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“I’m getting ready to head to Florida pretty soon,” said Kearns during a recent phone conversation. “I’m tired of shoveling snow.”
While in the Sun Belt, he will cover the activity of four major league teams – the Washington Nationals, New York Mets, Florida Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals – at their spring training venues. Spending about five hours each day at various ballparks along the east coast of Florida, his main objective will be to evaluate the talent of current players on teams for future trade considerations. He spends time at the Mariners’ spring training venue in Arizona, as well.
Kearns has forms to fill out on
each player, looking particularly at those who may be available through waivers at some point. He and his
fellow scouts represent the organization and communicate with general managers from all the clubs continually.
“We’re on the phone all the time,” he said. “They are depending on us to have our eyes and ears open, so maybe we can come up with a decent player to help out the club.”
The years have been kind to Kearns, who has been with the Seattle organization since day one of the club’s inaugural season in 1977. His baseball prowess, however, goes back to his own days as a young player.
A standout at Watertown High School in many sports, he had his eye on playing in Major League Baseball. But the advent of World War II directed him to serve his country, where he spent time in both the North Atlantic and the Pacific theaters. He was in Tokyo Bay when the peace treaty was signed in 1945.
When he returned, he split his time attending Tufts University and playing in the minors in the New York Dodgers organization. By then he was 26 years old, and the call to the bigs never came.
“I just wasn’t good enough,” he modestly explained. He later went on to teach and coach at Weymouth High School.
But what he is good at is spotting baseball talent after working for
decades in the game: as an advance scout, traveling the country to check the talent of active players during
the season; as an amateur scout,
raking the countryside to find young talent at the high school and college levels; and now with current
professional players that may be
available in trades. In 2006, he was awarded the prestigious George Genovese Lifetime Achievement Award
in Scouting, given by the Professional Baseball Scouts Association. He can often be found at Fenway Park, as well, during the season.
He has worked with some of
the biggest names in the game. In the early 1970s, he was part of the Kansas City Royals system, working along with hitting guru Charley Lau, Mickey Vernon and former Red Sox General Manager Lou Gorman. During that era, the Royals opened an innovative developmental facility called the Kansas City Royals Baseball Academy, in Sarasota, Fla. The short-lived academy brought in talented young players to attend college while working on their baseball skills. A few of the players made it to the majors, but eventually the facility “faded away,” according to Kearns.
After dedicating so many years to the game, Kearns has seen a lot of changes. Sabermatrics and the influence of people like Bill James have added an alphabet soup to player stats.
“Computers, the Internet, titles, and all those initials like OPS; half the guys don’t even know what those mean. But the biggest change is money,” he emphasized.
He sees how the exorbitant salaries have changed the game, and the players that look for big contracts. But Kearns is one of the class acts associated with baseball. His years of experience and wisdom of sports, and life in general, give him a gentlemanly quality that harkens back to the good old days.
It’s a rare quality, in this day of agents and Mannys, and the almighty dollar that controls sports today.
When he’s in town, you’re likely to catch him playing a round of golf at Wollaston Golf Club, where his score belies his age. He and his wife, Phoebe, also enjoy spending time with their granddaughter.
You might also spot him at one of his other favorite activities, at a different kind of park. “To tell you the truth,” he joked, “I just want to walk my dog in solitude.”