Old Friends, Back in the Game
After Timeouts, Kasten, MacPhail Returned With Similar Ideas

By Barry Svrluga
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2008

When Andy MacPhail had a desk at Wrigley Field in Chicago, he would occasionally dial up his notoriously fidgety, then-unemployed friend, Stan Kasten. "If he was telling the truth," MacPhail said this week, "he was out on his back porch with a cup of coffee, perfectly happy."

That was back in, say, 2004, after Kasten departed his positions with Atlanta's Braves, Hawks and Thrashers, a three-sport executive in a four-sport town. Flip ahead a couple of years, and the calls went the other way: MacPhail, unemployed and likewise "perfectly happy," and Kasten on the other end wondering how that was possible.

By now, though, both men are very much back in baseball -- Kasten as the president of the Washington Nationals, MacPhail as the president of baseball operations of the Baltimore Orioles, two teams that play a three-game series this weekend at Camden Yards. Thus, tonight, for the first time since each of them enjoyed a hiatus from their life's work -- Kasten, from late 2003 to mid '05, MacPhail from late '06 to mid '07 -- they will meet as friends and opponents, each charged with resurrecting a franchise that had been in disarray.

"I know he believes in things that I believe in very much," Kasten said.

Indeed, attribute the following sentence to a Baltimore-Washington sports official: "As opposed to making what I would call sort of a 'Grade B' free agent signing splash, let's take the money and invest it in our franchise. That's scouting, player development."

Nationals fans could immediately point to Kasten, who has thumped that drum since he arrived in town. Yet it was MacPhail who uttered those words earlier this week.

These two aren't in complete lockstep. Kasten is high-strung and hyper; MacPhail, so low-key that Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville" serves as his cellphone ring. But they forged a tight relationship 20 years ago, when Kasten was first at the helm of the Braves and MacPhail a young general manager of the Minnesota Twins. They solidified it during the most tumultuous time in the game's history, the labor wars of 1994-95, when each worked on different facets of the strike's eventual settlement.

Now, their ballparks are separated by some 39 miles. The Orioles have endured 10 straight losing seasons. The Nationals haven't had a winning year since they relocated to Washington in 2005. The tasks, for Kasten and MacPhail, are somewhat parallel.

"I think, and I say this without hesitation, that Baltimore and Washington have two of the best executives in the game," Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig said yesterday. "There's no doubt about it in my mind."

Still, it's worth noting that these two men -- close personally and professionally -- come at their jobs from distinctly different backgrounds.

Kasten's 17-year tenure at the helm of the Braves is well documented, a run that included the franchise's two most important personnel moves -- moving Bobby Cox from the front office to the dugout, then hiring General Manager John Schuerholz away from the Kansas City Royals -- that led to a string of 14 straight division titles. But before that, Kasten was a lawyer, an NBA general manager, an executive running Atlanta's franchises at the behest of media mogul Ted Turner.

Titles Kasten did not hold in baseball: business manager for a rookie level team; assistant in the ballpark operations department; assistant director of player development and scouting; assistant general manager; general manager; son of a Hall of Fame executive; grandson of a Hall of Fame executive. Those all apply to MacPhail.

"Baseball's truly in his DNA," Kasten said. "He's not just a lifer. His family are lifers -- baseball lifers."

The main reason MacPhail's new desk sits at Camden Yards -- after 12 years as president and chief executive of the Cubs, nine years before that as the Twins' GM, where he won two World Series (including 1991, over Kasten's Braves) -- is because of that DNA. A MacPhail, out of baseball?

"I knew I'd come back," MacPhail said. "But I wanted to take the full year." He notes the irony in the timing of the announcement of his hiring -- last June 20, the first day of summer. "I've never been to Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket or anyplace like that," MacPhail said. Summers in baseball mean summers without vacations. "I was going to do that stuff."

The Orioles' job, though, was enough to change the plan. For a downtrodden franchise, the backdrop seemed perfect to MacPhail. His father, Lee (who later became president of the American League), ran the club as its general manager from 1958 to '65. Andy still has old pictures of himself, as a kid, hanging out with the Orioles of those days. "It's a labor of love," he said.

When Kasten joined the ownership group of the Lerner family in a bid to buy the Nationals, he had to learn the way his new bosses worked, a process that is still ongoing. Conversely, MacPhail knew Orioles owner Peter Angelos through two negotiating sessions for a collective bargaining agreement. In 2002, they were the only club representatives involved. After morning sessions, when the staffs of MLB and the players' association would retire to back rooms to work on details, MacPhail and Angelos were often left alone -- to kill time.

"What I came to appreciate about Peter was: Look, if Peter tells you 'X', just bank on it," MacPhail said. "He's going to do what he says he's going to do."

Thus, when Angelos flew to Chicago to talk to MacPhail about the Orioles job, MacPhail said he outlined the parameters under which he would be comfortable working for Angelos. "He said, 'Okay,' " MacPhail said. To outsiders, MacPhail's faith might seem naive, because Angelos's reputation was, at best, as a hands-on owner, at worst a full-on meddler. But because MacPhail had, as he said, "grown to know the human being," the trust was there.

Midway through last October, when he felt he had learned enough about the Orioles as an organization, MacPhail made a presentation to the franchise's top officials, Angelos included. The message, MacPhail said: "This is where you are. These are the commitments that you've made. This is the performance you're getting."

Ten straight losing seasons must have hung in the air. MacPhail made no recommendations at the time. He waited for it to sink in. Only later did MacPhail lay out his plan: strip it down, and build it back up.

"There was no, 'We could go 'A' or we could go 'B,' " he said.

Thus, the Orioles made 2-for-10 offseason trades that sent star left-hander Erik Bedard and shortstop Miguel Tejada elsewhere, but brought a core of players that might provide a foundation. Their payroll is $26 million less than a year ago, yet they enter this series near the top of the American League East standings.

"They're doing it a tough way," Selig said. "It's a painful way, but it's the right way. It was the right way in Branch Rickey's day, and it's the right way now."

It also happens to be, right now, the Washington way. Since the Lerners bought the team and Kasten came on board, General Manager Jim Bowden has overhauled the Nationals' scouting department to the point where Washington's 2007 draft was rated the best in the game. A joke became a juggernaut. MacPhail has similar goals.

There is no telling, at this point, whether each man will reach his ultimate goal in their current jobs, which is winning the World Series. Their admiration for each other is apparent with just one question.

Kasten on MacPhail: "A guy that everyone respects."

MacPhail on Kasten: "One of those people who's just scary smart."

There is also the matter of Selig, his job -- he is under contract through 2012 -- and his successor.

"I can tell you that Andy should be considered for any job in the hierarchy of Major League Baseball," Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry said. "He does literally make just about every decision for the good of the game."

Within baseball, MacPhail and Kasten are on the short list of names that are mentioned for Selig's job. Should they build successful franchises with reasonable payrolls, would that enhance their position?

"All I'm going to say on that score," Selig said, "is that they're two talented people who really know the game."

This weekend, they will cross paths again, their first meetings in their new positions, a long way from their time away, an even longer way back to the top.