From ticket clerk to GM, Ash now also a Hall of Famer

Toronto native and former Toronto Blue Jays general manager Gord Ash has been elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. Photo Credit: Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame

By Kevin Glew

Canadian Baseball Network

He started out as a part-time ticket clerk with his hometown Toronto Blue Jays in May 1977 and rose through the club’s ranks to become the assistant general manager for two World Series-winning squads and subsequently the team’s general manager who drafted Roy Halladay.

And now you can add Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame inductee to Gord Ash’s resume.

The Toronto native is one of four inductees that will comprise the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s class of 2019. Former slugger Jason Bay (Trail, B.C.), versatile ex-pitcher Ryan Dempster (Sechelt, B.C.) and esteemed coach Rob Thomson (Sarnia, Ont.) will be also inducted in a ceremony to take place on June 15 at the Hall of Fame grounds in St. Marys, Ont.

Born in Toronto in 1951, Ash, a big baseball fan when he was growing up, was bored with his job in the banking industry when a friend that worked in the Blue Jays’ ticket office hooked him with a part-time gig in May 1977.

“I really wasn’t looking for a part-time job. That wasn’t my interest. My interest was in watching the game and he indicated to me that by the end of the second inning you were finished your job and then they allowed you to go in and watch the game and that was the real appeal for me,” recounted Ash in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s conference call on Tuesday afternoon.

Over the course of the 1977 season, Ash impressed the manager of the ticket office enough that he was hired him full-time the following year.

“I was just happy to have a job in baseball,” said Ash. “Baseball had always been my sport of choice . . . I enjoyed the history, the strategy, the whole aspect of the game, and to get involved in some small way was a significant achievement for me at the time. I was definitely not thinking about the possibility of getting an honour like I have today.”

And while Ash was happy to have a job in baseball, the Blue Jays were happy to have him as employee. He impressed with his work in the ticket office and over the next two decades, he would be regularly promoted by the club. From 1980 to 1983, he served as the Blue Jays’ assistant director of operations before being promoted to player personnel administrator from 1984 to 1988. In 1989, he was elevated to assistant general manager.

In his five years as assistant GM, Ash performed much of the behind-the-scenes work on player contracts, including working on those for key free agent signings like Dave Winfield, Jack Morris, Paul Molitor and Dave Stewart who helped the club secure back-to-back World Series titles in 1992 and 1993. When legendary Blue Jays general manager and Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer Pat Gillick departed following the 1994 season, Ash was named his successor, which made him just the fourth Canadian to be a GM in the major leagues.

During Ash’s seven-year reign as general manager, the Blue Jays drafted future stars such as the aforementioned Halladay (1995) , Vernon Wells (1997), Michael Young (1997), Orlando Hudson (1997) and Alex Rios (1999).

Halladay, who will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame posthumously this summer, was the best of the Blue Jays’ draft picks under Ash’s administration.

“He was high on our board,” reflected Ash, when asked about the decision process behind drafting Halladay in the first round in 1995. “We were very fortunate at the time to have a very veteran scouting group. Pat Gillick had recently retired, but still was available to scout. He saw Roy. Bob Engle was our scouting director, and he had some attachment to Colorado because he had gone to school there. And then Tim Wilken was one of our cross-checkers, he was very high on Roy.”

Ash recalled that there were a few concerns about drafting Halladay, given the club’s poor track record of developing pitchers at the time.

“There was always some internal concern about high school right-handed pitchers and how they develop but we got really fortunate,” said Ash. “It was the right pick at the right time and obviously he had a tremendous career.”

But it was hardly a smooth road to superstardom for Halladay. Long-time Blue Jays fans will recall that after his disastrous 2000 season in which he posted a 10.64 ERA in 19 appearances, Halladay was sent all the way down to class-A. It was Ash and his staff that made the decision to do this.

“I had a lot of advice at the time that it was opportune moment to trade Roy, but there was just too much ability there to give up on him,” recounted Ash. “So we hatched this plan to allow him to go back to the lower levels . . . just because we wanted to give him the opportunity to take his time and rework his delivery and work on his pitches and work on his mental approach and he did all of those things. He’s the one who put in the hard work and actually got back pretty quickly and became a Cy Young Award winner a couple of years later.”

Unfortunately Ash didn’t have the opportunity to bask in Halladay’s success, as he was let go as Blue Jays GM after the 2001 season. But the new Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer was touched when Halladay phoned him and asked him to attend his retirement news conference in Toronto in December 2013.

“When Roy retired he made a call to me and told me that he wanted me to be in attendance at his retirement press conference which I thought was very classy of him,” said Ash. “It certainly was a privilege to know him.”

After he was relieved of his duties as GM for the Blue Jays following the 2001 season, Ash worked as a baseball analyst for TSN before he was hired to be the assistant general manager of the Milwaukee Brewers under fellow Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer Doug Melvin (Chatham, Ont.). Ash served in that role for 12 seasons and helped build the roster of the 2008 Brewers that advanced to the post-season, ending the club’s 26-year playoff drought. He also assisted in constructing the 2011 Brewers club that finished with a franchise record 96 wins and won the National League Central Division title. Since 2015, Ash has worked as the vice-president of Baseball Projects for the Brewers.

In all, Ash has spent more than 40 years in professional baseball. During that time, he has also served as a respected voice on several important MLB committees, including those that have helped shape the collective bargaining process and minor league facility standards.

He is one of just six Canadians to serve as a big league general manager. The others are George Selkirk (Huntsville, Ont.), Murray Cook (Sackville, N.B.), Doug Melvin (Chatham, Ont.), Alex Anthopoulos (Montreal, Que.) and Farhan Zaidi (Sudbury, Ont.).

“I am a lucky man!” said Ash in a statement in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s press release. “When Scott Crawford called to let me know I had been selected for induction into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame I was overwhelmed with emotion. So many baseball memories flashed vividly through my mind, including the people I have met and worked with, the places the game has taken me and the experiences I have had the good fortune to enjoy all came back to life. Baseball was not a career for me but for parts of five decades and over 40 years and it was rather a way of life and I enjoyed every minute. I am humbled and honoured with this opportunity to be included with a group of legends of baseball in Canada and I look forward to induction weekend.”