Could John Hart be our GM in waiting?

[LookitsPuck]

Hart is beyond awful. Please no.

[weams]

3 hours ago, LookitsPuck said:

Hart is beyond awful. Please no.

Hart is out of baseball. 

[Tx Oriole]

On 11/23/2017 at 4:23 AM, mdbdotcom said:

I'd forgotten that John Hart was the O's third base coach at one time when Frank Robinson managed the team.

I think he'd be a good GM if not for Angelos. Does he want to work for an organization whose ownership has the GM's hand tied down? As much as I want Dan gone it's not going to matter because Angelos will tie down the new GM's hands. It's really sad what Angelos has done to the organization. I would like to see new ownership. Oh well. Life as a frustrated O's fan.

[Tx Oriole]

On 11/23/2017 at 2:07 PM, billw76 said:

Pass on Hart as the next GM. Yes he has a proven track record, but I'd prefer someone a little younger. I'm not sure what if any role he had in the Braves situation, but that alone would make me pass on him.

It wouldn't me. Too many people are condemned before there is any proof. 

[mdbdotcom]

4 minutes ago, Tx Oriole said:

I think he'd be a good GM if not for Angelos. Does he want to work for an organization whose ownership has the GM's hand tied down? As much as I want Dan gone it's not going to matter because Angelos will tie down the new GM's hands. It's really sad what Angelos has done to the organization. I would like to see new ownership. Oh well. Life as a frustrated O's fan.

What Angelos has done to the organization is light years better than what Eli Jacobs did to it before Angelos bought the team in a bankruptcy auction.  I'm not an Angelos fan, but it's good to keep these things in perspective.

[Frobby]

18 minutes ago, mdbdotcom said:

What Angelos has done to the organization is light years better than what Eli Jacobs did to it before Angelos bought the team in a bankruptcy auction.  I'm not an Angelos fan, but it's good to keep these things in perspective.

What did Jacobs do that was so awful?    He owned the team during the 1989-93 seasons.    In that time, the O’s had a winning record 3 times in 5 seasons, including his final two years.   About the worst you can say is that the Glenn Davis trade was executed during his tenure, but nobody ever suggested that was an owner-driven trade.

[mdbdotcom]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

What did Jacobs do that was so awful?    He owned the team during the 1989-93 seasons.    In that time, the O’s had a winning record 3 times in 5 seasons, including his final two years.   About the worst you can say is that the Glenn Davis trade was executed during his tenure, but nobody ever suggested that was an owner-driven trade.

That would require me quoting anonymous sources in the organization, some of whom are deceased, which I won't do. From your point of view, he wasn't so bad. From mine, we are lucky he had to give up the team.

[Tx Oriole]

2 hours ago, mdbdotcom said:

What Angelos has done to the organization is light years better than what Eli Jacobs did to it before Angelos bought the team in a bankruptcy auction.  I'm not an Angelos fan, but it's good to keep these things in perspective.

Don't know anything about Jacobs and I didn't know the team was in bankruptcy when Angelos bought the O's.

[Can_of_corn]

11 minutes ago, Tx Oriole said:

Don't know anything about Jacobs and I didn't know the team was in bankruptcy when Angelos bought the O's.

Jacobs was in Bankruptcy proceedings.  The team's finances were fine as far as I know.

[mdbdotcom]

1 hour ago, Tx Oriole said:

Don't know anything about Jacobs and I didn't know the team was in bankruptcy when Angelos bought the O's.

Jacobs was bankrupt. He lost the O's in an auction to help pay off his creditors. The team was not bankrupt.

[Ruzious]

8 hours ago, Tx Oriole said:

It wouldn't me. Too many people are condemned before there is any proof. 

