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| John Schuerholz (l), With “Built
To Win” Co-Author Larry Guest |
When
JOHN SCHUERHOLZ became GM of the Braves, the team was coming off its seventh straight losing record, third straight last-place finish and the worst record in baseball. Attendance reflected the sorry state. The Braves were the only major league team not to have drawn 1 million fans in ‘90. A year later, the Braves came within one out of winning the World Series. The success endured, with 14 consecutive division titles, five National League pennants and one World Series crown -- all without the inflated player payrolls of other successful clubs -- and average attendance of 2.9 million. In “Built to Win,” co-authored by
LARRY GUEST, Schuerholz chronicles his Braves new world and his earlier initiation into the game in Baltimore and K.C. In a midseason interview with SportsBusiness Journal New York bureau chief
Jerry Kavanagh, Schuerholz discussed baseball and leadership as the Braves’ chances for another NL East title dimmed.
FAVORITES
Piece of music: “Come Go With Me,” by the Del Vikings. I’m a child of the ’50s. And just about anything MOZART wrote.
Author:I’m from Baltimore, so go figure: EDGAR ALLEN POE.
Quote:[EDMUND BURKE’s] “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.”
Movie:“The Big Chill”
Last books read: “The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America and the Story of Golf,” by MARK FROST; “The Devil in the White City,” by ERIC LARSON.
Pet peeve: It sounds snobbish to say pet peeve. I like well-spoken people who express themselves effectively and clearly and use the language as it was meant to be used. Communication is a very valuable and precious asset, and we ought to do it well.
Q: What is the best professional advice you received?
Schuerholz: Know the value of good people. That would be 1-A. And be prepared would be 1-B.
Q: Who is the smartest player in baseball?
Schuerholz: GREG MADDUX. He was uncannily intelligent about the art and science of pitching.
Q: Who would play you in the movie version of “Built to Win?”
Schuerholz: MICKEY ROONEY? He’s about my size. You should ask my wife that. I’ll leave that decision to others.
Q: What has been your most difficult decision?
Schuerholz: In a general sense, it’s having to make a tough business decision that ultimately leads to our having to end a relationship with a player whom I have grown to have great admiration and respect for professionally, and some of whom I have grown to admire and enjoy on a personal basis.
Q: Of the career-changing decision you made many years ago, you said: “I’m no doubt the only teacher in the history of that profession who has voluntarily left teaching to take a job for less money. Most people leave teaching to make more money. I left to pursue my dream, to be a part of professional baseball.” Any regrets?
Schuerholz: None whatsoever. I have the benefit of 40 years of hindsight, and things, I’d say, have turned out swimmingly as a result of that decision. Now, when I made it, the hard, cold, economic reality was that I was giving up $2,100. That was 30% of my income. So, that was pretty dramatic. I felt in my gut then, and obviously it’s proven to have been the right move for me.
Q: Former Orioles GM HARRY DALTON told you in ‘81 that no one could be a GM for more than ten years. How have you lasted so long, and so successfully?
Schuerholz: By being surrounded by good and hard-working people and having a passion for what I do. I had a passion for teaching when I taught, and I’ve had a passion for baseball since I’ve been in it, and I believe that’s one of the essential ingredients for anyone to succeed.
Q: During your tenure, the Braves have averaged ten new players each year. As JOHN SMOLTZ pointed out, the teams that beat the Braves in the playoffs all fell back while the Braves remained in contention every year.
Schuerholz: It has been challenging and not without the need for being really creative. We keep one foot in the land of intended competitor (and expected winner) and the other foot in the need to manage changes of the roster effectively. So, we can keep a fresh roster each year, maintaining our core of good, veteran, capable championship-caliber players but adding to it, either with emerging young players or supplementing it with other veteran players that we sign as free agents or trade for. It’s been challenging, but stimulating as well.
Q: You have also worked with a player payroll that is considerably less than that of some teams. You wrote, “But $80 million is a comfortable number for constructing a championship-caliber team.” How much more comfortable would a $200M payroll be?
Schuerholz: Eighty million dollars is a comfortable recliner chair, and $200M is like a spa of comfort. There is a difference, but I’ve got no complaints. Our roster construction grew up to the $100M-plus level and had to be altered to $80M. So, the challenge became even more unique and more demanding to reduce our payroll by that substantial amount yet continue to put a winning team on the field. Thankfully, through the great work of our scouting and player-development departments, we have a pipeline filled with talented major-league-capable players that allowed us to do that: to stay competitive but also reduce our payroll.
Q: Asked about his leadership style, NBA Commissioner
DAVID STERN said, “I delegate ... and then I episodically micromanage.” How would you describe your management style?
Schuerholz: I half agree with Commissioner Stern. The first thing I do is find the most talented, intelligent, hard-working, knowledgeable people who understand our vision and our goal and are willing to work with me to get there. That’s A. And B, I delegate. And C, I get out of their way. When the time comes for me to pat someone on the back or to put an arm on a shoulder or to shake a hand, I do that. Other than that, there is absolutely no micromanaging in me.
Q: What’s the most difficult part of leadership?
Schuerholz: Consistency. When you’re in the position of leadership, your enterprise is going to face challenges. In my particular line of work, they are of players aging, free agency, finances, creating team bonds that work effectively, having ownership understand that even through the tough times in a given season you have to stay the course. You shouldn’t bring out new charts with new routes to your goal, and you don’t have to go through different machinations to change the way you’re going about things. Having an organization that functions consistently, that always has the same high goals and never compromises -- that’s the biggest challenge.
Q: With the possible sale of the Braves to Liberty Media, is there a concern that with corporate ownership there will be a less hands-on approach, a less personal touch, in the way the team would be run?
