In his three decades in baseball, Andy MacPhail has built a reputation as an organized, levelheaded leader and the ultimate, buck-stops-here authority within an organization.
That's not going to change now that he is here, MacPhail said during his first day as the Orioles' new president of baseball operations.
"I think it's important to have one voice," MacPhail said after a news conference yesterday morning at Camden Yards.
"You're looking for all the help you can get, all the research you can get. But at the end of the day, it has to be clear who is responsible, who's accountable, for baseball operations."
Although stopping short of calling him a savior, Orioles general counsel Russell Smouse introduced MacPhail to the media by saying: "The fans have been sending a strong message that they want change. The Orioles have heard that message and are responding" and said MacPhail had an "integrity unparalleled in baseball."
MacPhail, 54, won the World Series in 1987 and 1991 as general manager of the Minnesota Twins and nearly got back to the World Series in 2003 as president of the Chicago Cubs.
After a dozen years with the Cubs, he left at the end of last season and stepped away from baseball for eight months. Now, he may be facing his biggest challenge in the place where he spent many of his formative years with the franchise that his father built into prominence.
He'll be taking charge of an organization that includes a two-headed general manager system and a host of other powerful lieutenants that make other clubs' executives wonder who is calling the shots.
And he'll be doing it all for an owner, Peter Angelos, who isn't afraid to use his veto power when it comes to baseball decisions.
But MacPhail isn't worried.
"I wouldn't be here unless I was absolutely confident that I was free to run this franchise ... the way it has to be run," he said.
MacPhail and Angelos have worked closely together before, during the 2002 and 2006 baseball labor negotiations. They met again during the owners meetings in May - while MacPhail was doing some consulting work for commissioner Bud Selig - and that's when their discussion about joining forces surfaced.
"I probably know Peter, in a baseball context, as well as anybody in the game ... " MacPhail said. "I think that's one of the reasons that Peter wanted to talk to me."
