Mark Shapiro: Becoming Canadian, Trump, and Losing the World Series

I stopped the day after. I spent a lot of time processing that game before it started, and I spent as much time thinking about how I wanted to handle if we won as I did how I wanted to handle if we lost. I thought exhaustively, and the things I thought about were trying to stay true to my beliefs and what drives me in this game, which is there is a randomness to outcomes and those outcomes cannot define a career. It does not make me a better leader, does not make me a better father, a better partner, a better son, a better brother, a better friend. And maybe most importantly, if we won, it doesn't make me any greater. But if we lost, it didn't lessen the most important roles I have in life. And so when we lost, I pretty matter-of-factly kind of turned, hugged my son, hugged my daughter, turned my back to the field, went in my office. A lot of my extended family and friends were here, spent a few minutes talking to them, consoling them, and went home, slept, woke up the next day.

Yeah. And he said, you know, listen, it's been a ride for a month. I've been on this incredible ride and I don't want it to end. And he said, how do you think about getting past it? I said, I think about the only way I know to get past it, the only way I know to find solace, and the only way I know to find purpose, and that's return to the pursuit, return to the process.

It is. I was much... I don't think I had a sense of the magnitude in 1997.

I was, but in '97 I was the farm director, but they lost. It was an extra-inning game. We blew a save in the ninth on the road instead of at home, but a similar set of circumstances. I remember the GM John Hart was called down to the clubhouse because that's where they did the champagne celebration, sitting on a stage with the champagne out. And then Jose Mesa blew the save, they covered up all the lockers, took the champagne out, and two innings later it was Florida, not us, that were celebrating. It was crazy.

That was my first year.

Yeah.

I don't think that way. I genuinely don't think that way. I believe in chasing excellence instead of chasing results, and that's the way I frame and I genuinely, authentically live by that and hold myself to that. I don't think you can sustain a 35-year career in a game like this if you are only judging yourself by outcomes and results. Now listen, this is what I would say. There is a balance. It doesn't make me less competitive. I want to win 162 games. I go home never feeling as good when we lose, and it takes me a little while to get over that. But when I think about where my energy goes, it doesn't go towards feeling sorry for myself. I feel bad for the little kids that cried going to sleep that night.

I was not one of them.

I did not go cry. No, I wanted to get back to work and chase it, chase down the next opportunity.

Probably Brooks Robinson as a little kid.

I more than met him. So, I grew up going to Orioles games. My dad was a son of an immigrant, a lawyer, loved baseball. Grew up in Philadelphia, loved baseball, became a huge agent. And so this is the story that led him to that. He was a corporate lawyer, taught law school, and securities commissioner in Maryland, which was like a part-time job. So head of all securities law. And Brooks Robinson signed a sporting goods deal and the sporting goods company went out of business. It was called Brooks Robinson Sporting Goods. He didn't own it. He just endorsed it, put his name on it. They went after Brooks for the money. And the owner of the Orioles at that time, Gerald Hoffberger, was a brewer, funny enough, came to my dad and said, 'Could you help Brooks out?' So my dad helped him through bankruptcy and helped him out of that, got him disentangled from that company. And Brooks in 1976, I think, said to my dad, 'Would you negotiate my last contract?' And my dad, like, we had seats, this is no lie, we had two season tickets by third base in Memorial Stadium in Baltimore just so we could watch Brooks Robinson play. 16 consecutive Gold Gloves, the greatest defensive third baseman of all time. So my dad was like, yes. And he went to the library and he researched, and he came back and he was schooled in negotiation by the GM of the Orioles at that time, Hank Peters. But he ended up negotiating Brooks's last contract. And Brooks said to my dad, 'I wish you were there 20 years ago.' There were not a lot of agents then. And Brooks and my dad went in the business together and ended up representing, you know, when the Orioles won the World Series in 1983, I think my dad had 23 of 25 players, something crazy like that.

That many players. They gave him a World Series ring. They took him to Japan on the tour with him. Because incidentally, he's 83. He's a beast. He wakes up every day, works out, 100% mentally fine. So, you knew Brooks well?

