ICYMI - Trailblazing Harrigan conquers pulmonary embolism, helps LA win World Series
Ellen Harrigan (Agincourt, Ont.) is senior director, baseball administration with the World Series-winning Los Angeles Dodgers.
November 17, 2020
By Kevin Glew
Canadian Baseball Network
With two outs and an 0-2 count to Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Willy Adames in the top of the ninth inning of Game 6 of the World Series, Ellen Harrigan was standing up and cheering with the two other members of her Los Angeles Dodgers “pod” at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
In a season that had presented more than its fair share of personal and professional challenges, the Dodgers senior director of administration and Agincourt, Ont., native refused to let COVID-19 or her recovery from a pulmonary embolism keep her from experiencing history.
“I was sitting at home and watching the World Series on TV and I decided that I had to go,” recalled Harrigan in a recent phone interview. “So I went for Games 4, 5 and 6 and had a great time. I was hesitant about going because I’ve had some health issues, so I didn’t want to travel and expose myself to people after I had been basically working from home since I left spring training, but at the same time, I felt in my gut that I had to witness this.”
And you can understand why this was so important to her. Harrigan has invested her heart and soul in the Dodgers’ organization for two decades and has gotten to know many of the players, coaches and scouts on a personal level.
So when Dodgers left-hander Julio Urias blew a fastball past Adames for strike three to clinch the championship, Harrigan rejoiced as much as she could with her pod members.
“It almost felt like a relief to finally win,” said Harrigan, who had been on the Dodgers staff for 11 previous trips to the postseason. “We finally got there. It was a sense of euphoria, but also relief and satisfaction that the goal was achieved.”
Ellen Harrigan (left) with her colleague Michelle Darringer after the Dodgers won the World Series at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
Harrigan had to fight off any impulse to run towards the field or hug her Dodgers colleagues outside of her pod.
“We knew going into it that we wouldn’t be able to have contact with our people,” she said. “And we knew that they planned to stay in the bubble after the game to get everybody home safely. It was one of those things where we just kind of hung in the stands and watched the guys celebrate on the field. It was kind of a muted celebration in the sense that they were trying to keep a social distance. We went back to the hotel afterwards and got a couple of bottles of champagne. But it feels like we haven’t finished the celebration.”
And if anyone deserves to celebrate, it’s Harrigan. Not only did she have to persevere through all of the practical and professional inconveniences of the COVID-19 pandemic to do her job, she did it while recovering from a pulmonary embolism that she suffered just after the Dodgers’ postseason in 2019.
A pulmonary embolism occurs when there’s a potentially fatal blockage in one of the pulmonary arteries in the lungs. This was the second one that Harrigan has suffered (Her first was in 2011). In this case, the doctors discovered blood clots in both lungs and she ended up spending two, 10-day stretches in the hospital near the end of last year.
“I basically worked out of my house for the whole time this season,” she said. “It was great in so many ways because my commute to the [Dodgers] office each day is anywhere from an hour to an hour-and a-half each way. And after my health issues over the winter, my strength and stamina was depleted, so it was kind of a blessing in disguise really that the pandemic gave me the opportunity to recover at home and still do my work.”
So when the Dodgers stage a larger celebration, it will have greater significance for Harrigan. Not only did her Dodgers beat the Rays, but she beat a pulmonary embolism for a second time. And soon she’ll be fitted for her third World Series ring. She has two previous rings from her work in the Toronto Blue Jays organization in 1992 and 1993.
That’s an impressive haul for someone who grew up with only a mild interest in baseball. Born in Derry, Northern Ireland, she immigrated to Canada with her family as a child and grew up in Agincourt Ont., before moving to Richmond Hill, Ont., when she was 16.
Harrigan was tall and played basketball and volleyball at Senator O’Connor College School in North York, Ont. Towards the end of high school, she decided she wanted to follow in her father Noel’s footsteps and join the police force. But she was just 17 and her father encouraged her to wait until she was 21. So she began applying for jobs and saw an ad in the newspaper for an administrative assistant position and submitted a resume.
