The American League East has its share of well-established general managers, but these executives were once fresh-faced up and comers. Andy MacPhail, Brian Cashman, Theo Epstein, Andrew Friedman and Alex Anthopoulos are now at different stages in their careers, but they were all relatively young when they took over teams for the first time. Here's how those five GMs were described at the time of their first GM gigs:
Alex Anthopoulos
“Two hours into the conversation and Alex Anthopoulos has barely taken a breath. He is that excited, that engaging, that much the chatterbox, that wide-eyed, that ready to take on the world and Blue Jays baseball.” – Steve Simmons, Toronto Sun, October 8th, 2009
Andrew Friedman
Friedman is “the cherubic-faced 29-year-old general manager of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays … scanning his BlackBerry for trade offers and checking pitch counts.” – Landon Thomas Jr., The New York Times, April 2, 2006
Theo Epstein
“The trappings of power mean little to him; what happens on the field is what counts. This is a young man in a hurry, and the fans are sure to be right at his heels.” – Bella English, The Boston Globe, December 5th, 2002
Brian Cashman
“Cashman, the new general manager of the Yankees, an affable 30-year-old with thinning brown hair and glasses, is accustomed to the dreary 18-hour days and to George Steinbrenner's yelping. Cashman, a strong negotiator and savvy administrator who admitted that evaluating talent is not his strength, confronts a position that Joe Torre calls the most arduous in baseball.” – Jack Curry, The New York Times, Feburary 4th, 1998
Andy MacPhail
MacPhail is “the son of former American League president and current president of the Player Relations Committee Lee MacPhail.” – United Press International, July 19, 1985
Yeah that about sums up MacPhail.
Ya, that really paled in comparison to the others. hahaha
AA has done an excellent job in rebuilding the Jays this year. The future looks bright, have faith in him as the GM and the direction the Jays are going. AL East is going to be an even more exciting and tight division next year! Gotta love it.
The problem with finding a quote about McPhail about when he was young is that he’s a quite a bit older than the other AL East GMs, and digging up quotes from the mid 80’s probably isn’t easy.
That being said, pretty funny that the quote is barely about him, or any of his potential qualities.
I like the quote that was picked for MacPhail. It emphasizes how glorified GMs are these days, whereas they used to be just organizational employees.
Wouldn’t it be a little more fair to look at what they said about McPhail when he actually took over Baltimore?
They would, but they aren’t allowed to post those words in public because of decency guidelines.
Ask any Cubs fan what they think about “McFail”.
Brian Cashman=GM that trades too many prospects
Brian Cashman=GM who has won the most World Series in his tenure than any other GM.