R.I.P. Joe McDonald: A Lifetime in Baseball, and a Lifetime of Mets History

There are baseball lifetimes.

And then there is Joe McDonald’s lifetime in baseball.

Seventy years.

Six World Series rings.

Three different Major League general manager jobs.

And, for those of us who care about the history of the New York Mets, a career that touched the franchise from its earliest days and stretched from the 120-loss Mets of 1962 all the way to the organization that became the 1969 Miracle Mets.

Joe McDonald died on August 28th at the age of 97.

And while most Mets fans probably remember his name because he was the team's general manager during one of the darkest periods in franchise history, that is really only one chapter of a remarkable baseball life.

Because Joe McDonald was much more than the guy whose name was attached to the front office when Tom Seaver was traded.

He was a baseball lifer.

And he started learning the game long before there was a Shea Stadium, a Mets logo or even a New York Mets.

McDonald was born on Staten Island in 1929.

When he was just 14 years old, he became a "turnstile boy" at Ebbets Field, working for the Brooklyn Dodgers for 49 cents a game.

Think about that for a second.

Fourteen.

While most 14-year-olds were worrying about homework, girls and whether they could stay out past curfew, Joe McDonald was standing at the gates of Ebbets Field.

And then came the best part.

After the third inning, his duties were finished and he was allowed to go into the stands and watch the game.

No MLB Network.

No Statcast.

No YouTube clips.

No fantasy baseball apps.

If you wanted to learn how major league baseball was played, you had to actually watch it.

So McDonald watched.

He watched Pee Wee Reese field ground balls.

He watched Jackie Robinson run the bases.

He watched Carl Furillo throw from the outfield.

He watched pitchers like Clem Labine work.

And he absorbed it all.

Years later, McDonald would say that being able to watch those players up close was a tremendous advantage as he developed his career in baseball.

It is hard to imagine a better baseball education.

McDonald graduated from Fordham University in 1951 and served two years in the Air Force.

When he returned to New York, the Dodgers were gone.

Brooklyn had lost its team.

But baseball wasn't finished with Joe McDonald.

In 1962, he became the official statistician for a brand-new expansion team called the New York Mets.

And if you think watching the 1962 Mets was difficult today, imagine doing it while actually traveling with the team and recording every pitch.

The Mets lost 120 games that season.

But for McDonald, that miserable season became another rung on the baseball ladder.

He moved into the front office and eventually became involved with the Mets' farm system, player development and scouting.

By 1967 he was the organization's director of scouting.

By 1968 he was director of minor league operations.

And then came 1969.

McDonald was part of the organization that developed the young pitching that would eventually make baseball history.

He had a hand in the development of Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman.

In fact, Ralph Kiner once recalled a story that tells you plenty about McDonald.

Koosman was apparently close to being released by the Mets in the minors. McDonald suggested they keep him around another month.

That extra month turned into a career.

Koosman became one-half of the greatest young pitching duos in Mets history, joining Seaver to form the backbone of the 1969 championship club.

When the Mets shocked the baseball world in 1969, McDonald was there.

He would later say that championship was the highlight of his career.

And that makes sense.

Because Joe McDonald didn't just watch the Miracle Mets.

He helped build the pipeline that produced them.

McDonald eventually became the Mets' general manager in October 1974.

The timing was, well, less than ideal.

The Mets had gone from the Miracle of 1969 to the World Series in 1973 and then into a period of decline.

And the organization was facing financial limitations and an ownership structure in which Chairman M. Donald Grant wielded enormous influence.

McDonald was the GM.

But that doesn't mean every decision made during those years was his decision alone.

That distinction matters.

Especially when you get to June 15, 1977.

There are dates every Mets fan knows.

October 16, 1969.

October 27, 1986.

And June 15, 1977.

That was the night that became known as the Midnight Massacre.

The Mets traded Tom Seaver to Cincinnati.

On the same night, they traded Dave Kingman to San Diego.

Seaver wasn't just another pitcher.

He was Tom Terrific.

The face of the franchise.

The guy who had helped turn the Mets from lovable losers into champions.

And suddenly he was wearing a Cincinnati Reds uniform.

McDonald's name has been attached to the trade ever since because he was the general manager.

But history is more complicated than that.

The Seaver situation involved an increasingly bitter dispute between the pitcher and M. Donald Grant, and McDonald later said bluntly, "We didn't want to trade Tom."

That doesn't erase McDonald's role.

It does, however, remind us that the GM's office wasn't operating in a vacuum.

The Mets were falling apart organizationally, financially and emotionally.

And McDonald was sitting in the middle of it.

The returns from the Seaver trade—Pat Zachry, Doug Flynn, Steve Henderson and Dan Norman—would eventually produce some value.

Flynn became a Gold Glove second baseman.

Zachry won Rookie of the Year.

Henderson became an important player.

But none of that mattered to a fan base watching its greatest player leave town.

The Kingman trade only made the night worse.