“I had no idea it was for the Blue Jays,” she said. “They called me and said, ‘OK you’ve got to come down to Exhibition Stadium.’ And then it dawned on me that it must be the Blue Jays.”
Harrigan was interviewed by Elliott Wahle for a job in the baseball operations department. She impressed in the interview and was hired in November 1981 and quickly became a valuable member of her department which was headed by general manager Pat Gillick.
At that time, there were no computers so one of Harrigan’s responsibilities was to keep track of all of the players in the organization on a giant roster board on Gillick’s office wall.
“It was like a restaurant board that was black where you pushed the white letters and they changed the menu and the prices,” explained Harrigan.
“You would have your major league club and all of your minor league clubs across the top and all of the players on each roster underneath,” she explained. “And every time they made a move it had a trickle-down effect. So that was one of my jobs. I had to keep that roster board up-to-date. So it was kind of a running joke that, ‘You know the reason we hired you is that you’re the only one tall enough to reach the top of the roster board.’”
Among Harrigan’s other duties were organizing the team’s scouting reports, making travel accommodations and transcribing game reports.
Ellen Harrigan (bottom row, last on the right) quickly became a key member of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball operations department in the early 1980s.
Harrigan says she learned a lot working for Gillick.
“He was the ultimate teacher,” she said. “He shared his experiences with everybody. He was the kind of person that challenged every person to give their best. And he was the type of person you always wanted to do well for.”
After the 1988 season, it was Gillick who encouraged her to take on the role of assistant general manager with the club’s class-A Short-Season New York Penn League affiliate in St. Catharines.
“That job turned out to be such a great learning experience and I loved every moment I was in the minor leagues,” said Harrigan. “It was a great education on how a baseball team is assembled.”
When St. Catharines general manager, Steven Stunt, left before the 1990 season, Harrigan moved into the GM role.
“Short of doing any field maintenance, you almost had to be prepared to do anything else as a GM because you have a limited number of staff and if somebody doesn’t show up, you’ve got to fill the hole,” she said.
One of the players that suited up for St. Catharines when she was there was Carlos Delgado.
“I remember him very well because he was very young. I think he was 16 or 17 years old when he started playing for us,” recalled Harrigan. “I remember taking him to Niagara Falls on an off day one time because he didn’t have anything to do. I had a young child at the time and it was like, ‘Hey, we’re going to go to Niagara Falls. Why don’t you come with us?’ And he jumped in the van and off we went.”
While with the St. Catharines club, Harrigan formed what’s believed to be the first all-female front office in professional baseball history.
“When I was hired as general manager, they didn’t have an assistant general manager at the time, so I needed to replace that person,” remembered Harrigan. “So I looked for somebody who had the skills that I didn’t have. I felt that I had strong administrative skills and a decent knowledge of the game and a good working knowledge of what it took to run the club, but I didn’t have sales experience or marketing experience. So I wanted somebody who had that type of experience and I ended up hiring Marilynn Finn who had done sales and marketing for a local radio station. And she ended up being a perfect fit.”
Harrigan and Finn then hired Eleanor Bowman as an administrative assistant.
“The three of us had a great relationship,” recalled Harrigan.
And they thrived in a pro baseball landscape that had been dominated by men.
“It was very much an old boys club, especially when I was a director of the team in St. Catharines. I was a director on the board for the New York Penn League and generally your director was your owner. But obviously with the Toronto Blue Jays being our owner, I represented them as a director on the New York Penn League executive board,” she said. “It was very much an old boys club and it was just something that as a woman at that time you learned to maneuver your way through.”
After the 1994 season, the Blue Jays decided to sell their St. Catharines club and Harrigan helped with the transition and then accepted a job to become an executive assistant to Gillick, who had moved on to be the general manager of the Baltimore Orioles.
