiner warned Comiskey,
American League
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league ...
president
Ban Johnson
Byron Bancroft Johnson (January 5, 1864 – March 28, 1931) was an American executive in professional baseball who served as the founder and first president of the American League (AL).
Johnson developed the AL—a descendant of the mino ...
and
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...
president
John Heydler
John Arnold Heydler (July 10, 1869 – April 18, 1956) was an American executive in Major League Baseball. After working as a National League (NL) umpire, he was the secretary to the NL president and then became the secretary-treasurer of the NL b ...
of a possible game-fixing scandal after Game 2 of the Series, but he was ignored.
After the Black Sox affair, Grabiner, who was
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, was attacked in print by ''
The Dearborn Independent
''The Dearborn Independent'', also known as ''The Ford International Weekly'', was a weekly newspaper established in 1901, and published by Henry Ford from 1919 through 1927. The paper reached a circulation of 900,000 by 1925, second only to the ...
'', owned by industrialist
Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...
, in
anti-Semitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
articles that blamed the Jews for both the scandal and the cover-up.
Four decades with White Sox
A native of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
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, subdivision_name ...
, Grabiner began his career with the White Sox at age 14; some accounts list his first job as a peanut vendor at
South Side Park
South Side Park was the name used for three different baseball parks that formerly stood in Chicago, Illinois, at different times, and whose sites were all just a few blocks away from each other.
South Side Park I (1884)
The first South Side ...
, others as a ticket seller and usher. He became a protégé of club secretary Charles Fredericks and was promoted to his mentor's position on Fredericks’ death in 1915. As such, Grabiner also witnessed the White Sox’ triumphs in the
1906
Events
January–February
* January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...
and
1917 World Series
The 1917 World Series was the championship series in Major League Baseball for the 1917 season. The 14th edition of the World Series, it matched the American League champion Chicago White Sox against the National League champion New York Giants ...
, and the building of
Comiskey Park
Comiskey Park was a baseball park in Chicago, Illinois, located in the
Armour Square neighborhood on the near-southwest side of the city. The stadium served as the home of the Chicago White Sox of the American League from 1910 through 1990. Buil ...
in 1910, as well as the 1919 debacle.
Although the eight players accused of the Black Sox conspiracy were acquitted in a 1920 trial, all were banned from baseball for life. The scandal destroyed the White Sox for a generation; during Grabiner’s final quarter century with the team, Chicago finished in the American League’s
first division only five times. The White Sox did not win another pennant until , or another World Series until
2005
File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...
. After Charles Comiskey’s death in 1931, Grabiner assumed greater responsibility for the team’s on-field operations during the J. Lou and Grace Comiskey regimes, and became a target for fan frustration.
“Grabiner was blasphemed by the fans and players, criticized by the press, and generally blamed for inefficacies which were not of his own doing. Yet he struggled doggedly against the great odds until he fled the scene,” wrote John C. Hoffman in ''Baseball Digest'' in October 1950, two years after Grabiner’s death.
Final years with Veeck, Indians
Grabiner’s last two years in baseball were successful ones, however, as he worked with Veeck to purchase the Cleveland Indians in 1946 and served as Veeck’s vice president and top assistant, as well as holding a small stake in the team. But in the closing weeks of Cleveland’s
1948 world championship season, Grabiner collapsed in Veeck’s office during a meeting. Suffering from a condition that has been variously described as a
stroke
A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...
,
cerebral hemorrhage
Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...
or
brain tumor
A brain tumor occurs when abnormal cells form within the brain. There are two main types of tumors: malignant tumors and benign (non-cancerous) tumors. These can be further classified as primary tumors, which start within the brain, and seconda ...
, he lapsed into a coma and never witnessed the Tribe’s AL playoff win over the
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight ...
or its six-game victory in the
1948 World Series
The 1948 World Series was the championship series in Major League Baseball for the 1948 season. The 45th edition of the World Series, it matched the American League (AL) champion Cleveland Indians and the National League (NL) champion Boston Br ...
. He died in Chicago, age 57, thirteen days after the final Series game. Grabiner was buried at the
Rosehill Cemetery
Rosehill Cemetery (founded 1859) is an American garden cemetery on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois, and at , is the largest cemetery in the City of Chicago. According to legend, the name "Rosehill" resulted from a City Clerk's error – the ar ...
in Chicago.
Survivors included daughter
June Travis
June Travis (born June Dorothea Grabiner; August 7, 1914 – April 14, 2008) was an American film actress.
Background
Born June Dorothea Grabiner, she was the daughter of Harry Grabiner, vice-president of the Chicago White Sox in the 1930s.
...
, a motion picture actress.
In popular culture
In the 1987
John Sayles
John Thomas Sayles (born September 28, 1950) is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, for ''Passion Fish'' (1992) and ''L ...
film,
Eight Men Out
''Eight Men Out'' is a 1988 American sports drama film based on Eliot Asinof's 1963 book ''Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series''. It was written and directed by John Sayles. The film is a dramatization of Major League Baseball's ...
, based on the 1963 book, ''Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series'' by
Eliot Asinof
Eliot Tager Asinof (July 13, 1919 – June 10, 2008) was an American writer of fiction and nonfiction best known for his writing about baseball. His most famous book was ''Eight Men Out'', a nonfiction reconstruction of the 1919 Black Sox scandal. ...
, Grabiner was portrayed by
Jack Merrill.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grabiner, Harry
1890 births
1948 deaths
Baseball executives
Chicago White Sox executives
Cleveland Indians executives
Jewish American baseball people
Major League Baseball executives
Major League Baseball general managers
Businesspeople from Chicago
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American Jews