George Kissell was featured on exactly two baseball cards during his nearly 70 years of service in professional baseball. In both cases, he was a mere footnote, a tiny head shot pictured to the right and beneath St. Louis Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst on the respective 1973 and 1974 Topps issues.
That figures. While fans collected cards and idolized their ballplaying heroes, those who played the game collected advice and idolized Kissell, the man many call the greatest teacher in the game.
Kissell, an Evans Mills native, died Tuesday night in a Tampa, Fla., hospital from injuries suffered in an automobile accident, the Cardinals said Wednesday in a report on their Web site. Kissell, who turned 88 last month, was a passenger with his wife in a car driven by his daughter, Karolyn Kidwell. Police said Kidwell apparently drove through a red light and the vehicle was struck by another car. Kidwell was not seriously hurt. Kissell's wife, Virginia, who is from Glen Park, suffered a fractured pelvis, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
To most fans, Kissell was a baseball unknown, but he was a legend in the Cardinals organization and revered throughout the sport, regardless of a team's colors.
"He was one of the game's greatest teachers," said Baltimore Orioles manager Dave Trembley, a Carthage native, on Wednesday night. "He leaves behind a legacy of a guy who was a master of teaching the fundamentals."
The fact that Kissell never played in the major leagues kept him hidden from many fans, but little did they know what he meant to those who played.
"He's like a historic figure," longtime Cardinals manager Tony La Russa told the Times in 1997. "Some people, because they spent more time in the big leagues, they've got that reputation, more fame. But among baseball people, shoot, he's a famous person."
Kissell may not have reached the majors, but he shaped the careers of countless Cardinals. He moved a catcher named Joe Torre and a pitcher named Ken Boyer to third base, the position Kissell played, and both went on to MVP seasons. He taught Andy Van Slyke and Vince Coleman how to play the outfield. In the 1950s, he coached two players who went on to become Hall of Fame managers, Sparky Anderson and Earl Weaver. Anderson called Kissell the smartest man in baseball.
In Torre's autobiography, "Chasing the Dream," he said Kissell was the best teacher he ever had. "I learned more baseball from George Kissell than from anyone else in my life," Torre told the St. Petersburg Times in 1997.
Kissell attended his first Cardinals spring training camp in 1940 and participated in all but one for the next 68 years. He served in virtually every capacity for the organization, including joining the major league team in 1969 as the third-base coach, a job he held until 1975. He ran the team's winter instructional league camp from 1958-2004.
In 2005, the Cardinals honored Kissell with a plaque that hangs on the team's Jupiter, Fla., training camp clubhouse and named the clubhouse for Kissell. The plaque reads in part, "Every player in the Cardinals' Organization since 1940 has had contact with George Kissell and they have all been better for it. ..."
The players gave Kissell a standing ovation that February day and have been generous with their praise of the coach throughout his career.
"It's funny, I always catch myself sitting next to him because I want to hear it out of his mouth," major league infielder Mark Sweeney, who just completed his 14th season, told the Watertown Times in 1997. "He doesn't throw it all on you at once. When the situation comes, he says it. He's just one of those guys that everyone in the whole room will take something from George Kissell."
Kissell was known for his liveliness, his enthusiasm and his ability for making the game look and sound easy. But even Kissell admitted that it wasn't easy to do.
"To be a good teacher, you need to teach the dumb ones," he told the Times. "Anybody can teach Albert Einstein."
Kissell's specialty was bunting, infield play and using a player's speed, something the Cardinals have been known for with the likes of Coleman, Lou Brock and Ozzie Smith.
"We don't score many runs, but we run like hell," said Kissell, who led a couple leagues in stolen bases. "We've always been that way."
Kissell grew up on a family farm in Evans Mills. He received an invitation to attend a baseball tryout in Rochester, but only attended because rain made it impossible to cut and bale hay. The next summer he joined the Cardinals' minor league team in Hamilton, Ontario, hitting .351. After the season, the team's general manager, Branch Rickey, offered him $125 a month, rebuffing Kissell's request for $150 by asking him, "You like milking cows?" Kissell admitted he didn't and signed for $125.
He made it to his first big-league spring training camp in 1946. From there he played for various teams, often as a player-manager. In 1950, he turned down a chance to be a utility infielder in the majors to manage the Winston-Salem team, which ended up winning 106 games. He became a full-time manager after the 1955 season. By the mid-1970s, he was a roving minor league instructor for the Cardinals. He traveled to countless towns until well into his 70s, often with his wife, Ginny, by his side.
"You're dealing with youth," Kissell said. "That's what keeps you young. I can sit home and watch TV and be old."
The Kissells lived in Sackets Harbor until moving to St. Petersburg, Fla., in 1971. Trembley remembers playing American Legion baseball in the 1960s and the team receiving visits from Kissell.
"He would come by and he would bring some old Cardinals uniforms for the guys," said Trembley, who said that he would see Kissell in passing over the years and they would swap stories about the north country.
Kissell made the Ithaca College Hall of Fame in 1970 and the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2003. But others believe he belongs in Cooperstown.
"George Kissell should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame," former Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty told the Post-Dispatch in 2000. "He's a treasure in this game. Think of the difference he made in all of those careers, how he's influenced the game of baseball. There's no way to measure his true value."
Kissell is survived by his wife and their children, Richard and Karolyn, and four grandchildren. Funeral arrangements have not been finalized, according to his sister-in-law, Dorothy Kissell, who said Wednesday night that Torre called Karolyn on Wednesday to offer his condolences.
Kissell through the years
A timeline of George Kissell’s career:
Sept. 1920: Born in Evans Mills
1938: Graduates from Evans Mills High School
1939-42: Baseball and soccer standout at Ithaca College
1940: Sings with St. Louis Cardinals. Hits .351 for Hamilton, Ontario
1941: Hits .310 for Cardinals’ farm team in Mobile, Ala.
1942: Teaches physical education and coaches basketball and baseball at LaFargeville HS. One of his students is Frank Smith, who would go on to pitch in the major leagues
1943-46: Serves in the Navy
1944: Marries Virginia Colligan of Glen Park
1946-47: Invited by Cardinals to first major league spring training. Player-manager for Lawrence, Mass.
1948-49: Player-manager of Hamilton, Ontario. In 1949, he hits .345 and leads the league in doubles and triples. Named the city’s athlete of the year
1950: Manager of Winston-Salem, N.C., the Cardinals’ Class B farm team. Leads team to Carolina State League championship
1951-53: Manager of Omaha, Neb., Cardinals’ farm team. Leads team to league title in 1951
1954: Manager of Columbus, Ga., Cardinals’ farm team
1955: Manager of Columbia, S.C., Cardinals’ farm team
1957: Manages Omaha, Neb., to Western League championship
1957-62: Scouts for the Cardinals
1958: Begins running Cardinals’ winter instructional league, a job he held for more than 40 years
1962: Manager of Brunswick, Ga., Cardinals’ rookie league team
1964: Manager of Raleigh, N.C., Cardinals’ farm team
1965-68: Roving instructor for Cardinals. Manages Sarasota, Fla., Cardinals’ rookie league team
1969-76: Third-base coach for St. Louis Cardinals
1970: Inducted into Ithaca College Sports Hall of Fame
1971: Moves from Sackets Harbor to St. Petersburg, Fla.
1976-2004: Roving instructor for Cardinals.
2004-08: Retired senior field coordinator for player development for Cardinals