CHICAGO — Bill Smith remembers his rookie year.
“I got hammered by fans,” the Minnesota Twins general manager said.
“Centre fielder Torii Hunter left as a free agent and we traded former Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana,” Smith recalled at the GMs meetings. “It was rough.”
Still, the Twins survived. winning 88 games in 2008, Smith’s rookie year, and this season were in the post-season again.
The same hammering from fans likely lies ahead for rookie GM Alex Anthopoulos if he deals former Cy Young award winner Roy Halladay.
“Alex is a bright young guy,” Smith said. “He’s well prepared, better prepared than most from our meetings with the Jays.”
As a teenager, Anthopoulos sat at Olympic Stadium to watch Montreal Expos players such as Marquis Grissom, Delino DeShields and Larry Walker, but it was Dave Dombrowski, then the Expo GM, he was “in awe of,” and wanted to meet.
The young Expos fan and Dombrowski, now GM of the Detroit Tigers, ate at the same table this week.
For Anthopoulos who handled the national media in stride, who fared well in one-on-one meetings, it was his welcome to the big leagues moment.
Also at the table were GMs Andy MacPhail of the Baltimore Orioles, Kenny Williams of the Chicago White Sox, Jim Hendry of the Chicago Cubs, Doug Melvin of the Milwaukee Brewers and Walt Jocketty of the Cincinnati Reds.
“That,” Anthopoulos said, “was a Hall of Fame table.”
MacPhail guided the Twins to World Series wins in 1987 and 1991, Dombrowski won in 1997 with the Florida Marlins, Williams guided the White Sox to the 2005 title and Jocketty’s St. Louis Cardinals won in 2006. Melvin and Hendry’s teams have reached post-season play.
“I haven’t had a meeting with Alex yet,” Dombrowski said “but we’ve had phone conversations last week. I didn’t know him before because when you called J.P. Ricciardi it wasn’t like he had a lot of guys around him.
“Alex asked for pointers, how to handle certain situations. He asked some very intelligent questions. He’s very knowledgeable and not intimidated.”
One of the first GMs to call Jays president Paul Beeston on his choice as the fourth GM in club history was New York Mets boss Omar Minaya. Anthopoulos worked for Minaya with the Expos when Major League Baseball owned the team and employees did the work of three or four people.
“I wish,” Minaya said with a laugh, “I could scout players as well as I could scout executives.”
Minaya met Anthopoulos at 6 a.m. one day in 2002 at the Expos’ training facility in Jupiter, Fla.
“Alex wanted to work for free,” Minaya remembered. “I was never afraid to say: ‘Alex, can you handle this?’ I didn’t know how it got done, but it always got done. In some ways he reminds me of myself.”
Minaya was working the perfume counter at Bloomingdale’s when Sandy Johnson hired him to work for the Texas Rangers. When he became the Mets GM, Minaya hired Johnson as his special assistant.
Also under Minaya with the Expos were Dana Brown and Perry Minasian. Anthopoulos hired Brown, former scouting director of the Washington Nationals, as his special assistant and Minasian was hired a year ago as a scout and recently was promoted to director of pro scouting.
“How great is that? A Canadian kid grows up to be GM of Canada’s only team,” Minaya said. “Doug Melvin was asking me about him and I told him about his fantastic work ethic. I knew he was going to be a good scout. We had him involved in the draft room. He had opinions.”
Now for Anthopoulos comes the long road ahead, one travelled before as rookies by Smith, Dombrowski, Minaya and Melvin.
