Sunday, November 30, 2008
A Scout’s Tale: Jim Ridley
On Friday morning in
Ontario, Canada, Jim
Ridley passed
away.
“Who?” you
ask.
Exactly!
The Minnesota Twins are
well-known as an organization that values scouting very strongly. The Twins
scouting department is very well respected around the game of baseball. Jim
Ridley had been a scout for the Minnesota Twins since 2003, but he had been
around the game of baseball and the scouting arena for decades. For the Twins,
he covered Canada (Twins Canadian Scouting Supervisor) and the Eastern United
States. He had played baseball professionally. He had coached in the Olympics
for Team Canada. He had signed a lot of major leaguer ballplayers, and in his
tenure with the Twins, he signed Mark Zamojc, Jonathan
Waltenbury, and Rene Tosoni.
Please take a few minutes to
read this incredible
article from The Canadian Baseball Network for some of the tales of the
career, the life and times, of Jim Ridley. The man was incredibly
well-respected by people throughout the world of baseball. The article’s
author, Bob Elliott (Blue Jays beat writer), must have asked for
comments from those who knew him. There are quotes from GM Bill Smith,
former GM Terry Ryan, a Twins scout named Tim O’Neil, Twins
Australian scout (who previously had covered Canada and other places around the
world) Howard Norsetter, Twins Minor League
Field Coordinator Joel Lepel, and many others
from around the game of baseball.
Articles like this can, and
should, make baseball fans appreciate the scouts, those at the grass roots of
an organization. Those are the names that you don’t read about in the paper
very often, and many of them don’t want their names mentioned. But they are the
people who really help build an organization, and the Twins have benefited
greatly by having great scouts who know the game and know what to look for in
players. Jim Ridley was a name I had not heard before today, and that
clearly is unfortunate.
My condolences
to his family and friends, the Twins organization and those who knew him best.
Please feel
free to leave Comments here.