George Kissell

George Marshall Kissell (September 9, 1920 – October 7, 2008) was an American professional baseball minor league player, manager, coach, scout, and instructor, as well as a Major League coach, for the St. Louis Cardinals organization, and a key in establishing "the Cardinal Way". Although his seven decade career was spent with the Cardinals, he had a much broader impact on baseball. He mentored hall of fame managers Earl Weaver, Sparky Anderson, Joe Torre, and Tony La Russa, and thousands of players over the years.

Kissel was inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in 2015.

Early life Kissell was born on September 9, 1920, in Evans Mills, New York, and grew up in the Watertown, New York area, on a dairy farm. where he earned both Bachelor's and Master's degrees in history and physical education. His senior thesis paper was on how to play and teach baseball.

At Ithaca, he started on the baseball and soccer teams from 1940–42. After graduating, and playing minor league baseball in 1941-42, Kissell served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He was inducted into the Ithaca College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1970. In 1941, he played 63 games in the minor leagues and 111 in 1942, playing Class D and Class B baseball, before enlisting in the Navy in 1943. His batting average was over .300 both years, and he led the Southern League in stolen bases in 1942. As a minor leaguer, he was primarily a third baseman, although he also played shortstop, and never rose above the Class B level as a player.

St. Louis Cardinals From 1969–75, Kissell served as a major league third base coach for the Cardinals, under manager Red Schoendienst. After serving as a coach, he continued on with the Cardinals; working with players at spring training, directing the team's winter instructional camps, and, until his death, serving as a senior field coordinator for player development. Kissell would diagram the possible game situations and explain how the Cardinals expected players to react. As of 2022, they had the fourth highest winning percentage in baseball history (behind the Yankees, Giants and Dodgers); and third highest from 2012-22, behind the Dodgers and Yankees. By one method, they have been rated as the third most successful team behind the Yankees and Dodgers.

Impact on baseball Kissell mentored a number of major league managers. In addition to Weaver, who played under Kissell for three seasons, La Russa, Torre and Anderson have the second, fifth and sixth most managerial wins in major league history (through the 2024 season), and Weaver has the sixth highest winning percentage (.583) among managers with over 1,000 wins (through the 2024 season).

All have prominently stated that Kissell was a primary influence on them as managers. In his Baseball Hall of Fame acceptance speech, Anderson said, “A man named George Kissell, the greatest single instructor I ever seen on fundamentals in my life. Fifty-some years with the Cardinals. And Georgie . . . he was something special to me.”

He tutored virtually all players in the Cardinals minor league system who would go on to major league careers from the 1940s to the 2000s, and players who joined the team via other means. In addition to mentoring Torre the manager, he helped guide Torre the player in switching from catcher to third base. and strong influence on other players like Keith Hernandez, Andy Van Slyke, and Mike Shannon. Kissell guided future All-Star and World Series winning third baseman Ken Boyer in his transition from pitcher to hitter and infielder in the minor leagues. He excelled at teaching switch hitting and bunting, and worked with switch hitters like Tom Herr, Willie McGee, Vince Coleman, Terry Pendleton and Ozzie Smith. La Russa has advocated for Kissell's inclusion in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.