Yankees Birthday of the Day: George Zeber

Some ballplayers have signature achievements in Major League Baseball, milestones or moments that endure as part of their legacy. For some, making it to the big leagues in the first place is the mountaintop. George Zeber’s path to the Yankees was a circuitous one laden with setbacks and championed by a future Hall of Fame manager with a remarkably similar playing career to his protégé’s. Through war and peace, injury and recovery, and the many rungs on the minor-league ladder, Zeber’s ascent was as unlikely as it is admirable.

George William Zeber
Born: August 29, 1950 (Ellwood City, PA)
Yankees Tenure: 1977-78

George Zeber was born in Pennsylvania but grew up in Anaheim, CA. George was five when his father died, and his stepfather, Morris Davis, became a huge influence in his life. Davis “[w]as a wonderful person, got me into baseball and took care of the family,” he would later say. Zeber got enough into baseball that the Yankees selected him in the fifth round of the 1968 June amateur draft.

Zeber started his pro career in Rookie ball, playing middle infield and hitting from both sides of the plate. While his bat did not stand out, his glove did, as the 17-year-old led his team in fielding percentage at both second and short. Defense quickly became a calling card for the young prospect as he advanced to A-ball the following season.

After a promising 1969 campaign, though, Zeber would spend two full years away from baseball. He was drafted into the U.S. Army before the ’70 season, assigned first to a stateside post and then to the Quang Tri province in Vietnam. Zeber served as part of an assault helicopter group where he saw combat. The experience altered the course of his life in more ways than one. “It was quite a while before I could pick up my life and get my head straight after serving in Vietnam,” he would later say, underscoring a phenomenon that affected many young men of his generation.

Zeber reported to Double-A West Haven in 1972 a changed man. In addition to the psychological impact of his service, Zeber had lost 30 pounds and was not in baseball shape. “I don’t feel comfortable in the field,” he said at the time. “I just don’t feel as agile as I did before going into the Army.” While he posted the highest OPS of any full season in his pro career, his defense suffered, as he committed an uncharacteristic 29 errors. ’72 was also the first year he played under Bobby Cox, who after spending two years as a part-time infielder with the Yankees in the late ’60s was beginning what would be a 40-year coaching career that landed him in Cooperstown.

Both Cox and Zeber were promoted to Triple-A Syracuse the following year. But Zeber suffered an knee injury that threatened to derail his career, a setback from which he would later say he was “never was quite the same.” He seriously considered walking away from baseball over the next year, crediting his first wife, Duskie, for convincing him to keep pushing. Before the ’77 season, Zeber was given an invitation to big-league spring training and made the most of it, winning the Yankees’ James P. Dawson award, given each year to the team’s best-performing rookie in camp. Billy Martin, the team’s famously intense manager, gave the prospect his highest of praise. “I like George’s attitude,” he said at the time. “He’s a real hard-nosed guy.”

At the age of 26, Zeber had earned his call to The Show. No one was happier than his former manager (now his first-base coach), another man known more for his fiery temperament than his sentimentality. “You have to admire him,” said Cox. “George was a great prospect, and then after the knee thing, he was just holding on. A lesser man would have quit. As a manager you try not to get too close to any player, but there isn’t any player that I ever had that I rooted for as hard as I rooted for George.”

After the Yankees acquired Bucky Dent on April 5th, Zeber served mostly in a reserve capacity in ’77, appearing in only 25 games — mostly spelling Willie Randolph at second. Still, he played well in limited action, hitting .323 with a .913 OPS in 75 plate appearances. He even got two pinch-hit appearances in that year’s World Series, striking out in each as the Yankees won their first championship in 15 years.

Zeber started the ’78 season with the Yankees, but only appeared in three games before he was sent down in June. After spending the rest of the year back down at Triple-A, he made the decision to walk away from the game for good, starting a family and working in real estate and home building in the Santa Ana, CA area.

While Zeber’s career was brief, it was a remarkable testament to his fortitude. The man himself said it best years later. “Getting the opportunity to play in a World Series in my hometown in L.A. was a thrill,” he said in 1991. “I have no regrets about my career.” Please join us in wishing a very happy birthday to George Zeber.

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