Fred Claire was calling. In April, when we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Rick Monday rescuing an American flag from protesters about to set it aflame, Claire wanted to share more of the story.
Claire, then the Dodgers’ publicist and later their general manager, had directed that “RICK MONDAY … YOU MADE A GREAT PLAY” appear on the Dodger Stadium message board.
As we talked, Claire made sure to drop the name of the college student earning $15 per game to operate the message board on game nights.
“I’m still in awe of how he met the moment,” Jeff Fellenzer told me after Claire died Monday.
“He just calmly turned to me. He was sitting two or three seats away. He said, ‘Jeff, just type these words.’ None of us really knew what was going on. It happened so fast.”
As extraordinary as it might sound for an executive to remember and elevate the work of a young assistant half a century earlier, the anecdote reflected three of Claire’s very best qualities: treat everyone with respect, share the credit and help whoever you could.
Claire and Fellenzer stayed in touch over the years. In 1999, when Fellenzer launched a sports business and media class at USC, Claire co-taught the class for the first three years, and since then he always made sure Fellenzer told his students they always could reach out for advice on pursuing careers in baseball or sports business.
“His door was always open to helping people realize their dreams,” Fellenzer said.
Two weeks ago, Fellenzer’s students took a midterm examination. Among the topics: Claire’s keys to building a winning sports franchise.
The bullet points included starting with strong, committed ownership; delivering a good product; establishing credibility and trust with fans and media; and hiring good people and letting them do their jobs.
Claire consistently took ownership of one of the worst trades in Dodgers history, when he swapped future Hall of Famer Pedro Martínez for infielder Delino DeShields. Coaches and scouts suggested the young and wiry Martínez might never develop into a pitcher as successful as his brother Ramon, but Claire did not fault them.
“The facts are the facts,” he said, “and those facts are, I traded Pedro.”
Compare that to whatever this is that New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns is trying to say in the wake of their apocalyptic season: “We and I made a number of decisions that created the potential for an uncapped downside scenario.”
I’m not picking on Stearns. He is far from alone in a new generation of executives comfortable deploying the verbiage of “trust the process” and “sustainable success” as defenses when the process has not resulted in success.
Claire spoke plain English, and he would go on “Dodger Talk” on Sunday mornings to speak directly with fans. When the Dodgers traded future Hall of Famer Mike Piazza in 1998, Claire led with integrity at the risk of losing his job: The Fox ownership had made the trade, he announced, not him. Sure enough, he was fired.
Fox treated the Dodgers more as television content than as a community treasure. This is not a misprint: Under Fox, the Dodgers never appeared in the playoffs.
Under the O’Malley family, for whom Claire worked for three decades, the Dodgers did not win every year, as they do now. They fielded a competitive team at a fair price.
Parking was no more than $5 — that would be $10 today, after inflation — and the Dodgers nurtured the next generation of fans by offering free tickets to A students and a kids’ fan club that included six tickets for $2.
Fan loyalty? The Dodgers haven’t lost 100 games in 118 years. They just raised prices on season tickets, again. The Colorado Rockies lost 100 games for the fourth consecutive year — and they raised season ticket prices 12%.
In 1996, when Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan asked owner Peter O’Malley to abandon his plan to build an NFL stadium in the Dodger Stadium parking lot, O’Malley stood down. He then put the Dodgers up for sale, because he believed a family business would lack the resources of wealthier corporate ownerships, and the team might not remain competitive.
Compare that to today, when owners want players to help subsidize teams with fewer resources via a salary cap, and when analysts openly wonder how much the involvement of private equity in ownership might prolong the looming lockout, because trading short-term pain for long-term gain is a straightforward financial principle.
I’d love to discuss all of this with Claire. Fellenzer would too.
On the day before Claire died, as word spread of his imminent passing, Fellenzer sent him an email, thanking him for 50 years of friendship, for impacting him and so many of his students, and for living his life as “such a stellar role model and human being.”
Claire wrote back. His reply, shared with permission:
“Jeff. Thank you.
“A young student typed words that will live, RICK MONDAY … YOU MADE A GREAT PLAY
“We responded to the moment.
“Always do that, respond …
“Make an impact …
“Respond with honesty, compassion, transparency, and [timeliness] … and a lack of fear.
“Love.
“Fred.”
Last words for Fellenzer to cherish forever. His reply:
“FRED CLAIRE … YOU LIVED A GREAT LIFE.”
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: latimes.com