“At the time, I was divorced and I had a young child, but I thought to myself, ‘This is probably an opportunity that I shouldn’t miss,’” she said of moving to Baltimore.
In her new role with the O’s, she became an expert in major league rules, waivers and contracts.
When Gillick left the O’s after three seasons, Harrigan stayed for one more year before she moved on to a position in baseball operations with the Dodgers, working for general manager Kevin Malone, who had been the assistant GM in Baltimore under Gillick.
In November 2006, she was promoted to assistant director, baseball administration where her primary duties included contract maintenance. negotiating contracts and rule interpretation.
Less than two years later, then Dodgers GM Ned Colletti, elevated her to director, baseball administration. The Dodgers press release at the time heralded her as one of less than 10 women who had reached the director level in baseball operations with a big league team.
“Right from the get go, we got along great and Ellen became somebody I depended on a lot,” said Colletti. “She understood not only her job but also the job of the GM.”
Colletti worked closely with Harrigan on trades, waivers transactions and major league rules and she was excellent at reading his mind. A trade or waiver claim would often go right down to the deadline and Harrigan would have just minutes to process the administrative work, but she always came through.
“We made the deal for Manny Ramirez from Boston (on July 31, 2008). It was three-way trade with the Red Sox and we got Manny and the Pirates got four prospects and the Red Sox got Jason Bay and that came down to the last minute before the deadline,” said Colletti. “And she’s the one that had to enter in every move [in the system for Major League Baseball]. So it was imperative that she could stay calm in that rush and also enter the information correctly.”
Harrigan is now the Dodgers’ senior director, baseball administration. In this position, she writes the big league contracts and continues to perform crucial, behind-the-scenes administrative work on trades and waiver claims.
Though she has lived in the U.S. for 24 years, she has maintained her Canadian citizenship and is proud of the country she was raised in. Her parents, Noel and Sally, live in Cookstown, Ont.
“I do try to get home three or four times during the year,” she said. “I’m very close to my family.”
Ellen Harrigan is very proud of her son, Justin, shown here in a 2015 holiday photo.
Harrigan is also very proud of her son, Justin, who lives with her in Los Angeles.
The talented and hardworking Canadian is modest about her success, but she’s been a trailblazer in her field and is, without question, the most successful Canadian female executive in MLB history. And she was thrilled to see her former Dodgers colleague Kim Ng hired as the Miami Marlins’ general manager.
“Kim is an outstanding person. It was so great to see her finally get a job as a general manager,” said Harrigan. “She was somebody who was really prepared for that position and it’s long overdue. I mean, she has been prepared for a GM’s position for the past 10-to-15 years easy. So it’s great to see. I’m so happy for her.”
Harrigan is also heartened to see more women getting jobs in baseball.
“You’re seeing women in medical departments. You’re seeing them in coaching areas. We’re seeing more women come in in the research and development area and in some of the baseball administration areas,” she said. “It’s good to see that women are now getting a place at the table in baseball. I think that’s finally turned the corner and we’re going to see more and more of that. It’s great for the game. It brings a new dynamic to what baseball is all about.”
Harrigan also makes herself available to any women who would like advice on how to break into the industry.
“During the winter meetings, they have a women’s conference and I always make a point of going to that just to be there in case somebody wants to ask a question and I do have young women that reach out from time to time,” she said. “I enjoy being able to lend an ear and give some advice if the opportunity comes up.”
After nearly four decades in pro baseball, Harrigan still loves her job and is feeling healthy again.
“I’ve got to the point where I’m very comfortable with what I’m doing and I enjoy what I’m doing,” said Harrigan. “And I’m going to try to support and promote the next generation of baseball administrators. So I think that I’m satisfied with where I am. I can’t say that I don’t have any goals. Of course, I’ve got goals. I want to continue learning. I want to continue learning about the game of baseball. But in terms of achievements in a career, I’m very happy with where I am. I’ve been really fortunate and I’ve worked with some great people.”