Barely 24 hours after Sandy Alderson’s contract with the Mets expired last October, he got a surprise phone call from his past. A recurrence of cancer hastened his decision to step away from his day-to-day duties as the Mets’ general manager last summer. Yet Alderson found Beane’s offer intriguing: Alderson was, after all, Oakland’s general manager from 1983 to 1997, and he helped construct the so-called Bash Brothers club that won the World Series in 1989. Within days of Beane’s call, Alderson agreed to return to his roots in the Bay Area and work for his onetime protégé. Alderson’s decision was driven by two factors.

Source: New York Times May 27, 2019 17:26 UTC