JANUARY 11 • 2024 | 37

ADAM FINKEL CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Meet Jeff Greenberg — 
The Tigers 20th General Manager

Every grand slam starts with early base 
hits. Just ask Wolf Blitzer. The JN pub-
lished a cover story written by the jour-
nalist on Nov. 15, 1985. A few years later, 
he would begin his noted career at CNN.
In that same month, the Pittsburgh 
Jewish Chronicle announced 
the birth of Jeffrey Samuel 
Greenberg. Last fall, the now 
38-year-old was hired as the 
newest general manager for 
the Detroit Tigers; its 20th 
in the team’s 123-year exis-
tence. 
Jeff’s early career base hits 
include stints at Major League 
Baseball, the Chicago Cubs 
and the Chicago Blackhawks. 
He moved to the Detroit area 
from the Lakeview, Chicago neighbor-
hood with his wife, Erin, a pediatric ICU 
nurse, and their young sons, Leo and 
Sam. 
His parents resided eight miles south 
of downtown Pittsburgh in the township 
of Upper St. Clair. His undergraduate 
years at the University of Pennsylvania 
directed him down the sports track. 
“I went to (Columbia) law school know-
ing I wanted to try to work in baseball. 
I was lucky enough to get two summer 
internships for the Pittsburgh Pirates 
when I was an undergrad, and it took 
me like three days to realize, ‘This is 
what I want to do,’ This was in 2006, and 
Michael Lewis’ Moneyball had been pub-
lished a few years before,” Greenberg 
recounted in recent years in a speech to 
Columbia Law School. 
“I graduated in 2011 and took the bar. 
Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer had just 
come to Chicago. They really had a 
vision for where they wanted to take the 
organization and were just looking for 
young, eager individuals, and so I got 
hired,” he said. 
Sports ran deep in the Greenberg fam-
ily. Jeff’s father, Chuck Greenberg, long a 
big baseball fan with admiration for play-
ers like right-fielder Roberto Clemente 
and close connections to hockey player 
Mario Lemiuex, achieved distinction as 

a sports attorney who would become a 
member of the Penguin hockey team and 
chairman and founder of the Greenberg 
Sports Group, owning three minor league 
baseball teams. He’d later become part 
of the ownership team of the Texas 
Rangers. Jeff describes his 
father as a significant influ-
ence on his life.
Rabbi Mark Joel Mahler, 
Rabbi Emeritus of Temple 
Emanuel of South Hills, where 
the extended Greenberg fam-
ily are members, estimates he 
officiated at 700 b’nai mitzvot 
during his career but few 
were as competent as Jeff 
Greenberg. 
Rabbi Mahler remarked to 
the Detroit Jewish News that he expect-
ed a lot from his students and remem-
bers Jeff as a diligent student. Mahler 
knows the family is “schepping nachas” 
with Jeff’s recent promotion.
That November service of Jeff’s bar 
mitzvah, Mahler recalled, was likely the 
teachings of Parshat Vayeira, which is a 
lesson that the road to grand slams in life 
is less about the achievements and more 
about the relationships along the way.
Jeff Greenberg — the diehard sports 
fan from his earliest memories — is now 
in his dream-come-true role. 
He said he is focused on building an 
enduring fan experience for Detroiters. 
He knows a thing or two about those 
first and second impressions. In his 20s, 
working on the baseball operations at the 
Chicago Cubs, he opened the door and 
brought an executive named Scott Harris 
into the facility. He showed him his office 
for the first time. He remembers being — 
perhaps — the first person in the organi-
zation Scott met at the Cubs. They built a 
trusted relationship over those six years. 
A mere decade after that first inter-
action, they both have now moved 289 
miles east. Scott Harris is now president 
of Baseball Operations for the Detroit 
Tigers and Jeff’s boss. Proving again that 
the road to grand slams in life is paved 
with good impressions. 

incredible. We sold out for two 
games and had a great crowd 
for the third game on Friday. 
It was goosebumps and tears 
for a lot of people the entire 
weekend. And it played out 
perfectly. 
JN: Is there a particular day/
game/moment that stands out 
the most?
BF: One day early in my 
career was when Jack Morris 
and Alan Trammell went into 
the Hall of Fame the same 
year. In 2018, I was part of 
the committee that worked 
on that plan. They were cele-
brated in Detroit, but also in 
Cooperstown. 
JN: What is your favorite part 
of working in Detroit?
BF: It’s been incredible to 
see the city’s growth. We’ve 
got a great group of people 
who live in Capitol Park right 
downtown. You can walk to 
work every day. It really is my 
favorite part. You’ll leave the 
Tigers, Red Wings, Lions or 
Pistons games and can also see 
crowds leaving a concert at the 
Fox Theater. The city just feels 
alive. It’s incredible to see the 
power of sports entertainment 
in the city with incredible ven-
ues and incredible fans coming 
together. 
JN: What connection points 
might you have to the Jewish 
community?
BF: My family, and my father 
in particular, is very involved 
in our local synagogue in South 
Haven, Michigan. I was just 
there recently for a holiday, and 
it was awesome to be back at 
a place where I spent a lot of 
childhood holidays. 
It is a blessing to walk by 
the Downtown Synagogue in 
Detroit. It’s right next to my 
apartment in the city. It warms 
my heart to see it undergo such 
a transformation in the last few 
years. 

COURTESY OF DETROIT TIGERS

Jeff Greenberg

