Elliott: Remembering Dave Yoakum, ex Yankee, Blue Jay, White Sox scout
November 10, 2023
By Bob Elliott
Canadian Baseball Network
Dave Yoakum was a lot of things.
He was an infielder for six seasons in the Detroit Tigers and Houston Astros farm systems
He was an area scout for the Toronto Blue Jays, being involved in nabbing Willie Upshaw from the New York Yankees in the 1977 Rule V draft and he signed Pat Borders in 1982. Borders had a 17-year career and won two World Series, including 1992 with the Jays when he won the MVP.
Hall of Fame general manager Pat Gillick once described Upshaw as the “foundation of the franchise.” The first baseman played seven seasons with Toronto, averaging .265 hitting 12 homers and knocking in 53 runs per season. That’s a foundation?
“Yes,” Gillick said, “Willie became an everyday player for us, so the board allowed us to continue to be active in the Rule V draft.”
Gillick and his scouts selected eventual MVP George Bell, Kelly Gruber, who played third base for the 1992 World Series champs, Manny Lee, who spent eight seasons and 753 career regular-season games with the Jays, Jim Gott, who pitched in 99 games and reliever Jim Acker, who worked in 281 games.
“You mean your board would not approve a $50,000 expenditure in the 1980s?”
“The price was only $12,500 when Dave Yoakum and Al LaMacchia drafted Willie Upshaw,” said Gillick.
Yoakum was a loving father. He married Nina Wheeler in 1993 and together they raised three children: Mark, 34, Anna, 22 and Dax, 20.
Yoakum was an outdoors man, who loved sailing, fishing, wildlife watching, and photography.
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Yoakum, 76, passed May 10 at his home in Orlando following a long illness. He was an assistant to the general manager with the White Sox from 1991 to 2020.
While he was no longer an employee of the White Sox, a celebration of life will be held at Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side of Chicago on Monday. White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf continues to look after his employees.
Born in Middlesboro, Ky. on Dec. 15, 1946, Yoakum is surivied by two brothers, Dennis (Paula) and Danny (Debbie).
Donations in Yoakum’s name can be made to East Orange Babe Ruth League would be appreciated.
East Orange Babe Ruth League
12472 Lake Underhill Rd. #223
Orlando, FL 32828
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Most of all Yoakum was a scout.
Former Minnesota Twins GM Terry Ryan, left, Tyler Tumminia of the Professional Baseball Scouts and Dave Yoakum at the 2010 Hall of Fame induction at Fort Myers, Fla.
How good was he? Cooperstown has yet to recognize scouts, but his excellent career was recognized when he was inducted into the Professional Baseball Scouts Hall of Fame in 2010. A bronze plaque in his honour is permanently on display at the home of the Class-A Fort Myers Miracle in the Florida State League.
Yoakum’s scouting career spanned over four decades: as supervisor to the New York Yankees (1974-1976) and the Blue Jays (1977-1991) and as assistant to the general manager for the Chicago White Sox (1991-2020). He worked for respected executives Tal Smith, Gillick, Ron Schueler, Ken and Rick Hahn.
As the advance scout for the 1985 Jays, Yoakum advised future Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox not to throw strikes to Kansas City Royals future Hall of Famer George Brett in the American League Championship Series. The strategy worked the first two games in Toronto as Brett was 3-for-8 (.375) without an RBI. In Game 3, Brett was 4-for-4 with two homers and three RBIs in a game started by Doyle Alexander. Brett hit .348, with three homers, five RBIs, seven walks and a 1.326 OPS in the series.
In the minors, he was on the same rosters as future big-league managers Cito Gaston, Gene Lamont, Jim Leyland and Stump Merrill. And he was also a coach in the Astros system.
Gaston almost won the class-A New York-Penn triple crown in 1966 saying “Dave was our second baseman on the Batavia Trojans.”
“As our advance scout with Toronto we’d see him all the time, especially in New York,” Gaston said. “We’d get our work done and then we’d go to eat, then we would sit and talk about baseball for hours.”
