About A Mentor

Appreciating the impact of leadership

I wouldn’t be writing any of this if it weren’t for Larry Lucchino.

Shortly after news broke of Lucchino’s passing at the age of 78 last Tuesday, I received a text from a friend and former colleague with the Padres: “He impacted your life from Baltimore to San Diego. And you probably didn’t know it!”

It’s true. While I never spent any time with him, Lucchino’s inventiveness both heightened my passion for the game and empowered people I’d eventually work for.

He changed the way the game looks, leading a nationwide ballpark renaissance by supplying the design and vision for the construction of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. A decade later, he modernized the fan experience in San Diego. From Baltimore to San Diego to Boston, he created charitable foundations that impacted local communities. Meanwhile, he mentored and empowered rising baseball executives.

He’ll forever be remembered for promoting Theo Epstein, at the age of 28, to run baseball operations for the Red Sox. They broke the curse.

Before he installed Epstein in Boston, though, Lucchino hired my future boss, Kevin Towers, in San Diego. I heard the story from KT a number of times, though repetition never dulled the surprise ending.

Lucchino conducted a GM search that included many established baseball executives — household names before front office officials became household names. He asked KT to sit in on the interviews, wanting his scouting director at the time in the room as a resource. At the end of the process, Lucchino asked Towers whom he thought the next Padres GM would be. KT incorrectly guessed one name after another until he ran out of candidates. Lucchino then revealed that Towers himself was the choice.

Larry Lucchino hired a 33-year-old Kevin Towers in advance of the 1995 season. Like the text said: He impacted my life and I didn’t know it.

Lucchino was also a tremendous influence on one of my other mentors.

In March 1995, Fred Uhlman Jr. joined the Padres as a special assistant. Like Lucchino, he came from Baltimore, where his father Fred Uhlman Sr. served as scouting director and held other scouting roles over three decades. His signing credits include Steve Finley and Gregg Olson. Uhlman Sr. followed the game closely until his passing in 2020.

Both during and after my time with the Padres, I’d often share that I had expected to learn from KT; the bonus, I stressed, was that I also learned from Uhlman, known affectionately to almost everyone as FUJR (FOOJ-ər). Last week, FUJR announced that he was leaving the Padres. Those around him were aware that he had been planning to move on for a while. After 29 seasons in San Diego, often executing tasks and having conversations that ensured baseball operations ran smoothly, he plans to return to his scouting roots.

In an industry sometimes weighed down by collective ambition, Uhlman embraced his station. He was grounded in routine. Predictability meant reliability. He was the rhythm section that always stayed in the pocket so those around him could play lead.

He was the perfect professional wingman for KT. While Towers was sometimes referred to as SOYP (Seat Of Your Pants), FUJR held it steady in his role as EBB (Everything But Baseball): budgets, internal meetings, oversight of just about every supporting party of the team — clubhouse staff, team doctors, Spring Training logistics, facilities, and so on — not to mention an organization-wide resource and friend.

Successful leaders are often lauded for their coaching trees, the lineage of industry executives who emerged under their mentorship. FUJR’s legacy is more of a sprawling garden, bursting with flowers, herbs, and plants. There are pollinators and succulents, staple crops and heirloom varieties. There might even be a grafted tomato plant alongside some gnomes. His friendship is mentorship and support; he possesses a kindness and reserved passion for the game and its people. His influence includes active and retired managers, general managers, business operations leaders, and more.

Of course, FUJR prefers to work his magic behind the scenes. He enjoys quiet.

When I worked for the Padres, my desk was adjacent to the office of Kevin Towers. Directly across from me was Uhlman’s office. If his door was open, we could make eye contact. And I always had questions.

I’m only now appreciating the patience it required for him to maintain an open door. I received a thorough education in baseball administration from working near, around, and with FUJR.

When I left for Arizona after the 2010 season, I implemented some of his practices that walked a fine line between meticulous and paranoid. It worked in San Diego, and I saw no reason to stray.

No account of the life and times of Fred Uhlman Jr. would be complete without a mention of the pen drawer. Perhaps, for a short time after he vacates his office, the pen drawer can become part of the VIP tour of Petco Park. Among the lateral filing cabinets filled with documents, there’s one large drawer — “drawer” is really a euphemism; it’s the size of a small trunk — full of pens. KT loved to show it off to visitors; it provided the perfect setup to so many punchlines.

How many pens? I don’t know. I was never good at guessing how many jelly beans were in the jar.

Opening the drawer was the corporate equivalent of buying an oyster at a Caribbean tourist trap in hopes of scoring a pearl. Legend has it that once someone found a Mont Blanc in the heap, but mostly people gazed at the collection in amazement while smiling politely and carefully backpedaling away. Like I already told you, FUJR likes the quiet.

I’m grateful that he let me break that quiet. He enabled my professional development and that of so many others. FUJR is a brilliant example of Larry Lucchino’s positive impact on the game.

I wouldn’t be writing any of this if it weren’t for both of them.

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