Wait Till This Year

He sits in the front row, right behind home plate, for every Cactus League game at the Angels’ spring home in Arizona. He wears a wide-brim hat to shield himself from the relentless sun.

A few fans might recognize him. Most scurry past, rushing to flag down the guy selling the cold drinks.

He is the most anonymous general manager in baseball, which is just the way he likes it.

“I don’t get bugged in restaurants,” Bill Stoneman says.

And then he laughs, because the Angels’ general manager, the architect of baseball’s most remarkable success story this season, scouts his restaurants as carefully as he does his players.

“Generally,” he says, “I don’t go to the restaurants where there are a lot of people anyway. I like little quaint places.”

That description would not apply to Yankee Stadium, where the Angels are likely to open the playoffs next Tuesday, in their first postseason game in 16 years, as the wild-card entry in an American League playoff field that includes the Yankees, Oakland Athletics and Minnesota Twins.

The A’s are run by Billy Beane, all but granted an honorary PhD in a glowing New Yorker magazine profile that compared his insights in statistical analysis to Warren Buffett’s insights in financial analysis.

The Yankees are run by Brian Cashman, either George Steinbrenner’s boy wonder or whipping boy, depending whether the Yankees are on a two-game winning streak or a two-game losing streak.

The Twins are run by Terry Ryan, a low-profile guy who nonetheless drew national acclaim for developing a championship team at the same time his owner would just as soon have folded the team.

But all those teams posted winning records last season. After finishing 41 games out of first place last year, the Angels will finish this year with the best record in franchise history. Oakland Manager Art Howe recently wondered, only half jokingly, if anyone knew who the Angel general manager was.

“I don’t think the job is to be high-profile,” says Stoneman, 58. “I think the job is to put the best club on the field and let the fans focus on the club. Nobody buys a ticket to come and see the general manager.”

Angel Manager Mike Scioscia earns raves, and rightfully so. He’s the trendy candidate for the manager-of-the-year award. But seldom do you hear about Stoneman, the guy who hired him.

“He’s done a great job,” Beane said. “He probably doesn’t get enough credit. Bill’s a background kind of guy.”

The Angels almost lost Stoneman before they could hire him. In 1999, after Bill Bavasi resigned, then-president Tony Tavares settled on Stoneman as his successor. Then Disney Chairman Michael Eisner ordered another round of interviews. In the 10 days between the time Tavares thought he had hired Stoneman and the time he actually did, Stoneman wondered whether he ought to keep his job with the Montreal Expos and walk away from the Angels.

“I almost did,” he says. “Somebody back in Montreal said, ‘Just relax.’ It was good advice.”

That Stoneman would heed a suggestion to be patient is not at all surprising. He preaches patience, and he practices it.

Not long before he hired Stoneman, in the wake of the Angels’ worst season in 16 years, Tavares had bellowed, “Why not?” to the question of whether the Angels could trade all 25 players.

Stoneman took a deep breath. The Angels’ core of position players was too good to blow up, he decided. The maligned minor league system assembled by Bavasi was good enough to produce pitchers Jarrod Washburn, Ramon Ortiz and Scott Schoeneweis, all of whom Stoneman moved into the starting rotation, rather than sign stopgap veterans.

Fans screamed. Columnists and talk-show hosts screamed. Stoneman shrugged.

“From a management standpoint, that’s an attribute,” Tavares said. “He just kind of chuckles and says, that’s their opinion. A lot of people--including me--don’t react the same way.”

In an industry that Tavares said is plagued by “a lot of cronyism,” Stoneman did not fill his front office with old Montreal associates. He solicited recommendations from inside and outside the Angel organization.

Said Scioscia: “I just knew him as a guy who threw a couple of no-hitters.” (He did, for the Expos, in 1969 and 1972.)

Stoneman retained the top scouts and acquired several little-known players upon their recommendations--shortstop David Eckstein, reliever Brendan Donnelly and backup catcher Jose Molina, brother of starting catcher Bengie Molina.

Says Stoneman, “I didn’t even know Bengie Molina had a brother.”

