George Stainback Dies; Baseball Player, Executive

Former major league baseball player and Los Angeles Dodger executive George (Tuck) Stainback, who played outfield for 13 years in the 1930s and 1940s before managing group ticket sales for the Dodgers, died Sunday in a Camarillo hospital as the result of a stroke. He was 81.

Stainback played for seven major league clubs, including the wartime New York Yankees, competing in two World Series and finishing with a career batting average of .259.

After the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958, Stainback, who had settled in the area after retiring from baseball, approached the Dodger’s Red Patterson with his idea to develop ticket sales to fraternal and civic organizations. He developed group ticket sales over a 20-year career as a Dodger executive and supervised the club’s Knothole program, which treated children to free games.

He retired in 1977 and moved to Newbury Park.

A Los Angeles native, Stainback attended Fairfax High School, where he was a four-sport letterman. Stainback placed second in the long jump in the state high school track meet one year but did not try out for baseball until his senior year.

He broke into professional baseball in 1931, playing for one year with the Texas League’s Bisbee Bees in Arizona and then for two years with the Los Angeles Angels in the Pacific Coast League.

Stainback hit better than .300 in each of his minor-league seasons, including a .356 average with 91 runs batted in for the 1932 Angels.

His first full season with the Chicago Cubs in 1934 was one of his finest. The rookie outfielder hit .306, a mark he would not better until he hit .327 for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1938.

After four seasons with the Cubs, Stainback was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in a deal for pitcher Dizzy Dean, but was quickly traded again to the Philadelphia Phillies and the Brooklyn Dodgers the same season.

Stainback later played with the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees before finishing his career with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1946. He played in the 1942 and 1943 World Series with the Yankees.

During the Great Depression, Stainback helped organize the first pension system for major league ballplayers. With fellow ballplayer Frank Crosetti, Stainback solicited $250 from individual players to help start a pension fund to protect destitute players.

“Tuck loved baseball and thought it was a wonderful life,” said Mary Lou Stainback, who married Stainback after the death of his first wife.

“Tuck was a great, fun-loving person, but also a serious person,” she said.

He is survived by his wife, a daughter and a stepson.