As the advance scout for the 2005 Chicago White Sox, Yoakum compiled detailed reports on the opposition. The White Sox rolled through post-season play: sweeping the Boston Red Sox in the best-of-five AL Division Series, losing one game in beating the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the ALCS and then sweeping Houston in the World Series. How was that for a plan of attack? The White Sox played 12 games and went 11-1 to win their first World Series since 1917.
And he was also a funny man. One night on a trip into Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, I bumped into Yoakum in the press box. It was the final stop of a three-city stop. He asked how many scouts I’d seen on the first two stops. I named off a few and then remembered “oh and I saw your talkative teammate Billy Scherrer.”
Veteran White Sox scout Scherrer has been know to talk a little. He’s also been known to talk a lot. Never any trade secrets, but man he can talk.
“Ah,” said Yoakum, with the wave of his right hand, “Billy only talks until he thinks of something to say.”
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White Sox scout J.J. Lally tells the story how when Yoakum was a special assistant to then GM Ron Schueler, one spring in Sarasota. The front-office threesome headed for a round of golf: Ed Brinkman, also a special assistant to the GM, Yoakum, and Schueler. Brinkman was off looking for his ball, when Yoakum found a dead fish and quickly stuffed it inside Brinkman’s golf bag.
Yoakum didn’t say a word and after a few days, Brinkman began to complain that his car stunk. Days passed and finally Brinkman could not stand it anymore. He searched his car high and low until he opened the trunk and was floored by the ferocious smell and found Yoakum’s surprise.
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Current Miami Marlins’ scout Paul Ricciarini, a former Blue Jays scout, remembers Yoakum from his Toronto days and running into him at big league parks..
“Pat Gillick would use his advance role to involve David on everything we did back then,” Riccarini said. “My only real stories were all relative to his great heart quite frankly. I miss him dearly.
“I have my last text saved from both him and Jim Fregosi in my phone. I hardly ever save text messages.”
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Dennis Gilbert used to be an agent. Now, he is a special assistant to White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf.
“Dave Yoakum was a top of the line guy, first class,” said Gilbert. “He was a sharp dresser, very conscious of his appearance and he was articulate. Yoke really understood his game.”
Gilbert can recall attending White Sox organizational meetings with general manager Ken Williams.
“Kenny would ask when scouts were discussing a player ‘Yoke, tell me about this guy, what do you have on him?’” Gilbert recalled. “If we were making a trade for a player ... Yoke would have info from his coaches and teammates ... to find out the player’s character. Yoke was involved in every good deal we made.
“He was a very, very, good scout.”
In 2016, he was involved in the White Sox obtaining Lucas Giolito, Dane Dunning and Reynaldo López from the Washington Nationals for Adam Eaton. And the next year the Sox benefitted from acquiring Eloy Jiménez, Dylan Cease, Bryant Flete and Matt Rose from the Chicago Cubs for José Quintana.
The White Sox also made post-season play four other times while Yoakum was there -- in 1993 losing to the Blue Jays in the ALCS, 2008 losing the ALDS to the Tampa Bay Rays, 2020 losing the wild-card to Oakland and 2021, losing the ALDS to Houston.
At the 2002 winter meetings in Nashville, Gilbert was asked to attend a meeting with the legendary executive Roland Hemond and Yoakum. At the time scouts were getting axed left and right in the post-Money Ball era.
“Yoak told me stories, just awful stories,” said Gilbert. “About one scout who was laid off and he lost his house ... another scout who was let go, passed away and his family didn’t have enough money to bury him. Roland and Yoak asked ‘What do you think we can do for these out-of-work scouts?’”
Gilbert recalls the three meeting in a restaurant, making notes on a napkin -- where all ideas come from. Stage a diner? Form a foundation? Host a fund raiser?
The goal was not to get scouts rehired, although every effort was made. Job one was to help them with costs of COBRA health insurance for the scout and his family.
The Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation was founded and Gilbert did all the paper work to gain 501 approval as a nonprofit organization in the federal law of the United States according to Internal Revenue Code. “Do you know there are over 29 types of nonprofit organizations?” Gilbert asked me once.
Fellow scout Harry Minor of the New York Mets was also involved in creating the foundation which provides support to scouts who have been working in the game at least 25 years but may have fallen on financial hard times due to illness, retirement or the non-renewal of their contracts.
Now, the 2002 Jays may have appeared to lead the majors in laying off scouts. And the next year was just as tough. The scouts blamed general manager J. P. Ricciardi, while Ricciardi blamed Rogers Communications for the cutbacks.
I may have been critical ... a bit. Some Canadian scouts who made $500 honorariums were banged in August of 2002. There was such a stink that some -- but not many -- were rehired.
Moving ahead to December of 2003 at the winter meetings in New Orleans. Yoakum told me about the new foundation. He then took me across the lobby to see Hemond and Gilbert. I congratulated all three on their work. Yoakum, a man I met at the Adams Mark Hotel Kansas City in 1985, was thanking me for “sticking up for scouts.”
I said I didn’t do anything. Then Gilbert said “we’re going to have a banquet in Beverly Hills (Calif.), we’re going to fly in Willie Mays and we want to fly you in ...”
As much as I respected Gilbert I cut him off: “please don’t put Willie Mays and I in the same sentence,” Gilbert insisted that they would fly me into LAX. I insisted I would not come. Then, Yoakum looked at me with his baby blues and said, “I think it is important that you be there.”
So, we came to an agreement: when I returned home, I’d check my frequent flyer points and if I had enough I’d go. I used my points to go and the next year too.
The first thing I saw when I walked into the ball room among the thousands of baseball memorabilia items was Marilyn Munroe’s dress in a case. It was not the usual baseball crowd. We remember Glenn Frey of the Eagles and Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers performing. Actors Harrison Ford and Mark Harmon, plus Bo Derek and Mary Hart were banquet guests over the years. Gilbert moved in different circles.
“From the first year every team bought a table at the banquet,” said Gilbert, although there was always talk a few major league clubs were on the Gilbert Scholarship Plan.
“Jerry Reinsdorf was a big backer of the foundation from Day 1,” Gilbert said. “So was Mark Attanasio (Milwaukee Brewers owner), Lew Wolf (Oakland A’s) and the Dodgers all really stepped up
“Dave was so aggressive getting the scouts to come, without Dave there never would been a fund raiser.”
The weekend consisted of flying in on Friday, the banquet/fund raiser/silent auction/awards presentations on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon was a trip to Gilbert’s spacious mansion in the hills. The scout who was honored the night before was roasted by his rivals. We saw one scout was a Green Bay Packer fan, in agony as the Pack blew a lead on the background TV.
In 2018, Yoakum was presented with the George Genovese Lifetime Achievement Award in Scouting by the foundation. He shared the honour with Washington Nationals’ Dan Jennings and the late Stan Zielinski of the Chicago Cubs. And then came Sunday.
“We were supposed to roast Yoke, but nobody really had anything negative to roast him about -- that’s what kind of a guy Dave Yoakum was,” said Gilbert. The group ran the fund raiser for 17 years before turning the charity over to the Bat Assistance Team and president Buck Martinez.
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After I was honoured in Cooperstown during the summer of 2012, I began to receive packages requesting an autographed ball or letters to sign pictures or index cards. The collectors would -- mostly from south of the border -- would send US money, along with a return package, envelope, pens and explicit instructions where to sign.
I told them I’d send the package back along with the money and autographs, but asked if they would make a donation, to either Baseball Canada or Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation
The people in Ottawa told me that small dribs and drabs of cheques arrived. According to Yoakum some went to the Scouts Foundation too.
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Sorting through old emails I found my last exchange with Yoakum as he wrote from Dec. 13, 2021:
“I am honestly heartbroken about Roland’s passing.”
That was soon after his pal Hemond had died.
I could type the same thing about David Yoakum, a man who was good at his job, who was respected by all and was very good paying it forward.