SABR Nine: Max Schumacher
Editor’s note: This article by Ryan Chamberlain was published in the May-June 2007 edition of the SABR Bulletin and is reprinted in its original form here. For more from the SABR Bulletin archives, click here.
By Ryan Chamberlain
If any one person exemplifies Indianapolis baseball, it may well be current Indianapolis Indians President and Chairman of the Board Max Schumacher. After starting with the team as ticket manager in 1957, Schumacher’s role with the team grew into publicity work and then eventually general manager of the team in 1961. “I was 28 years old and boy general manager,” as Schumacher puts it.
Fast forward to 2007, his 51st season with the Indians, the Tribe has turned a profit for 34 consecutive years under Schumacher’s leadership. Following the opening of Victory Field after years of work and persistence on his part, Schumacher earned American Association Executive of the Year honors and the franchise garnered the Bob Freitas Award as the top Triple-A club.
A SABR member since 1984, Max Schumacher’s contributions to professional baseball are more than can be summed up in a few short pages. Nevertheless, we are pleased to highlight the formidable achievements and indelible imprint that he has left on the game.
1. What made you decide to pursue a career in minor league baseball?
Well, I always loved baseball. I was a journalism major at Butler University and thought that I would probably end up working for a newspaper or the public relations department for a corporation or some such job. But I was in the army at Ft. Sheridan, Illinois and I was receiving the Indianapolis Star, this was in the fall of 1955, and there was a one-paragraph article that the ticket manager was leaving the [Indianapolis] Indians. I was to get out of the service a month later, so I contacted a gentleman I knew named J.R. Townsend Sr. who I knew knew Frank McKinney Sr. who was chairman of the board of the Indianapolis Indians, and I asked him if I could interview for that job. He scheduled an appointment for me to meet with Mr. McKinney right after I got back into Indianapolis in early December, and I was hired by him after the interview. They started me right after the first of January of 1957. I’ve been at it ever since then.
2. Who influenced your love of baseball?
My father was probably the greatest influence. My father was a professional musician. He played in the symphony orchestra and he also played popular music. He had his own band around Indianapolis that played in a 500-mile radius. But he didn’t make that good a living out of the music business and he really never encouraged my interest in music. But he loved baseball. We would play pitch and catch out next to the house. He’d fungo flies to me and ground balls. Take me to Indians games and we’d go over to Cincinnati occasionally to a major league game, up to Chicago and so forth. It would have to be my father that really encouraged that interest
3. What has been your favorite role with the team?
Well, certainly the most challenging position was general manager. I was general manager from 1961 through 1996. Then in the fall of 1997 I appointed my long-time assistant Cal Burleson to general manager. I was already president and chairman of the board and there was enough to do in those roles. I was 65 at the time, so I thought that was a good time to turn over the day-to-day operations, the “nuts-and-bolts” I call it of the operations to Cal Burleson. Certainly those years that I was general manager were the most challenging, but when you look back on it, the most satisfying.
4. What would you count as your biggest successes as general manager?
Well, I guess there’s two ways (to look at it), both financial and on the field. Because in the early years, we had a lot to do with the team on the field. Back when I started, the major league club still had what we called the “working agreements.” Now they call them player development contracts. But they would allow you to juggle some players on the roster. So you could trade players, with the idea being at the end of the season those players would go back to the team that owned their contracts. Juggle personnel around to make our teams stronger.
My first three years as general manager when we were active in player “juggling,” “manipulation,” “trading,” whatever you want to call it, we won pennants each of those three years: ’61, ’62 and ’63. So that was a great thrill. My first three years to have pennant races each of those years.
When the business began to change, it wasn’t practical for us to own any player contracts any longer. So in the early ’60s we began to phase out any ownership of any contracts we had. There weren’t a lot of them, but there were maybe four or five player contracts. Then we began to take the contracts of the major-league teams that we were affiliated with. Still, there was a lot of consultation that took place between the major-league team and the Triple-A general manager, so we were active in those discussions with the Montreal Expos, in 1986, ’87, ’88 and ’89 when we won four straight championships. So that was of course a tremendous thing to win four straight. There were other championships that were interspersed in there, in-between. But to have a streak of three your first year as general manager and then have a streak of four later on was very rewarding.
From a financial standpoint, minor-league baseball was very difficult to earn profits from back in the early ’60s, when I took over and all through the decade of the ’60s. We began to see the public’s attitude toward minor-league baseball change in the early ’70s. To be a part of that financial renaissance of the Indianapolis Indians, from a position where we would make a little money one year … by a little I mean $20,000 or $25,000 dollars to the next year lose $20,000 or $25,000 and then what have you over the decade of the ’60s to generating profits consistently. They weren’t huge at the time, but they were consistent.
5. Would you like to have more control over the players?
It’s frustrating for some of us who have been in the game a long time on the minor-league level to not have more input into the team. But it’s probably just a natural progression. Major league baseball has more money invested in their franchises and their players. And with legal obstacles that come along regarding players and their contracts, injuries to the players and so forth, their medical care. It’s probably a change that had to occur. Those of us who liked it the old way, it’s just not possible to turn the clock back to the ’60s.
