way, shape and form. He wasn't a terrific mixer but George sure knew how to pick men. Why, you can't stay in baseball that long by pulling players out of an icebox." Yogi Berra said that Weiss could be difficult to deal with, but he praised the emotion that Weiss brought to the game as well as his understanding of the importance of scouting. He was inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame in 1982. With the debut of Elston Howard on April 14, 1955, the Yankees became the sixth of the eight American League teams—and the last of New York City's three big-league clubs—to break the baseball color line. According to the book Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee, Weiss at a cocktail party stated loudly that "he would never allow a black man to wear a Yankee uniform." The Yankees farm system had in place a policy preventing black players from reaching the major league club, according to the book. Howard, the first African-American Yankee, was switched from an outfielder to a catcher, the position at which it would be least likely to break into the major league club, given Berra's presence. Conflicting opinions have since been expressed about the reasons behind the Yankees' relative tardiness in integrating their playing roster. In their 2016 book, George Weiss: Architect of the Golden Age Yankees, authors Burton A. and Benita W. Boxerman devote a full chapter to the issue and explore some of the motivations that have been attributed to Weiss, both during and after his career. They write: Even though the delay in integrating the Yankees was likely a combination of factors including financial success, outstanding performance, unproductive scouts, and possibly the owners' bias against Negroes, it was Weiss, the chief decision-maker in the system, who was held responsible for the lack of a black Yankee. Did deep personal bigotries drive his decisions to delay integrating the Yankees as long as he could? Writers such as Roger Kahn and David Halberstam called him vicious and unable to empathize with any players, especially Negroes. It seemed a much more probable scenario that Weiss's true reason ... was pretty much what he declared when he was asked point-blank why there were no black Yankees: namely, that he was determined to choose a black player who would fit the "Yankee mould." On a contrary note, Steve Goldman, writing in the SBNation Yankee