Assistant general manager Lee Pelekoudas, who has worked in the Mariners’ front office since 1979, is leaving the organization. Pelekoudas, a vice president of the Mariners since 1997, said he was leaving to pursue other career opportunities.
“When I joined the Mariners in 1979 I fulfilled a dream of working in Major League Baseball,” Pelekoudas said in a statement released by the Mariners. “I deeply appreciate the tremendous opportunity I’ve had to work with some great people in a great city, and appreciate all that it has meant to me and my family for the past 30 years.”
Pelekoudas, the son of former major league umpire Chris Pelekoudas, joined the Mariners in 1979 as traveling secretary. He moved into the baseball administration department in 1987. Last year, after Bill Bavasi was fired, Pelekoudas served as interim GM for about four months.
Pelekoudas is known as a master at knowing the details of baseball’s complex rules and procedures involving player transactions. In 1995, he found a loophole in the regulations involving injured pitcher Greg Hibbard, allowing the Mariners to make pitcher Bob Wolcott eligible for the American League Championship series. Wolcott pitched the Mariners’ Game 1 victory over the Indians in the ALCS.
Pelekoudas is the second front-office executive to leave the Mariners within the past month. Jim Na, who joined the baseball operations department in 2001, resigned last month from his job as director of baseball administration.
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