In Defense of the Lobby Lizards

Has the demise of this species been exaggerated?

Welcome to Warning Track Power, a newsletter of baseball stories and analysis grounded in front office and scouting experiences and the personalities encountered along the way.

In 2014, Baseball’s Winter Meetings returned to San Diego after a 29-year hiatus. With the entire industry in town, the city showed off with 72-and-sunny for its December visitors.

I think a lot of us had a good feeling then that this annual gathering would find its way back to America’s Finest City quickly.

And so it returned in 2019.

The following two Winter Meetings were impeded by the pandemic and the lockout, much to the chagrin of the Dallas and Orlando tourism boards.

Tomorrow, the baseball world once again descends upon San Diego. (Dress warmly, please.)

With home field advantage, I’ll have the chance to see some friends in the game. I’ll also get a glimpse of the current dynamics of the Winter Meetings.

Earlier this week, I shared my intentions of swinging by the Manchester Hyatt. Proceed with caution, I was advised.

Did I really want to experience the evening hotel vibes? Has the lobby lizard culture really changed that much over the past several years?

Once, much of the buzz of the meetings was created in the lobby. Now, if what I’ve been told is true, lobby conversations sound more like Admiral Stockdale at the vice presidential debate.

I’m not here to pine for the days before analytics and technology dominated decision making. No, there’s a place for all of it, and there are plenty of online spaces dedicated to howling at the moon.

Instead, I am fondly remembering the single best job interview I’ve ever been a part of.

During the 2010 Winter Meetings in Orlando, we were seeking a baseball operations intern for the upcoming season.

This person would receive a crash course in professional baseball, gaining exposure to every facet of the game and providing support for many seasonal projects, while making copies (is that still a thing?), picking up lunches, shuttling personnel to and from the airport, and beyond.

The position required the nuanced blend of confidence and humility.

Traditionally, in-person interviews at the Winter Meetings take place anywhere there’s likely to be an available table and a few chairs. At the Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin Resort in Orlando, that table and those chairs are never a given.

My colleague and I met the candidate after traditional business hours. The small lobby area was already crowded with industry folk well into “I’ll have another” territory. In a way, it was the game at its best: front office staff, scouts, coaches, and media together for this fleeting engagement, with big league managers and late-inning-heroes-turned-special-assistants leveraging stories of their playing days into information-gathering inquiries and rumor-deflecting assurances.

Looking back on it, what a serendipitous setting! It was an amusement park for any 22-year-old baseball fanatic with a resume, sweaty palms, and a dream.

The interview was going well for all involved. Both my colleague and I were intrigued that this candidate had recently interned for USA Baseball’s 16U team. We knew what that really entailed.

Never mind what the bullet points might have you believe. This erstwhile college student was washing the jockstraps of high school kids. If you’re searching for the intersection of humility and determination, you can find it in a dirty pile of jocks.

God knows what else you might find in there. But, hey, I can confidently publish the above paragraph because I trust you, the readers of WTP, to differentiate between the literal and figurative. Thank you.

At some point during the conversation, the interview was gracefully interrupted by Larry Corrigan, an affable and meticulous baseball lifer whose accomplishments and stations in the game include twice receiving All-America honors at Iowa State, pitching for seven seasons in the minors after being selected in the fourth round of the 1972 Draft by the Dodgers, returning to his alma mater as head coach, working his way from area scout to scouting director of the Minnesota Twins, serving as minor league field coordinator, and eventually settling in as a special assignment scout for the Twins, Pirates, and Angels.

LC, as he’s affectionately known, always had a scouting or trivia question ready. You want to know if a kid has the proper mental makeup to thrive as an intern? Sit him down with Larry.

I can’t remember anything that was discussed in the conversation between LC and the intern candidate. All I know is that he handled himself in a manner that made us confident in his abilities to fulfill the responsibilities of D-backs baseball ops intern.

More than 10 years later, Nate Horowitz has gone on to serve as the Angels director of pro scouting and is currently senior director of player personnel for the Mets.

Meanwhile, LC is retired and I have confirmed that he won’t be crashing any interviews at this year’s Winter Meetings.

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