‘Babe Ruth of the scouting world’ dies at 79
Gary Hughes, lying in his hospital bed last week, with barely enough strength to speak, uttered words that his family will forever remember.
“I had a good run, didn’t I?” Hughes whispered.
Oh, man, did he ever. Hughes, who spent 54 years in professional baseball, died Saturday at 79.
Hughes, the Babe Ruth of the scouting world and the most beautiful heart and soul in the game of baseball, had been battling liver cancer since being diagnosed in June, and died with his family at his side.
To know the man is to love the man, and everyone in the baseball world loved Hughes.
He was a rock star to everyone who came into contact with him. The moment he walked into a room you felt his gregarious presence.
It didn’t matter whether you were a baseball executive, a player, a writer, a broadcaster, a fan, a ball boy, a stadium concessionaire or a parking attendant.
He treated everyone as if you were his best friend.
“He meant so much to all of us in the game,” said Yankees special assistant Jim Hendry, who told Hughes what he meant to him in an emotional phone call Thursday when Hughes was taken from the hospital to his Bay Area home. “He’s a great human being, not just in baseball, but on this earth. There may be people who tied him, but nobody loved the game more than Gary Hughes. He didn’t care whether it was the New YorkPenn League or Game 7 of the World Series, he wanted to be there.
“He meant so much to all of us in the game. He gave an opportunity to so many people, including myself. If the game of baseball was made up with people like Gary Hughes, we never would have any problems.”
He loved the game of baseball, and man, did it ever love him back.
“Heaven took another great man back home,” said Astros manager Dusty Baker, a longtime friend of Hughes who spoke to him just 10 days ago.
Hughes, a special assistant with the Diamondbacks for the past year, was a baseball man, through and through, but never taking himself seriously, with his loud Jimmy Buffett shirts and his tales of Key West every January.
He loved telling people he came from the same high school, Serra High in San Mateo, California, as Tom Brady, Lynn Swann and Barry Bonds, just an earlier graduating year.
Hughes and about 20 members of his Serra graduating class would rent a couple of homes every spring training for a weekend, attend a Cubs game and a night at the old Don and Charlie’s restaurant with longtime friend Don Carson.
The most famous graduate of his class was All-Star third baseman and manager Jim Fregosi.
“Jim used to tell me, ‘Go play on the warning track, I’ve got everything else,’ ” Hughes said.
Said Hendry: “I know somewhere up there tonight Gary’s going to have a V.O. and water up there with Jimmy Fregosi.”
Oh, did he love the scouting fraternity. He was one of the founders of the Professional Baseball Scouting Foundation,
doing everything in his power to help those who lost their jobs. He was sickened by scouts being marginalized in the game and fought to the end, hoping one day scouts would have their own wing in the Hall of Fame.
“I don’t know anyone in the scouting profession who’s not grateful to him,” Hendry said. “He was one of the innovators of scouts getting more recognition, getting paid better, more benefits. He gave half of his money his whole life to people who needed it.”
Hughes’ legacy will never be forgotten. His son, Sam, is a scout with the Yankees, with another son, Michael Rock, the visiting clubhouse manager with the Marlins.
Hughes, voted as one of the top 10 scouts of the 20th century by Baseball America, could certainly spot talent. He signed John Elway out of Stanford for the Yankees. He played in their minor league system in college before becoming a Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback for the Broncos. He tried to sign Brady, too. He did sign John Lynch to be a pitcher for the Marlins, only for Lynch to turn to the NFL and become a ninetime Pro Bowler and now is general manager of the 49ers.
Hughes, who lamented the lack of Black players in Major League Baseball, was so proud to be the man who signed All-Stars Delino DeShields, Marquis Grissom, Cliff Floyd and Rondell White. He remained close to them throughout his life, as if they were an extended part of his family.
“Gary Hughes is an example of why there should be a scouts section in the Hall of Fame,” Athletics assistant GM Billy Owens said.
“Gary championed diversity throughout the game. He was instrumental in important hires throughout the game at every level. His friendships were vast and his loyalty was greater. Impossible to overstate how many lives he enriched over the years with his presence.
“Hopefully someday he’ll be an inaugural member when they put the scouts wing in Cooperstown.”
Hughes, who won five World Series, left his marks on virtually every franchise in baseball. He has scouted for the Giants, Mets, Mariners and Yankees. He was the scouting director of the Expos and Marlins. He was an assistant general manager with the Rockies and Reds. And a special assistant the past 18 years with the Cubs, Red Sox and Diamondbacks.
In the words of Jackie Robinson, “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”
Hughes sure had an enormous impact on me, a man I admired as much as anyone in the game and was blessed to call a dear friend.
We shared a house in Cooperstown at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony every year. There were four writers – Scott Miller, Kevin Kernan, the late Nick Cafardo and myself – who stayed together for the weekend. We were there to work. Gary was there because he wanted to celebrate the game, paying his respects to the great Hall of Fame and its newest class.
It was the most beautiful weekend of the baseball season, and we savored every moment, with Hall of Famers like George Brett gathering around Hughes, pleading for him to tell stories.
I love you Gary. Really, to be honest, I don’t know who didn’t.
You will forever have a place in not only my heart, but the game of baseball.