1961 New York Yankees Management Profiles

H. ROY HAMEY (General Manager)

"Though he is serving his first year as Yankee general manager, Roy Hamey is both an experienced general manager and long in the Yankee organization.

This is Roy's 37th year in baseball and his 17th with the Yankees. A native of Springfield, Illinois, Hamey started in baseball in his hometown as a business manager in 1925. Nine years later, Roy joined the Yankee organization as business manager of the Binghamton, N.Y. farm club. Three years later he moved up to the same post with Kansas City in the American Association. Later he served successfully and successively as that league's president, as general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, as assistant G.M. of the Yanks, as general manager of the Phillies and back to the Yankees.

A sound, aggressive front office executive, Hamey's aim, like those of Dan Topping and Del Webb, is to keep the Yankees strong. To do so he is concentrating special attention on the rapid building up of the Yankee farm system. That will provide for the continuation of strong Yankee ball clubs, this year and for the years ahead."

-The New York Yankees Official 1961 Yearbook

"Baseball players are the most suspicious of men. They disliked Lonesome George Weiss, the general manager of the Yankees, because he was brusque and austere. His successor, Roy Hamey, is friendly and gregarious. One of the Yankees told me that Hamey extends himself to make everyone happy. 'But,' asked the cynic, 'can you win pennants making ball players happy?' "

-Jimmy Cannon in the New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, August 1961)

J. ARTHUR FRIEDLUND (Secretary and General Counsel)

The Yankees' secretary and general counsel is a highly successful Chicago attorney. He has served the Yankees during all of the Topping-Webb regime. Art Friedlund is an enthusiastic sports fan and sees the Yankees in the Windy City, in spring training and in New York. He serves a host of major business firms in addition to other sports enterprises."

-The New York Yankees Official 1961 Yearbook

JOHNNY JOHNSON (Farm Director)

"Yankee Farm Director Johnny Johnson has the responsibility of directing the Yankees' seven-club farm system and the staff of 24 full-time scouts and 'bird dogs' (part-time scouts)."

-The New York Yankees Official 1961 Yearbook