SEATTLE – Bill Bavasi and Bob Fontaine Jr. are together again, and if they can guarantee their work for the Seattle Mariners will turn out as well as it did for the Anaheim Angels, they might not change anything.
Well, one thing.
They’d like to be around for this one.
The Mariners hired Fontaine, who will enter his 33rd year in baseball, as their scouting director Friday. It’s a move that reunites him with Bavasi, the newly hired Seattle general manager who was the Angels’ GM from 1994-99.
The pair worked together with the Angels before they were caught up in a front-office cleaning in 1999. Three years later, the Angels won the World Series with a roster primarily built by those two.
“Knowing so many of those kids, we took some pride, obviously from a distance,” Fontaine said. “I’d be a liar to say there wasn’t a little smile on my face.”
Fontaine’s resume goes well beyond the Angels’ championship. Among players he has signed to their first pro contracts are Ozzie Smith, Tony Gwynn and Randy Johnson.
“A lot of scouts talk about the players they got to the big leagues,” Bavasi said. “This guy’s talking about the guys he got to the Hall of Fame.”
Fontaine, the Chicago White Sox’ player development director the last four years, will be responsible for running the Mariners’ scouting department with a specific emphasis on the June amateur draft.
“He knows how to work a draft board,” Bavasi said. “By looking at the number of players on the field when the Angels won, a lot of those guys came out of his draft. Performance is everything and he’s got a good track record.”
Fontaine, the son of the late Bob Fontaine Sr., who was the San Diego Padres’ scouting director and general manager in the 1970s and ’80s, has worked for the Padres, Montreal Expos, Angels and White Sox.
“He always told me that this is the greatest job in the world and be thankful that you’re going to the ballpark for a living,” Fontaine said of his father. “I thoroughly enjoy every day I go to the ballpark.”
The hiring of Fontaine accompanied a chain-reaction of promotions in the Mariners’ front office.
Roger Jongewaard, the director of scouting and player development, was named vice president and special assistant to the general manager; Benny Looper, player development director, took over Jongewaard’s former duties; Frank Mattox, scouting director since 1997, was named director of player development; and Greg Hunter, director of minor league administration the last three years, was named director of minor league operations. Lee Pelekoudas, vice president of baseball administration, remained in his position.
Schedule due soon: The Mariners expect to announce their 2004 regular-season schedule on Monday. The club had hoped to release the schedule weeks ago, but it was delayed because of the possibility of an opening trip to Japan – which won’t happen – and some late difficulties involving interleague opponents.
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