And the Mets entered one of the darkest periods in franchise history.

But here's something else worth remembering about Joe McDonald.

One of his most important Mets transactions wasn't the Seaver trade.

It was a trade that barely made a ripple at the time.

In 1978, the Mets traded Jerry Koosman to Minnesota.

Coming back was a minor leaguer named Jesse Orosco.

You know the rest.

Orosco became one of the most durable relievers in baseball history.

And when the Mets won the 1986 World Series, it was Orosco who threw the final pitch.

He struck out Marty Barrett.

He threw his glove into the air.

And the Mets were champions.

So when you look at Joe McDonald's Mets career, there is an interesting baseball-circle-of-life story sitting right there.

He had helped keep Koosman in the organization when Koosman was a minor leaguer.

Koosman became one of the heroes of 1969, and was on the mound when the Mets won the world series,

Nearly a decade later, McDonald traded Koosman.

And the player he received became the man who recorded the final out of the 1986 World Series.

Baseball is weird.

Wonderful.

And sometimes ridiculously poetic.

McDonald's story didn't end when his Mets tenure did.

After the Mets were sold, he joined the St. Louis Cardinals and worked under Whitey Herzog.

In 1982, McDonald became the Cardinals' general manager.

In his first season in that position, St. Louis won the National League pennant.

Then they won the World Series.

McDonald also played a role in acquiring a young player named Willie McGee, who would become a National League MVP.

There is another fascinating chapter in Joe McDonald's story that Mets fans should remember.

In 1983, while the general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. McDonald made a trade that would change the Mets forever.

On June 15, 1983, McDonald called Mets general manager Frank Cashen and offered him Cardinals first baseman Keith Hernandez.

The Mets would send pitcher Neil Allen and minor-league pitcher Rick Ownbey to St. Louis.

Cashen didn't have to think very long.

Hernandez was coming to New York.

The Cardinals' decision shocked their fans. Hernandez had been a key part of the 1982 World Series championship team, and the trade was met with boos in St. Louis.

But in New York?

It turned out to be one of the most important trades in Mets history.

Hernandez didn't just become the captain of the 1986 Mets.

He became the team's first captain since 1972.

He became the voice of the club.

He became the leader of a clubhouse filled with young stars.

And he became one of the most recognizable Mets of all time.

The irony is almost too perfect.

Joe McDonald had been the Mets general manager during the franchise's painful decline in the late 1970s.

Then, a few years later, from the other side of the negotiating table, he helped put one of the final pieces of the next great Mets team in place.

Think about that Mets timeline for a minute.

Joe McDonald was the Mets GM when they lost Tom Seaver.

Joe McDonald was the Cardinals GM when the Mets acquired Keith Hernandez.

One transaction became a symbol of the end of the first great Mets era.

The other became one of the building blocks of the second.

And both transactions have Joe McDonald's fingerprints on them.

That is quite a baseball legacy.

Eventually McDonald moved to Detroit, where he became involved in player development and scouting and later served as the Tigers' general manager.

But the front office wasn't where his baseball story ended.

It turned out that Joe McDonald still wanted to scout.

And scout he did.

He worked for the Angels.

The Rockies.

And eventually the Boston Red Sox.

In 2004, at an age when most people are thinking about retirement, McDonald began working as a professional scout for Boston.

And the Red Sox were pretty good during his time there.

Very good.

Four World Series championships.

2004.

2005.

2006.

2007.

Add those to his 1969 Mets and 1982 Cardinals championships and you get six World Series rings.

Six.

And he didn't retire until after the 2019 season.

He was 90 years old.

Let that sink in.

Ninety.

Joe McDonald was still scouting professional baseball players.

In 2022, McDonald was inducted into the Killebrew Root Beer Professional Baseball Scouts Hall of Fame.

The honor was fitting.

His baseball career had come full circle.

He had started as a teenager watching the Brooklyn Dodgers.

He became an executive.

A general manager.

A scout.

A World Series champion.

And eventually one of the oldest active scouts in professional baseball.

When he received the Hall of Fame honor, McDonald talked about how difficult scouting could be and how much he respected the people who did it.

Another Hall of Fame member, Murray Cook, described McDonald as a master at gathering information and, perhaps more importantly, as a class guy who was pleasant and funny and a joy to be around.

That may be the best way to remember him.

Not simply as the GM who traded Tom Seaver.

Not simply as the executive who was there during the Mets' darkest years.

But as a man who spent essentially his entire adult life around baseball.

From Ebbets Field to Shea Stadium.

From the 120-loss Mets to the Miracle Mets.

From Tom Seaver to Jesse Orosco.

From the 1969 Mets to the 2018 Red Sox.

Seventy years.

One baseball life.

And somewhere, I suspect, Joe McDonald is probably looking for a seat behind home plate.

Because that's where his baseball education started.

And maybe that's where it should end.

Rest in peace, Joe.

And thank you for the memories.