[Super Utility Guy]

I did not know Otto Orcin well, but oddly enough I consider him to be a friend. Then again, anyone who ever had the good fortune of crossing paths with Otto would most likely tell you that they considered him to be a friend. He was, and I still find it hard to refer to him in the past tense, WAS an inspiration and a mentor to many people all over the world.

He inspired me to follow in his footsteps as a GM and it was during a period in my life when baseball began to cease being fun for me like it had been during my youth. Like many, my interest in the game began to wane during the last decade in which an increasing number of players tested positive for PEDs, some questionable rule changes were implemented and the televised games, once fun and enjoyable to watch, were no longer watchable with an increased emphasis on loud noises and special effects. Call me crazy, but I believe that the game was much bigger and meant more to people when there was less emphasis placed on the modern "bells and whistles" of technological advancement and more on the GAME itself.

It would have been easy and understandable for someone like myself to become a cynic during this time period, but there was one constant that helped bring me back to the game that I love and, to paraphrase James Earl Jones from Field Of Dreams "to remind us of all that was once good and it could be again". I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but I would like to believe that Otto Orcin did this for me as well as many, many others.

Otto's passion, love and excitement for baseball was evident in everything that he said and did, from the conversations we had to the writings he posted on the Internet. He is simply one of the greatest writers that I have ever had the privilege to read as well as one of the greatest General Managers the game has ever seen. There are only a few people in the game of baseball whom you could say could take over any ball club and make it successful. Otto Orcin was one of those people. Whether it was a low-budget Houston Astros team with more "Not-Ready-For-Primetime-Players" than Saturday Night Live ever had or the big-budget St. Louis Cardinals team with seemingly potential All-Stars at every position, Otto could lead any franchise to success. And if there's any legacy that Otto Orcin has left behind, it is that he left every team that he was a part of in better shape than it was before he arrived.

I will miss Otto Orcin as we all will. I personally will miss his wisdom, his insight, his sense of humor, his guidance, but more importantly, his friendship. We've all heard the expression "diamond in the rough". Otto was a "rough in the diamond", just a hard-nosed, gritty, lunch-pal, hard hat kind of guy that would rather get dirty than to play dirty. He left us far too soon, but in terms of life it wasn't the quantity of years, but the QUALITY of years in which he lived while here on this Earth. I am honored and humbled to have known Otto and, to his family and friends, my family and I offer to you our prayers and condolences and we will never forget you or Otto. May God bless you all. Thank you.