The hugely successful businessman Brian Cashman is a baseball executive for the New York Yankees. He has been their General Manager and Senior Vice President since 1998, and during his tenure the Yankees have won six American League pennants and four World Series championships. He was named to Crain’s New York Business 40 under 40 list for 1999, and was selected by the Boston chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America as their MLB Executive of the Year for 2009. In 2010 he was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame, and in 2017 was selected as Baseball Executive of the Year. Away from baseball, he has helped to raise awareness for the Wounded Warrior Project, and has slept on a New York City sidewalk to raise awareness on behalf of homeless youth.
Cashman was born and raised in New York. He became a baseball fan at a young age, attending a summer camp hosted by former New York Yankees legend Bucky Dent. He also served as a batboy for the Los Angeles Dodgers during spring training in 1982, while visiting his grandmother in Florida, and became a diehard fan of the team. He played baseball at school and then, when he attended The Catholic University of America to study history, he played college baseball for the Catholic Cardinals, competing in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division III. He was a four-year starter at second base and the team’s leadoff hitter, setting a school record for most hits in a season. He also joined the New York Yankees organisation as an intern in 1986. He graduated in 1989, and the Yankees offered him a position as a baseball operations assistant. He quickly rose through the ranks, until he made Senior Vice-President and General Manager in 1998, becoming the second-youngest general manager in MLB history. In 2017, he signed a 5-year, $25 million contract with the Yankees to keep him as General Manager through to 2022, making him the longest-tenured General Manager in Yankees history.
Away from the office and the baseball diamond, Cashman was involved in developing the 2k Sports video game, MLB Front Office Manager.