Minaya is intensely aware of the history of the game and of his own place in it. His big office at Stade Olympique is adorned with posters of Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente. "The world is watching me," says Minaya. "I'm the first Latin American general manager. I still get e-mails, phone calls from other minorities. They identify with me. Baseball is like that. It magnifies everything. It makes us bigger than we are. But it also allows us to set the tone, set the standard, to go forward. To make progress for society."
Lovers of baseball have always seen the game as something larger than itself, a metaphor for life. Minaya is part of that tradition, and, like a socially conscious CEO, he believes he has a responsibility beyond the nine innings. And he acts on it. He serves on the board of a nonprofit foundation started by one of his best friends, Dave Valle, a catcher who was best man at Minaya's wedding. The foundation provides start-up money (often as little as $200 or $300) to mostly female entrepreneurs in the Dominican Republic, a "micro-lending" initiative that is now seven years old and has proven a resounding success. What Minaya is particularly proud of is the default rate: 2%.
Though he was born in the Dominican Republic, he grew up in New York. His father worked on the docks, his mother in a factory. The young Omar attended PS 19 in Queens and played Little League for the Corona Red Wings in the shadows of Shea Stadium -- though he was never a Met fan. Most of all, he "was a fan of the great Latin players, Roberto Clemente, Juan Marichal, the Alous."
When Minaya wasn't playing ball, he was riding the subway: "We'd just ride the 7 train back and forth, from Flushing to Times Square and back." It was, strange to say, "a way of opening my mind to other worlds. You grow up in New York open-minded to begin with. But this way, I could see how diverse the world was. And if I wanted to have goals, how far I could travel." Not for nothing does Minaya think of himself as "a product of the 7 train." (That's the same 7 train, of course, that relief pitcher John Rocker once famously pronounced the home of "felons," "single moms," "freaks with purple hair," and "queers with AIDS.")
Minaya, who signed Sammy Sosa, believes that in scouting (and elsewhere) you can't be hesitant: "I got a whole bunch of guys I signed working in bodegas."
An All-America catcher in high school, the tall but slight Minaya was signed by the Oakland A's to a minor-league contract. Early in his career he was a highly unusual position player: an outfielder-catcher. But soon it became clear that he wasn't brawny enough to be a major-league catcher, nor gifted enough to play the outfield at the highest levels. "Honestly," says Minaya, "it became clear I wasn't a good hitter."
Released at the A Ball level, Minaya left for Tuscany, where he played baseball, taught himself Italian, "and learned to drink Chianti and Brunello di Montalcino with my meals." He also, he says, "learned political tolerance. I'd read three or four newspapers a day: the socialist paper, the communist paper, the paper of big business. It really opened my mind." Small wonder then that his old boss Sandy Johnson says of Minaya: "Omar is comfortable talking to the President of the United States" -- George W. Bush owned the Texas Rangers when Minaya was there -- "and he's comfortable with a street vendor in the Bronx. It's his incredible ability to relate and to take people on their own terms." Back from Italy, Minaya started looking for work in baseball and scored an interview with a scout, who recommended him to Sandy Johnson. What did Johnson see in Minaya? "I saw myself," Johnson says. " I saw a hardworking kid who loved baseball and wanted to succeed badly."
As assistant general manager for the Rangers, Johnson was looking to hire someone to comb the rich but scattered Latin American market for the team talent. The day after he and Minaya first met, Minaya was sent packing to the Dominican Republic on a midnight flight in the company of a more senior scout, John Young. Within days, Young was reporting back: "Sonofabitch wants to sign everybody." Johnson laughs, recalling, "I let Omar make his mistakes. There are two kinds of scouts. Signers and nonsigners. The great scouts are signers. They like players, and they're aggressive as hell."
Minaya agrees: "To be a good scout, you cannot be afraid. For every major-league player you sign there are going to be eight guys who end up working in a bodega. I got a whole bunch of guys I signed working in bodegas today." But he also has Sammy Sosa, whom he found in San Pedro de Macoris.
Made the Rangers' Latin American scouting coordinator in 1989, he was promoted to director of professional and international scouting in 1994. His big break, though, came in September 1997 when he was appointed assistant GM of the Mets and wound up contributing greatly to the team's success -- especially when his boss, Steve Phillips, was suspended after a tabloid-fueled discovery of marital infidelity. In Phillips's absence, Minaya was key to making several trades that brought players, such as closer Armando Benitez, who helped take the Mets to the World Series in 2000.
But Minaya's career stalled in Flushing. Always hanging over his head was the question of whether he could administrate. "I'd have spit piss and vinegar if I was Omar and was being held back by that bull -- ," says Sandy Johnson. "But, lucky for him, he's calmer than I am."
And then along came Bud Selig, who probably didn't care if Minaya could administrate: This was only supposed to last a year. But Minaya was determined to make it the best year, the most thrilling year he could -- defying the experts and even the Expos' biggest boosters. And that's what happened. Even in June, the team, which did have a nucleus of talented young players, was still contending in the National League East.
A confident delegator who leaves on-the-field decisions to his manager, Minaya focused on supplying Robinson with as much talent as the budget allowed. In July, the rookie general manager decided to take his biggest gamble. With his team still hot in contention, he went for the Hollywood ending, executing the season's most celebrated and unexpected trade -- sending three young players to the Cleveland Indians for pitching ace Bartolo Colon.
