EXPOS GM-IN-WAITING?
Anthopoulos would be good fit here
The day in September when the Toronto Blue Jays clinched a playoff spot against the Orioles at Camden Yards in Baltimore, a scene played out in the stadium that you simply don’t see in the world of professional sports. There was GM Alex Anthopoulos, sitting with his wife in the first row behind the Jays’ dugout, shoulder to shoulder with the fans.
The real fans, not the ones who hang out in the luxury boxes and schmooze while the game goes on somewhere far below.
And when the game ended and the orange-and-blue celebration commenced in the midst of black-and-orange Camden Yards, there was Anthopoulos, shaking hands, patting backs, exchanging hugs, celebrating with the very people who pay the freight for the entire bloated edifice of professional sports.
It was gratifying, it was humble, it was down-to-earth. It was Anthopoulos, the Greek kid from Montreal who has made it to the pinnacle of an intensely competitive sport by simply being himself. Anthopoulos remained precisely that, right up to the moment Thursday when he announced his departure from the Blue Jays, the architect of their success stepping down almost at the moment of their near-triumph.
His departure also started things buzzing in his hometown of Montreal. What was behind this? Was it really just office politics or was Anthopoulos headed home to become the baseball face of the group attempting to bring the Expos back to this city?
Was there a link between the young GM leaving the Blue Jays and the report that Mayor Denis Coderre and Stephen Bronfman, son of beloved former Expos owner Charles Bronfman, had circulated a letter to all the owners in MLB touting Montreal’s prospects as a destination for an expansion club or an existing team looking to relocate (think Oakland or Tampa)?
There appears to be no link between the resignation and the letter. The letter went out a few weeks ago and was only made public yesterday. Whatever momentum a Montreal baseball group might have, it isn’t like Anthopoulos could start putting together his Opening Day roster next week or even next spring.
It’s more probable that he will be hired by some established organization with lots of money and fewer wins than it expects — but there would be no better candidate out there to run a reborn Expos franchise than young Mr. Anthopoulos.
Like another enormously popular GM, Marc Bergevin, Anthopoulos has the common touch. Also like Bergevin, he sets the tone for an organization that goes far beyond mere player contracts and personnel moves. The way Anthopoulos interacted with the entire Jays organization established the culture of the team: relaxed, informal, friendly. Even in the midst of the playoffs, with the whole continent watching, the Blue Jays maintained that atmosphere.
In Montreal, we have learned a great deal about sports management by watching Bergevin and team president and CEO Geoff Molson these past three seasons. One thing we have learned is that management style and team culture really matter in terms of wins on the ice or on the baseball diamond.
The most dramatic change when Bergevin took over from Pierre Gauthier had to do with the way the two men dealt with people. Gauthier, nicknamed The Ghost with reason, was difficult, standoffish, and famous for such micro-managing nonsense as dictating the number of cookies reporters could eat in the press box or ordering up a vegan postgame meal for hungry players after a loss on the road.
Gauthier seemed to like and trust almost no one, including players, if we’re to go by his treatment of Mike Cammalleri and Jaroslav Spacek when they were traded. Bergevin could hardly be more different. His ship never leaks, but he has a joke and a smile for everyone. That style isn’t as important as assembling talent, but it has a huge impact on an organization — an impact that was constantly visible when Anthopoulos ran the Blue Jays.
All that is gone because Anthopoulos is a GM out of a job. One moment he was a hero, the toast of Toronto. The next moment, clearly the victim of machinations on the part of the ownership group led by Edward Rogers,
he had tendered his resignation because he saw the writing on the wall: newly hired team president Mark Shapiro, not Anthopoulos, was going to have the final call on personnel decisions.
(It was embarrassing to see how quickly on-air people like Jamie Campbell, who were hailing Anthopoulos as the greatest thing since Branch Rickey the day before, went on Sportsnet to mouth the party line: it was no big deal, it wasn’t really going to hurt the team, blah-blah-blah.)
If, as reports had it, Shapiro had roundly criticized some of the moves Anthopoulos made to turn the Blue Jays from pretenders to contenders, then Anthopoulos had little choice. Shapiro, by all
accounts, is corporate all the way, meaning he’s big on structure and PowerPoint presentations, meetings and memos.
Anthopoulos, on the other hand, is big on people: fans, reporters, clubhouse attendants, managers, players. That the Anthopoulos method was working was hardly lost on a furious fan base. Shapiro might be the first executive in sports history to be the target of a petition demanding his firing before he has actually started work, while Anthopoulos was named Major League Executive of the Year by his peers the very day he announced his departure.
Then again, having seen the roaring success that Rogers and
Sportsnet had with the Blue Jays dominating the airwaves in this country down the stretch, Bell and TSN ought to take note. The opportunity is here and now. Both Montreal and baseball have changed since the Expos died a decade ago. Coderre and Bronfman have even designated a site for a future ballpark, in the Peel basin below downtown.
If Bell wants to embarrass Rogers and hire the one perfect human being to run a new franchise in Montreal, well, Anthopoulos is the man. And because some people high up in the Blue Jays hierarchy were very, very stupid, he is available.