So, I went from hanging over the rail trying to get Brooks. I literally have a picture where I waited in line to get the book, 'Third Base is My Home.' He wrote a book. I'm sure a ghostwriter wrote the book. I waited in line for like four hours to get Brooks to sign it. And I have a picture of me and Brooks sitting at the book signing. So the guy that I hung over the rail trying to get, I went over to us going on vacations with him. And as a thank you to my dad, one night at the house we grew up in, the doorbell rings at like 7 or 8 at night and we go to the front door and no one's there and his 16th Gold Glove is sitting on the doormat of our front door. He had left it for my dad as a gift thanking him for all the things he had done for him.

Yeah. So he became, and he was, he died not too long ago. He was worthy of that moniker. He was a gentleman, unbelievable human being, completely unaffected by fame and accomplishments, and treated all people incredibly well with grace and just an incredible person. So a great first player, and then that led to Eddie Murray, who was a hero of mine growing up as a kid. Same thing. I spent a night at Eddie's condo. So then I started to grow up around baseball, but this happened in my teen years. I went from being the fan to all of a sudden growing up with these guys. Some of them were sleeping on pull-out couches in our living rooms. They came to the big leagues and...

I think I was fortunate that so many of them were pretty... my dad's client base was a pretty special client base and I think that's what drew them to him probably, and him to them. He never did it full-time. He only did it as he was always a corporate lawyer and had the representation on the side. Represented a lot of news anchors. He represented Oprah Winfrey early in her career, early in her career when she was in Baltimore. Ron Shapiro is a beast. He's written four books, and some corporate law books as well. Yeah, he was an incredible father.

I think there's... he did not encourage me to be in this business. In fact, he dissuaded me. He said there's only 26 good jobs. It's a tough business. You do not want to be in it. But there's no question I'm in it because of him, right? Because my love of the game, my bond with him, my standards and expectations for what true professionals look like, for what those type of players look like. My appreciation for how hard it is, and really my... I've always kind of reverted to my belief in players and pulling for players instead of being critical of players. And front offices, people usually take one of the two tracks. They become hypercritical because they watch so many games or they're pulling hard. And I've always wanted to have the kind of players you pull for. And I think that comes from my dad being an advocate for players. And back then agents were advocates. They're no longer advocates as much, but back then they were advocates. He kept Kirby Puckett in Minnesota for his whole career. Kept Cal Ripken in Baltimore for his whole career. Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer, he was part of understanding what do they want and let me help you do that and get the best deal possible, but achieve the things that are important to you personally, too.

I never think that way. I was just doing an exercise for my kids, like writing some things down. And I think the bigger surprise was I was in Cleveland for 24 years. I think when I entered Cleveland as an entry-level cubicle dweller with no title, the thought was, well, to move up in baseball, I'm going to have to just move. You don't advance unless you move. So I thought, hey, when I became farm director, to be an assistant GM, I'm going to have to go somewhere. And I became assistant GM in Cleveland. When I was assistant GM, I thought to be a GM, I was going to have to go somewhere. And then I became GM and then president all in Cleveland. That was more of a shock to me coming here. It was clear I wasn't going to move up from the role that I had here, and I came here as much for the city and the country as I did for the job. The job was a unique one. The job offered the few things I had written down that would be compelling for me to leave Cleveland, this job offered, including some of the projects undertaken.

And Rogers and some of the other... and really just the organization, having a chance to really sink my teeth into helping modernize and build out an organization and its culture.

That's a great question. I don't know if I've got a moment that I felt that way. Maybe getting my citizenship was kind of like, okay, this is like, I'm not a permanent resident anymore. Like I have two passports now. And maybe the US election made it easier, after I was here for four years. I think the desire to distance myself from the current US president made me more proud of some of the social dynamic and the values. It was some of the reasons that moving here was compelling. The open-mindedness, the progressiveness, the compassion and empathy that I felt were not... obviously there's no attribute like that that's going to be with everyone, but were more pervasive here than what was being espoused by the leader of the free world in the US.

My dad was involved in elections, as you know.

I worked campaigns when I was a kid but had no attraction to politics. I am not bureaucratic by nature. I struggle with that. It's probably a weakness of mine, navigating bureaucracy. And so, no, I have no desire to be in politics.