The Baltimore Orioles made a big commitment to center fielder Adam Jones, announcing Sunday he signed a six-year, $85.5 million contract extension — the biggest contract in franchise history.
Let’s hope Orioles general manager Dan Duquette has better luck with the signing of a center fielder than I did during my brief, unofficial one-time stint as the club’s GM.
Sportswriters, like fans, sometimes believe that they could be successful in building a winning team if they were in charge of player personnel.
Years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for a sportswriter to find himself on the team management side during his career and become a general manager.
Former New York Mets GM Frank Cashen, the architect of that 1986 World Series championship team, was a former columnist for the Baltimore News-American. Former New York Giants GM Ernie Accorsi, who drafted Eli Manning, is a former sportswriter, as is current Carolina Panthers GM Marty Hurney.
So why not me?
I was a beat writer covering the Orioles in 1995, the second year of Peter Angelos’ ownership. Angelos liked talking to writers and did so often, usually divulging information the rest of the organization would have preferred kept secret. But it was a two-way street sometimes, and he asked for advice occasionally. It was an awkward situation but was the price you paid if you wanted to keep the faucet of information running.
After the courts forced baseball to allow players back under the previous labor agreement, thereby ending the strike, teams were scrambling in April to finish rosters. Brady Anderson was the left fielder, and the team felt it had a future center fielder in Curtis Goodwin. But they were reluctant to bring him up yet, so Angelos asked me what I thought they should do in center field.
“Sign a veteran who is coming off an injury and trying to prove himself for one year — like Andy Van Slyke,” I said.
Two days later, the Orioles signed Van Slyke to a one-year, $600,000 contract.
Van Slyke was a three-time All-Star center fielder for the Pirates coming off two injury-plagued seasons. He was a 34-year-old free agent and had something to prove. Seemed like a brilliant idea to me.
He hurt his left forearm the second day of the abbreviated spring training. Van Slyke played just 17 games for Baltimore, batting .159 with 10 hits. Three of those hits were home runs, so at least there was some value out of the minimal production.
Van Slyke was traded on June 18 to the Phillies for Gene Harris and was out of baseball after the season was over. That was my walk on the baseball front office wild side.
I think Adam Jones is a better bet.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
