Syd Thrift Dead at 77

[Mac the Knife]

For those who hadn't yet heard, Syd Thrift died this week at the age of 77.

For you young'uns out there, Thrift was perhaps the best evaluator of baseball talent over the past half century. His laundry list of all-star and HOF players reads like a who's who of baseball, particularly in the 80's and 90's. I remember him from his stint as the Pittsburgh Pirates General Manager - where he built the last truly competitive Pirate team the city saw - before idiotic ownership fired him.

Anyway, I guess my dream that the Pirates would wake up and bring Syd back are now gone forever. RIP, sir.

[Moser316]

He's also the guy who got duped into thinking Gary Dell'Abate (aka Bababooey from the Howard Stern Show) was the name of a minor league prospect in the Baltimore Orioles system on a sports talk call-in show during his tenure there in the late 1990's-early 2000's. Hard to believe he's the same guy who built the Pirates into a winning team in Pittsburgh before the economics of baseball went haywire.

[leopard88]

He is also the same guy who conducted a fire sale with the Orioles in 2000 and basically got Melvin Mora in exchange for 5-6 veterans (since everyone else he obtained flamed out). Evaluating talent was supposed to be his strength, but it sure didn't look that way during his Orioles tenure.

I will, however, always laugh in remembering how he lamented the Orioles' inability to land free agents by saying it was like they were offering "Confederate money."