finalyear death_date debutyear statvalue finalteam birth_date alt death_place finaldate image statlabel debutteam name throws caption birth_place debutdate bats position article_title
1912 04 june 1957 1911 .222 0 16 st. louis browns 19 december 1882 a baseball uniform . he has a baseball in his right photo hand , and his catcher 's mitt in his left of . he is in the middle of the field , a while two other ballplayers are talking in the background . man his facial expression indicates that he did not expect to standing be photographed . up wearing his new york , new york september 22 paulkrichell-edit-cropped . jpg batting average home runs rbis st. louis browns paul krichell right paul krichell during the 1911 season paris , france may 12 right catcher paul krichell

paul krichell

paul bernard krichell -lrb- december 19 , 1882 -- june 4 , 1957 -rrb- was a major league baseball catcher , best known for being the head scout for the new york yankees for 37 years until his death .
krichell 's talent evaluations and signings played a key role in building up the yankees ' run of success from the murderers ' row teams of the 1920s to the 1950s teams led by casey stengel .
krichell began his professional career in the minor leagues , playing as the reserve catcher for the st. louis browns before a serious injury threatened his career .
he continued to play in the minor leagues and began to move into coaching before yankees manager ed barrow signed him as a scout in 1920 .
considered one of the greatest scouts in baseball history , krichell signed over 200 players who later played professional baseball , including future baseball hall of famers lou gehrig , hank greenberg , phil rizzuto , whitey ford , and tony lazzeri .
his recommendation of stengel as the yankees manager was instrumental in stengel 's appointment in 1948 .
barrow called krichell `` the best judge of baseball players he ever saw '' .
