Dodd: ‘Take this shot and see what happens’: How to land a job in baseball at the Winter Meetings
From Rustin Dodd at The Athletic on December 12, 2019:
At baseball’s Winter Meetings, a life can change in a matter of days, or minutes. On Tuesday night, the Yankees agreed to pay free-agent pitcher Gerrit Cole $324 million across nine seasons, handing out the largest contract for a pitcher in the history of baseball and guaranteeing that a generation of Coles will no longer fret about surge pricing on rideshares. Yet it’s not just the millionaire free agents or the blockbuster trades that define the spirit of the Winter Meetings, which wrapped up Thursday at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. It’s the Nick Kralls, the young men in the boxy suits, the young women talking to club officials over coffee, the hundreds of eager job seekers who fill the lobby and hand over resumes and, at times, seem to be in the middle of what can feel like largest simultaneous job interview in the world.
“I didn’t know anybody,” Krall said. “I had a hard box with resumes and I just carried them around with me in a little binder.”
Krall, 42, is the general manager of the Cincinnati Reds. A holder of a coveted executive position in a front office, he spent the past week holed up in a suite, shaping the future of his club with Dick Williams, the Reds’ president of baseball operations. He also launched his career as a bold job seeker who showed up to the Winter Meetings uninvited, scored a job with the now-defunct New Jersey Cardinals, a short-season team in the New York-Penn League, and then did the same thing again the next year.
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Originally published: December 12, 2019. Last Updated: December 12, 2019.