He was cleared by MLB, but the fact that he hired Coppy and was his boss - and it was reported that it was well known throughout baseball what Coppy was doing for quite a while... Hart did nothing... and that was the problem.  There's not micro-managing, and there's gross negligence.  I'd call Hart's laziness negligence at best.  He's being let off easy only because he's a likable guy who built up a lot of goodwill in bygone days.  He SHOULD be done in any organized baseball, imo.      

[weams]

16 hours ago, Frobby said:

What did Jacobs do that was so awful?    He owned the team during the 1989-93 seasons.    In that time, the O’s had a winning record 3 times in 5 seasons, including his final two years.   About the worst you can say is that the Glenn Davis trade was executed during his tenure, but nobody ever suggested that was an owner-driven trade.

Quote

In court papers filed in connection with the bankruptcy, Jacobs said he had assets of $146.7 million and liabilities of $320.7 million. When he bought the Orioles in 1989, his worth was estimated at $500 million.

Meanwhile, the value of the Orioles escalated with the construction of their new park, Camden Yards, which is owned by the state of Maryland. Sellout crowds have become a routine occurrence.

However, Jacobs, who owns 87 percent of the Orioles, could not find a way to offset the problems in his other investments. He even borrowed money from the Orioles, including $6 million for one of his companies, Flagship Express Incorporated, a circuit-board business that ultimately went bankrupt.

Although secretive about his business interests, Jacobs is known to have enjoyed the company of powerful politicians, both from New York and Washington. He numbers among his political acquaintances former Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

1

Murray Chass

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/03/us/baseball-going-going-sold-orioles-auctioned-for-173-million.html

 

Also, folks forget that the Orioles could have been the Expos, or the r Marlins

Quote

The principals in the winning group yesterday rejected the idea that they paid an outrageous price for a baseball team.

"We were prepared to pay a premium within reason to bring back control of the baseball club to Marylanders," an elated Angelos said. "Certainly, I didn't think it would go this high."

The Angelos and DeWitt groups won the auction after merging their efforts just hours before the afternoon hearing before Judge Blackshear.

"I didn't find out until 12 o'clock," said a disappointed Jeffrey Loria, a New York art dealer. "It was sort of a gang-up. There was nothing we could do."

 

 

[billw76]

17 hours ago, Tx Oriole said:

It wouldn't me. Too many people are condemned before there is any proof. 

Your right, too many people are, but in this case I'd pass. It's a tough enough job to be the GM of this team with Angelos as the owner, and to add to that by hiring Hart within a year of the Braves mess IMO would be a big mistake for this franchise going forward. 

[Frobby]

9 hours ago, Ruzious said:

He was cleared by MLB, but the fact that he hired Coppy and was his boss - and it was reported that it was well known throughout baseball what Coppy was doing for quite a while... Hart did nothing... and that was the problem.  There's not micro-managing, and there's gross negligence.  I'd call Hart's laziness negligence at best.  He's being let off easy only because he's a likable guy who built up a lot of goodwill in bygone days.  He SHOULD be done in any organized baseball, imo.      

I’m with TX Oriole.    Guilt by association is not an adequate basis to ban Hart for life.    How do we know Hart was aware of rumors about what Coppy was doing?    I’d expect MLB to investigate Hart’s role, and if there’s evidence that he deliberately turned a blind eye to what was going on, then I’d support a ban.    But if it’s merely a case of something that happened to occur without Hart having reason to know or seriously suspect, I think losing his current job is easily punishment enough, and it’s for other teams to judge whether he’s worthy of being hired, not for MLB to dictate.   

[Tx Oriole]

1 hour ago, billw76 said:

Your right, too many people are, but in this case I'd pass. It's a tough enough job to be the GM of this team with Angelos as the owner, and to add to that by hiring Hart within a year of the Braves mess IMO would be a big mistake for this franchise going forward. 

You may be right. But again I haven't seen anything about a Braves scandal. I don't know and haven't heard what the so called scandal is about. So I don't know if Hart is guilty of anything. I just think he has a good baseball mind. What the O's need. Of course Angelos ties down the hands of his GM.