Bill Madden: Let me tell you a story about Roland Hemond, a great friend and one of baseball’s best
Baseball lost one of its finest and most beloved citizens last Sunday with the passing of Roland Hemond, the longtime and prolific general manager of the White Sox and Orioles who was the 2011 recipient of the Hall of Fame’s Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award, the architect of the Arizona Fall League, and a true champion to the scouts with his establishment of a foundation to provide assistance to those of them in need.
A three-time major league Executive of the Year, Hemond, who was 92, may not have been as widely known in New York but he was nevertheless directly responsible for two of the most consequential player transactions in New York baseball history. On April 5, 1977 Hemond provided the Yankees with the one missing link for their 1977-78 World Championship clubs when he traded the White Sox’s All-Star shortstop Bucky Dent to them. And he was still the White Sox GM in January 1984, preparing to make the first pick in something called the free agent compensation draft when, much to his astonishment, he found Tom Seaver on the Mets’ unprotected list.
In other words, the same man who made the Yankees fans’ day by delivering to them one of their most popular players ever, seven years later broke Mets fans’ hearts.
Full discloser here: Roland Hemond was one of the best friends I’ve ever had in all my years covering baseball, so this one tugs mightily at the heart. There are countless other people in baseball, former players, managers, general managers, owners and especially scouts who can say the same thing. Roland was the all-time baseball mensch. Everybody — and I do mean everybody — loved him.
From 1970-85 with the White Sox and then 1988-95 as GM of the Orioles, he made 183 trades involving 654 players, most of them turning out in his favor, but you would never know it listening to him.
With Roland, there was a story behind every trade but his telling of it was always with wonderful humor. Take the Dent trade.
In the spring of 1977 word had gotten out that White Sox owner Bill Veeck, who was always operating the team on a shoestring, had instructed Hemond to trade Dent, who was coming up on free agency in a year. At the same time, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, still smarting from the Bombers being swept by the Reds in the 1976 World Series, was determined to shore up the Yankees’ one major weak spot — shortstop - where incumbents Fred ‘Chicken’ Stanley and Jim Mason had combined to hit .211 in ‘76.
“Even though everyone knew I was in kind of a bind in needing to trade Bucky before Opening Day, I was trying like heck to get Ron Guidry, who was then only a prospect, from the Yankees,” Hemond later told me. “I had read where George had said some disparaging things about Guidry and I also knew he was determined to get Bucky. My problem was with [Yankees president] Gabe (Paul) who was adamant about not trading Guidry. So I delayed and delayed, hoping that Steinbrenner would order Gabe to make the trade with Guidry. But to his credit, Gabe held his ground despite tremendous pressure from Steinbrenner, and on the last day of spring training we made the deal of Bucky for Oscar Gamble and a young pitching prospect LaMarr Hoyt plus $200,000 for Veeck’s coffers. Even though he was a few years away, my scouts really liked Hoyt, who wasn’t a hard thrower but had great control.”
It turned out to be the kind of a deal Hemond loved to make — one that helped both clubs. Dent went on to 1978 Yankee immortality with his three-run homer that beat the Red Sox in the playoff game for the AL East title. Gamble hit .297 with 31 homers for the White Sox in ‘77 before leaving as a free agent and Hoyt, after breaking into the White Sox rotation in 1981, won the AL Cy Young award in ‘83, leading the majors with 24 victories. Then, two years later, Hemond traded him to the Padres for a rookie shortstop named Ozzie Guillen, who went on to become a White Sox icon in his own right as their shortstop for the next 13 seasons and later the manager of their 2005 world championship team.
Hemond’s fleecing of Seaver from the Mets in ‘84 was a little different. Even though Mets GM Frank Cashen was a friend, Hemond was unapologetic for taking the Mets franchise and creating a furor in Queens. “I know Frank was embarrassed,” Hemond told me, “but what was I supposed to do? I can understand why people in New York felt we wronged the Mets. But this was a business decision. Not only was Seaver still a top flight pitcher, he was the kind of class act person we wanted on our ballclub. Plus, the A’s had the second pick in the draft and they were in our own division and if we hadn’t taken Seaver they most surely would have.”
Whenever I think of Roland now I will always remember his favorite saying: “Enjoy the moment.” Because everyone who knew him thoroughly enjoyed every single moment we were ever in his company. RIP my friend.