Coach Ron Roenicke recommended another reliever, Ben Weber. Second baseman Adam Kennedy came from St. Louis in the trade for outfielder Jim Edmonds. Washburn and Ortiz flourished after two years of on-the-job training, and the minor league system polished John Lackey to replace the inconsistent Schoeneweis, who prospered after his move to the bullpen.

The core of the offense--outfielders Garret Anderson, Darin Erstad and Tim Salmon and third baseman Troy Glaus--remained, as did closer Troy Percival.

Stoneman supplemented the talent last winter with pitchers Kevin Appier and Aaron Sele and designated hitter Brad Fullmer, and players and coaches believed the Angels finally had a winner.

Then the Angels got off to their worst start, losing 14 of their first 20 games. Even so, Stoneman remained patient. No firings, no scapegoats, no getting rid of the manager or the batting coach to “do something.”

“You never see any kind of panic on his face, through the good and the bad,” batting coach Mickey Hatcher said. “If we have to worry what management is thinking about, it’s tough to coach like that.... But he maintained a great attitude, and we all did.”

Said Scioscia: “He brings an incredible amount of stability to what at times is a fragile business.”

Scioscia is the first Angel manager to survive three full seasons since Gene Mauch did so from 1985 to ’87. The Angels last year extended Scioscia’s contract through 2005.

Stoneman’s contract expires next year. With Disney trying to sell the club, Stoneman resisted possible temptation to trade the Angels’ top prospects for proven stars who might enhance the chance to win this year and thus impress a possible new boss.

“You don’t want to sell out your future to take a run for one year,” he says. “That’s a little bit short-sighted. If you live in fear of losing your job, you’re probably not going to do a very good job.”

Stoneman says there have been no talks about a contract extension and that he is “not even thinking about that.”

Angel President Paul Pressler declined to discuss that issue but said, “The two most important reasons we are where we are are Bill Stoneman and Mike Scioscia.”

If Stoneman were talking about a contract extension, he would no sooner discuss the details than he would sing karaoke before a sellout crowd at Edison Field. He is unfailingly pleasant, but ask him to talk about a trade rumor or his interest in an available free agent, and his response ranges from reluctance to refusal.

You don’t hear much about what Stoneman is up to because he won’t tell. Many major league executives don’t mind sharing information on potential trades and signings with fellow executives and the media, in part to fuel a fan buzz about the sport.

Stoneman calls the content of trade talks “our private corporate information” and believes rival teams should behave accordingly. Two years ago, he said, the Yankees did not, during trade talks about Edmonds.

“Some of the conversations I would have would appear in a New York paper the next day, and I grew tired of it,” Stoneman says. “I picked up the phone and told the Yankees, ‘We are not going to talk to you about Jim Edmonds, because we can’t seem to have a private conversation.’ ”

In a private conversation with outfielder Tim Salmon last year, Stoneman outlined his plan to turn the Angels into winners. Salmon, the Angels’ all-time home run leader, had squirmed when Stoneman traded Edmonds and abandoned pitcher Chuck Finley, the Angels’ all-time victory leader, to free agency.

Stoneman offered Salmon a four-year contract extension, and Salmon wasn’t sure whether to sign. Stoneman had come from Montreal, after all, where the Expos developed talented young players, then dumped them before they became too expensive. Salmon wondered whether he would be the lone veteran in a clubhouse full of kids happy just to be there.

Stoneman assured Salmon the budget was bigger in Anaheim than in Montreal. The Angels would not sign the most expensive free agents, but they would retain their own players, invest in player development and international scouting, supplement with free agents when necessary and promote young players on the basis of talent, not salary. And they would play for a championship.

“He came across as very straightforward and trusting,” Salmon said.

Salmon signed the extension. The Angels did retain their potential free agents, with Erstad and Percival following him in signing extensions. They did supplement their roster, boosting the payroll to add Appier, Sele and Fullmer. They did develop and promote young talent, including Lackey and the Venezuelan phenom, reliever Francisco Rodriguez.

Salmon made his major league debut in 1992. No current major leaguer has played more games without a playoff appearance--1,383 and counting, but he can stop counting this week.

Bound for Yankee Stadium, Salmon pauses to tip his cap to Stoneman.

“Everything he told me,” Salmon said, “has happened.”