The start of a great duo....
Gary entered the office of GM Raul Santos very nervously, yet reassured as he had enjoyed his time in Phoenix if things went badly int he meeting.
As most gentlemen do, Gary started his journey with a knock on the door.
RS : Come in! Hello Gary, How are you doing?
The two exchanged pleasantries and continued with some small talk. Not one for extended small talk Gary struck quickly like a young predator in the jungle.
GW: Ok Mr Santos, let's get down to business, why was i called into your office today? I assume I'm not getting fired because i was just given a raise and no one else seems to actually watch baseball around here.My best guess would be that you need someone to brew your coffee every morning, and answer the question of "why'd we lose today" huh?
Well, Honestly anything less than ASST GM and i am not interested. I want your job, so lets figure out how to do that for me without you getting fired.
RS : Ha, I love the confidence son. I called you in here today because i do need to fill out my staff. I havent considered this, but i follow my gut normally and i think i'd like you to be my Skinny Jonah Hill.
GW : What?
RS : You'll get that one day, anyways. I need an ASST GM to help me achieve our obviously similar goals. This franchise could be the best, I'm very convinced of that matter.
GW: Well i do play a lot of Video Games and have tons of ideas for our franchise. I want to be upfront. As i said i want to be a GM within five years, so let's capture that ring before hand!
RS: How about we win in four?
The two began to exchange ideas and Santos loved the new perspective from Gary. After the meeting Gary took a tour of his new office (which was basically the GMs broom closet with a desk and room for 1 or 2 pictures of Brooklyn Decker.
Bumpy Roads ahead....
Phoenix began to find new players. They rebuilt the franchise from the ground up essentially. Managers came and went and the Panthers began grabbing the attention of the League.
2011 and 2012 didnt bring championships, the attention gained was not great, but the league took notice none the less.
While the Phoenix GM was going on the country tour one name kept coming up. Gary Walker. Santos often gave Gary much of the credit for the success of finding good players and took all the blame when a player or manager would flame out.
Later Santos in an interview remembered a conversation he had in 2011 with an unnamed owner.
As the story goes Santos and the Owner were talking about the normal random chatter. Eventually the owner begun talking to Santos about replacements for his GM. The owner was growing tired of losing and wanted to make changes.Santos relished in this conversation and mentioned his ASST GM. He told this owner stories upon stories of Gary's confidence and ability to find the gem or make the tough calls and distinguish the winners from the losers. Santos then mentioned that after 2014 when his Panthers would win the Championship (this caused the owner to chuckle) that said owner would have a hard time competing with the other 22 franchises trying to hire Gary. He mentioned Gary had a fondness for a certain franchise but didnt want to delve too far into that.
Santos only gave that last bit of information to one owner that winter.
