In order to secure its depleted infield corps, the Athletics acquired Mark McLemore, a man with 18 years experience in the league, but one who still has yet to play a game this year due to surgery on his right knee.
However, the pitching staff for Oakland still remains strong, secured by the likes of Barry Zito and Tim Hudson, and it appears that outfielder Jermaine Dye has fully recovered from the broken leg he suffered last year.
“Would everyone like another $30 million to play with? Sure,” Forst said. “But we enjoy the challenge, and we enjoy being creative. But we take that underdog role…and try and impress it on the players that it’s us against the world.”
FOLLOWING IN SOMEONE ELSE’S FOOTSTEPS
Of course, Forst has probably not seen the advancement of his professional career end at his current position. If his time at Harvard proved anything—in which during his senior year as the captain he batted over .400 percent, had a team record 67 hits and was a Third Team All-American—it’s that Forst can do pretty much anything he sets his mind to.
“You just kind of knew that David—in whatever area he set out for—he had that passion and love for the game [to succeed],” Walsh said.
“He was a born leader,” Marcucci said. “You could tell from the first time that we were around him that he was going to be captain when we were leaders.”
And how far exactly will that talent and passion take Forst?
“I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that he would be capable of being a GM,” said Brian Ralph ’98, another former teammate of Forst’s.
“One of the things David has is a real ability to relate to people, in addition to having a really good intellectual, analytical knowledge of the game. A lot of times the GM role is just as much about relating to your employees, your players, your staff—that’s just as much a portion of it and that’s something that David has always been good relating to people above him, people beneath.”
Forst is certainly in an interesting position, and seems back to his old ways in competing with Glaus—now a three-time All-Star with the Anaheim Angels—but this time for the AL West title instead of an NCAA championship.
“I wonder what Glaus remembers from that game. He probably remembers it in less detail than we do,” Marcucci said. “Maybe at some point Forst will be trading for him down the road in a contract negotiation ten years from now, depending on where they end up.”
And if Forst’s former teammates’ ideas about his future will come true, being a GM could certainly make that trade happen a lot faster. Just as long as Glaus doesn’t mind putting away some bitter memories.
—Staff writer Evan R. Johnson can be reached at erjohns@fas.harvard.edu.