Schuerholz: No. I’ve lived through corporate ownership the last many years, since TED TURNER sold our team and we became owned by a corporate entity; Time Warner. And, trust me when I say this; there’s been absolutely no difference impacting on my ability to operate as a general manager of this team in the fashion I choose and deem to be appropriate. When Ted was the individual owner, or when we have been owned by a corporate entity like Time Warner, or if we become owned by a different corporate entity, I believe that those intelligent people recognize what we’ve accomplished and appreciate the consistency of excellence here and will allow us to continue to operate in the same fashion.
Q: Is there a chance you would ever consider returning home to the Baltimore/DC area with either the Orioles or the Nationals?
Schuerholz: That would be presumptuous for me to answer that. I have no desire to leave Atlanta and it would be presumptuous for me to believe that anybody back there would have any interest in me. I make periodic trips back to Baltimore to visit my family members and to have my fair share of steamed crabs.
Q: I would think there would be teams interested in you if you were a free agent.
Schuerholz: Well, I’m an aging free agent. At 65 years of age and 40 years of experience, I’m not looking over the next horizon. I’ve got my eye on what we’re trying to do here, and, Lord knows, we have enough challenges in this particular season for me to concentrate on that rather than to start wander lusting about what may be over the hillside.
Q: What’s the most unconventional thing you do in your position?
Schuerholz: It’s probably when I have staff meetings in spring training and quote literature. I use “Don Quixote” as an anecdotal reference to pursuing the dreams of our organization. I talk about people like PABLO CASALS when making an example that no one is ever as good as he could be or feels he can be and everyone can always improve. I suppose that’s the most unique thing that I do. That might be the old eighth-grade English teacher in me.
Q: You write, “I am constantly pressing on people to think outside the box.” Where is the best thinking outside the box in baseball today?
Schuerholz: It’s in each of the individuals that wear our uniforms on our coaching and instructor and administrative staff: people who have given their lives to baseball and have seen the ins and outs and know it as deeply as anyone can know it and feel it in the manner of the way we deal with decision-making or circumstances that have to be addressed. I always ask them to think of new ideas. Not that we’re going to reinvent the baseball wheel or the problem-solving wheel, but there might be another spoke we can add. There might be another way we can deal with circumstances.
Q: You refer to the changing role of the GM in what you call an “age of specialization.” What has been the biggest change since you became a GM?
Schuerholz: Clearly it’s the impact of finances on the role of and the pressure upon general managers. In 1981, when a GM made a decision with respect to a player move and it didn’t work, it might cost the organization $100,000, or a big deal might be $250,000. Now, you make a bad decision or recommendation or signing, it could impact on your ability to operate by tens of millions of dollars. And not only on your organization’s bottom line, it impacts on the value of the investment that your owner made in this enterprise, which is now in the hundreds of millions of dollars in value.
Q: The Braves reduced payroll by $20M in ‘04, and you said, “[The team has] chosen not to participate in baseball’s economic stupidity any longer.” What would be the smartest thing baseball could implement for its economic system?
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| Braves’ NL Run Coming To An End |
Schuerholz: Our economic system is collectively bargained as it relates to how we deal with player contracts and the arbitration process. We simply chose not to allow ourselves to be swept along by the always-rising tide of player salaries that took us well beyond that intersection where income matched payment requirements. We decided that we weren’t going to operate a major league franchise beyond our ability to support it financially. That’s all I meant by the economic stupidity that we’re all bound up in.
Q: What can be done?
Schuerholz: It’s easy. It’s been done and proven to be successful and also healthy for a number of other sports teams -- a salary cap. Basketball, football and ice hockey were struggling financially, and now they no longer are. They’re all healthy, viable economic enterprises for their players and owners.
Q: You wrote, “Agents were the bane of my existence for the first half of my run. Now certain factions of the media have become another burr under my saddle.” What’s the problem?
Schuerholz: I differentiate between a bane and a burr. A bane is far more onerous. A burr you can deal with. It’s not comfortable. You can change the way you sit, or where you’re located. The fact of the matter is, as we all know, the media outlets, electronically especially, have just exploded. There are just so many people who have a need to talk to you, and you have a responsibility as the point person for this major league enterprise of ours. I’m the one who has to explain it. The number of people who have the responsibility to ask those questions has exploded and multiplied. And the number of people who get paid to offer their opinions about what we -- those of us responsible and experienced in baseball operations -- do for our franchises offer their opinions without any knowledge or facts, just with opinions. We have to respond to that, which is a bit irritating. But I do it.
Q: You refer to the “competitive gulf between the large- and small-market teams.” Would baseball be served by contracting?
Schuerholz: I don’t know that that’s the right measure. I haven’t studied that deeply enough. Attendance is up. I think interest in the game is up. In part, because of the expanded media coverage and more people able to access information about baseball. I understand the value of that. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just more of a demand on general managers in having to deal with it. I don’t know that that’s necessarily a good remedy for anything right at the moment.
Q: You challenged the Braves in the spring to accept your premise that “the talent was spread fairly evenly throughout major league baseball and that teams with the strongest attitudes and toughness separate themselves from the pack by making the commitment of winners.” Is attitude that defining a factor in a successful team?
Schuerholz: I think it is. I don’t know that anyone starts spring training without the belief that his team is going to have the level of commitment and the attitude and the countenance of a winning organization, or else you’d have no chance before the first pitch was ever thrown. What we always tried to do was to encourage and remind our staff and players that it’s not only about having the ability and the right blend of talent to create the most effective team. It’s also the kind of spirit and attitude that you have to maintain throughout a tough and long and grueling baseball season.
