In the early 1950s, George Stephen lived in Mount Prospect, Illinois. He loved grilling, but couldn't stand the uneven flame he got on the grills of that time, and he couldn't grill in bad weather because grills didn't have lids. Instead of moaning about it, George tried to build a better one.

At the time, he worked at (and was part owner of) the Weber Brothers Metal Works, a Chicago custom order sheet metal shop that produced, among other products, half-spheres that were welded together to make buoys for use in Lake Michigan.

At the metal shop, he cut one of the buoys in half, created a dome shaped grill with a rounded lid, and when he was done, the classic original Weber kettle grill had been devised.

At first he called it 'George's Barbecue Kettle', and his neighbors all loved it so much that he couldn’t make them fast enough to satisfy the demand.

That was in 1952.

The year the Weber Grill was born was the same year the Cubs had their best season of the 1950s (they would end the year at .500). Featuring the MVP of the league in left field (Hank Sauer), centerfielder Frankie Baumholtz (who hit .325 that season), Handsome Ransom Jackson at 3B, and Dee Fondy at first (who hit .300 that year), the Cubs played way over their heads under the direction of Phil Cavaretta. The ace of the staff was Bob Rush (17 wins, 2.40 ERA). Unfortunately for the Cubs, the team came crashing down to reality the next year, just as the Weber Grills phenomenon went nationwide.

By the late 50s, Weber Grills would become common place around the country, including George Stephen's native Chicago—where Cubs fans could grill their lunch or dinner during the summer while listening to their favorite team charge toward the bottom of the standings.

In the late 1950s, Stephen bought out the Weber Brothers factory and became the sole owner, devoting all his professional time to manufacturing and selling the Weber kettle. The Cubs devoted their time to losing.

They didn't finish above .500 a single time in the entire decade of the 1950s.