Like anything in life, there are a series of challenges and adjustments that one has to make as you move through your life. There’s more scrutiny on minor-league baseball, which is good. We had the quick-buck operators that would buy a franchise for a million dollars, operate for a year or so and sell it for two million, happy with their profits, “See you, later.” Go buy a condo in Florida, what have you. We don’t need those type of people in our game. So that change has been a very good change.
There’s a lot more scrutiny now of people who want to come into professional baseball and own teams. Years ago, we actually gave franchises away, or for a nominal amount, to have people who would operate a team within the geography that we wanted to follow. We almost “gave” a franchise in Evansville and in Des Moines, Iowa. Those were two that I recall after we brought back the American Association after the years we had in the Pacific Coast League. Just to have two viable cities that were in our geography, where our travel wouldn’t be excessively priced. Now we know that they’re very valuable, these franchises.
6. What is your biggest challenge as President and Chairman of the Board?
In Indianapolis we have tremendous competition. The challenge is to keep the fans interested in a very competitive environment. We have the Colts and Pacers, three major auto races, a major tennis tournament, all of those will dominate the news media during the course of the year. So for us to be able to get our message out to the fans of central Indiana and to get them in here in sufficient numbers to continue to draw the attendance we historically have drawn, that is a major challenge. So now, you have to have competitive teams, you have to have a good marketing effort, good advertising behind the team. To make sure the fans continue to come in great numbers. So that’s the challenge as we go from year to year.
7. From your view, what do you think is special about the minor leagues that sets it apart from the major league game?
I think a lot of fans enjoy, I certainly enjoy it, is watching the young player come along. We’ve got a couple of very exciting players on this year’s team. For instance Brian Bixler, the shortstop and Nyjer Morgan, an outfielder. These two guys are both going to play in the major leagues, their both extremely exciting players. But to see those fellas come in, you know they’ve played in Double-A baseball last year. Now they’re in Triple-A and their doing a great job here after the first week of the season and year or two from now we’ll see them playing in the major leagues. We’ll look back and remember their growing pains as they worked through Triple-A baseball on their way to the major leagues.
8. What have been some of your favorite players that have come through Indy?
Oh boy, there’s been so many of them. It’s probably not fair to compare, because we knew the players so much better years ago then we do today. We had a lot of great ones, you can look at your record books and see a lot of great players who played here and moved on to the major leagues. Some of those memorable guys didn’t get to the major leagues. They were great Triple-A players. Particularly in my experience, going back to where there were 16 teams in the major leagues. There were a lot of excellent players who if they got to the major leagues it was a “cup of coffee.” But nevertheless, they loved the game. They had the hope to get to the major leagues so they would continue to play Triple-A baseball. And that was a wonderful thing for us. You look at a Ramon Conde years ago, you look at a Lenny Johnston, who still is working for the Baltimore Orioles as their minor league camp coordinator. Lenny is 78 years old. You look at a Razor Shines, who had that “cup of coffee” in the major leagues. He was a tremendous producer on the Triple-A level now coaching third base for the White Sox. Guys like that, in one sense of the word, are more memorable then the “Randy Johnsons” and “Andres Galarragas” who have gone to the major leagues in more recent years. A guy like Joe Sparks, who was probably the best manager we ever had. He was here three years. He managed those championship teams, the first three of those four I mentioned earlier in 1986, ’87 and ’88. To me, that’s a mini-tragedy that a guy like Joe Sparks never got an opportunity to manage a major league team. Those are some of the people that I remember more fondly than some of the guys who were here for a few months or one year and went to the major leagues.
9. What advice would you give to someone who wants to pursue a career in a minor-league front office?
The thing that I fervently believe in is the internship program. We have about a dozen interns every year that start to work for us in January and work until Labor Day when the season ends. These are college students who in most cases have made the decision that their going to pursue a career in sports administration. One of the things I tell them is that you need to make up of your mind, first of all, do you want to be in baseball? Or did you just happen to end up with an internship with us, but you could be just as happy or perhaps more happy in football, basketball, hockey, whatever? Decide which sport you want to pursue. Once you’ve decided that, then [ask yourself], do you want to work in the major leagues or the minor leagues? I have known people who have come into minor league baseball who feel like that’s the stepping stone to the front office in Major League Baseball. It doesn’t usually work that way. So if you want to work in Major League Baseball, that’s your goal, then get there in any capacity.
We’ve had some people who’ve had internships in “A” or “Double-A” and have another internship with us in Triple-A. Eventually, those people find their way to good jobs. It doesn’t always end up in a minor-league front office with a full-time job, but they’ll have a job in sports administration somewhere. This is to me, a sure-fire path to success for a young person is to start out with an internship.
Originally published: May 4, 2007. Last Updated: October 28, 2025.