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Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation founder Dennis Gilbert and wife Cindi with Bud Selig and wife Sue
Photo by: PAUL LESTER
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■ Organization: Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation
■ Event location: Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles
■ Purpose: The event raises funds for the foundation, which supports baseball scouts in need.
■ On the guest list: Bud Selig, Rob Manfred, Lew Wolff, Tom Werner, Stan Kasten, Jerry Reinsdorf, Bill Bartholomay, Pat Gillick, Bill Giles, Jeff Idelson, Bob Uecker, Vin Scully, Peter O’Malley
Dennis Gilbert, founder of the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation, describes the organization and its annual fundraising dinner as a true mission. Far more than a simple benefit, Gilbert sees the organization and its cause as a lifeline to some of baseball’s most overlooked and neediest figures.
“Being a scout is sort of like being king,” Gilbert said. “It doesn’t train you for anything else, any other industry.”
The foundation’s 12th annual In the Spirit of the Game dinner and auction Jan. 17 in Los Angeles again raised a six-figure sum to benefit the game’s scouts, adding to more than $5 million raised since the foundation’s creation in 2003. Scouts play a key role in the baseball ecosystem by discovering new waves of talent, but they often are overlooked and can suddenly find themselves out of work whenever a club ownership or managerial change happens. Many scouts have fallen on hard times.
But in a sport divided into factions within the league, teams and players union, Gilbert’s foundation and the annual gala enjoys an unusual consensus. What started as an uphill fight to gain attention has become one of the must-attend events on the sport’s calendar, and something akin to a baseball version of the Academy Awards with its mix of celebration, poignancy and humor.
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Larry King and Rich Gossage
Photo by: PAUL LESTER
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“We have the support of everybody who put a uniform on, and everybody in a front office and Major League Baseball itself,” said Gilbert, 67, a former agent, insurance executive and special assistant to Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, as well as a friend to scores of Hollywood celebrities.
“I don’t think there’s anybody who hasn’t supported this cause. It’s all about the game. That’s the best part, and that’s what makes me feel so good,” he said.
This year’s dinner drew a crowd of more than 1,100 people that included 11 hall of famers,
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Tommy Lasorda and Dusty Baker
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several team owners, senior executives and broadcasters, and new MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. That crowd, and its representative mix of personalities, produced all sorts of interactions not often seen elsewhere. In one corner, Manfred could be seen signing autographs for fans during the cocktail hour, among the first such session in his elevated role. Oakland A’s owner Lew Wolff was in another corner, chatting with several fraternity brothers of he and outgoing MLB Commissioner Bud Selig from the University of Wisconsin who had flown in for the event. Famed broadcaster Larry King, a regular attendee, held court elsewhere.
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The outgoing and incoming commissioners,
Bud Selig and Rob Manfred
Photo by: PAUL LESTER
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And in an adjoining room, one of the largest collections of sports and entertainment memorabilia available anywhere was on display for the silent auction. The assemblage of mementoes focused heavily on signed player jerseys and photos, but among the rarer items was an autograph of George Washington with a starting price of $15,000.
The dinner program focused on honoring the legacy of Selig, who is retiring after a tenure longer than all but one of MLB’s previous commissioners, and an impact on the game greater than any of them. Since anyone can buy a ticket to the Scouts Foundation dinner, the
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Jerry Reinsdorf, Dennis Gilbert and Lew Wolff
Photo by: PAUL LESTER
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event represented the closest thing to a public celebration of Selig’s more than 22 years in office.
“When I think about Commissioner Selig’s success, three things stick in my mind,” Manfred said. “First of all, whenever we had a tough problem, he would always go back and try to resolve that issue by thinking about what was in the best interests of baseball. I’ve heard that phrase from his mouth so many times.”
“Secondly, he has the great ability to bring people together, to make people understand that their common interests are more important than their differences,” Manfred said. “And last, no commissioner has ever fulfilled baseball’s social responsibility better than Bud Selig.”
