Joseph Henry Garagiola Jr. (born August 6, 1950) is currently the special advisor to

Arizona Diamondbacks The Arizona Diamondbacks are an American professional baseball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. The Diamondbacks compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West Division. The franchise was established ...

president and CEO

Derrick Hall Derrick Martin Hall (born February 17, 1969) is an American sports executive currently serving as the president (corporate title), president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Hall joined the Diamondbacks in May 20 ...

and formerly the senior vice president of standards and on-field operations for

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

. He was previously senior vice president of baseball operations for MLB from 2005 to 2011 and the

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

of the Arizona Diamondbacks from 1997 to 2005.

Early life

He is the son of

Joe Garagiola Sr. Joseph Henry Garagiola Sr. (February 12, 1926 – March 23, 2016) was an American professional baseball catcher, and later a radio and television personality with a varied career. He played nine seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the S ...

, who played

catcher Catcher is a position in baseball and softball. When a batter takes their turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the (home) umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. In addition to this primary duty, the catc ...

for the

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Centra ...

and

Pittsburgh Pirates The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central ...

in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1973, Garagiola, along with Chris Hart, appeared on the game show ''

To Tell the Truth ''To Tell the Truth'' is an American television panel show. Four celebrity panelists are presented with three contestants (the "team of challengers", each an individual or pair) and must identify which is the "central character" whose unusual ...

'' as impostors pretending to be police detective Richard Buggy. Garagiola's father and Hart's mother,

Kitty Carlisle Kitty Carlisle Hart (born Catherine Conn; September 3, 1910 – April 17, 2007) was an American stage and screen actress, opera singer, television personality and spokesperson for the arts. She was the leading lady in the Marx Brothers movie '' ...

, were regular panelists on the show at the time and both appeared as part of a prank on their parents. He is an alumnus of

Archbishop Stepinac High School Archbishop Stepinac High School is an American Single-sex education, all-boys' Catholic Church, Roman Catholic high school in White Plains, New York. It was operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York until the 2009–2010 school yea ...

, the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac (known simply as Notre Dame; ; ND) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1842 by members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a Cathol ...

and

Georgetown University Law Center Georgetown University Law Center is the Law school in the United States, law school of Georgetown University, a Private university, private research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law ...

General manager

In the 1990s, Maricopa county supervisor Jim Bruner discussed the idea of putting in a bid for an expansion team in

to play in Arizona with his friend Joe Garagiola Jr., who at the time was a Phoenix sports attorney. In 1993, they set up a meeting with

Jerry Colangelo Jerry Colangelo (born November 20, 1939) is an American businessman and sports executive. He formerly owned the Phoenix Suns of the NBA, the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA, the Arizona Sandsharks of the Continental Indoor Soccer League, the A ...

, who at the time was owner of the

Phoenix Suns The Phoenix Suns are an American professional basketball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. The Suns compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division (NBA), Pacific Division of the Western Conference (NBA), We ...

; Colangelo liked the idea enough to serve as the spearhead for assembling a group to fundraise the money required (over $125 million) while also serving to help with public financing a downtown baseball stadium, which later came to be known as

Chase Field Chase Field, formerly Bank One Ballpark, is a retractable roof, retractable-roof stadium in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. It is the ballpark of Major League Baseball's Arizona Diamondbacks. It opened in 1998 Arizona Diamondbacks season, 1998, the ...

. On March 9, 1995, the state of

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

was awarded a franchise by

for play in the 1998 season. Colangelo served as managing general partner while hiring Garagiola to serve as general manager in 1995 (Colangelo also hired the first manager in

Buck Showalter William Nathaniel "Buck" Showalter III (born May 23, 1956) is an American professional baseball manager. He served as manager of the New York Yankees (1992–1995), Arizona Diamondbacks (1998–2000), Texas Rangers (2003–2006), Baltimore Oriol ...

). Arizona fielded a short-season farm team after the draft in June of 1996 before fielding further teams by the end of 1998. The Diamondbacks participated in the

1997 Major League Baseball expansion draft On November 18, 1997, Major League Baseball (MLB) held an expansion draft to allow two expansion teams, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, to build their rosters prior to debuting in the National League West and American Leag ...

on November 18. The day prior to the expansion draft, the team signed

Jay Bell Jay Stuart Bell (born December 11, 1965) is an American former Major League Baseball shortstop and former manager of the Rocket City Trash Pandas of the Southern League. He played for the Cleveland Indians (1986–1988), Pittsburgh Pirates (19 ...

to a $34 million contract across five years. This was the first of several moves made to spend on a winner as soon as possible, to the point where they asked players to take deferred salaries, which they would defer for a couple of years to be repaid later. Garagiola oversaw the 35 selections for his team (the same was true for the Tampa team). Upon losing the coin toss for the first pick, the Diamondbacks selected Brian Anderson as the second overall pick. In December of 1998, the team added

Randy Johnson Randall David Johnson (born September 10, 1963), nicknamed, "the Big Unit," is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (1988–2009) for six teams, primarily the Seattle Mariners and Arizo ...

on a five-year contract of $52 million. In July 2000, they acquired

Curt Schilling Curtis Montague Schilling (born November 14, 1966) is an American former Major League Baseball right handed pitcher and commentator for media outlet BlazeTV. He helped lead the Philadelphia Phillies to a World Series appearance in 1993 World Seri ...

from the

Philadelphia Phillies The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. The Phillies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East Division. Since 2004, the team's home stadium has ...

in a trade. In eight seasons as general manager, the Diamondbacks had five straight winning seasons, which included winning 100 games in their second year as a team in 1999 and a world championship in 2001. However, consecutive losing seasons in 2004 (111 losses) and 2005 mired the team for years to come financially.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Garagiola, Joe Jr. 1950 births Living people American people of Italian descent Archbishop Stepinac High School alumni Arizona Diamondbacks executives Georgetown University Law Center alumni Major League Baseball central office executives Major League Baseball general managers Businesspeople from St. Louis University of Notre Dame alumni