OC Register: Alexander: Do Angels realize what they’re losing in Tim Mead?

[AngelsWin.com]

ANAHEIM — Imagine that you’ve been in a job, your dream job, for 40 years. You’ve ridden out changes of ownership and philosophy, and you’ve represented your organization with loyalty, dignity, credibility and efficiency, as well as providing a pretty exhaustive institutional memory.

And then you get that job offer of a lifetime, the one position that could conceivably tear you away from what has been your professional home. Do you take it?

At first, Tim Mead said no.

He’d joined the then-California Angels in 1980 as a public relations intern out of Cal Poly Pomona, hired by then-PR director Tom Seeberg. He’d risen through the ranks: Director of media relations, then vice president of media relations and even assistant general manager to Bill Bavasi for three seasons. Throughout, he was a trusted spokesman for the franchise, solid in good times and bad, a true believer in the team he’d grown up rooting for.

“Outside of your regular family, this is my family,” he said. “I never thought I would leave the Angels organization because it’s just … the people here, the players past and present, mean everything in the world to me, and I think that those of us who have been around a while continue to feel as though we represent them.”

He said that on Tuesday afternoon, the day it was announced that he was leaving after all.

Fourteen men with Angels ties, including 2019 inductee Lee Smith, are or will be Hall of Famers. And one of their own will soon be running the joint, following Tuesday’s announcement that Mead will become President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

It means a move to Cooperstown, which required buy-in from his wife and his son and daughter-in-law since there are grandkids involved.

And that means he will almost certainly be the biggest Angels fan in upstate New York. Old habits die hard.

“The Angels will always be part of my business,” he said. “I mean, that’s just the way I’ll think, and probably at some point, those guys (here) will tell me, enough e-mails or enough texts.

“But you just can’t do something for 40 years and just think it’s done. So that will be the box score I check every morning, but I’ll know (the result) for the most part because I don’t sleep much.”

In other words, he’ll be firing up the Extra Innings package regularly.

The Hall of Fame job was first broached this spring, after current president Jeff Idelson announced in February he would be retiring following this July’s induction ceremony. Idelson, who has been Hall of Fame president since 2008, likewise came from the baseball PR ranks, working for the Red Sox and Yankees before becoming the Hall’s director of public relations in 1994.

“Jeff Idelson had said something to me in spring training,” Mead said. “We’d had a conversation and we just talked, about his resigning and leaving Cooperstown and looking for a replacement, and would I be interested in the process?

“And I thought about it for a couple of weeks, avoided calling him for a couple of weeks – I think stalled – and finally called him and said I just can’t do it. Between my family and my loyalty to this organization, it just doesn’t feel right.”

The Hall is not accustomed to taking no for an answer. Thus, Jane Forbes Clark – chairman of the board of the Hall, and granddaughter of the man who founded the Hall in 1936 – reached out to Mead and asked for one more conversation.

So, after the Angels got back from a trip to Texas two weeks ago, Mead flew to Florida for a lunch meeting.

“She is fiercely protective of the Hall of Fame and what it stands for and what it represents,” he said. “And when you hear somebody talk about that … you’d be hard-pressed not to at least listen.

“So yeah, we had that conversation and a call at the airport, and then it was time to talk to my family after that.”

How huge a change is this? Instead of representing a team and dealing with the daily hurly-burly of a 162-game season, Mead will now be the curator of baseball’s soul.

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The Hall of Fame inspires passions. Those of us who are voters rediscover it every year when it’s time to elect the next class. Those who are part of the institution itself recognize that immense responsibility every July, when the immortals appear in the flesh. Mead recalled last year, at the induction that included Vladimir Guerrero, and a conversation between Bob Gibson, Joe Torre and Juan Marichal about the 1968 season.

Not all of us have the chance to listen to legends reminisce.

“It’s not the business of baseball, it’s not all the other things that all of us here have to go through every day,” Mead said. “It’s just … it’s the purity. It’s the history of an institution. It’s the spot where everybody wants to go.”

And when the time comes in January, Mead will be making those calls to inform the next class of immortals that they’re in. How cool is that?

In the meantime, here’s a thought. Wouldn’t it be a good idea, before he leaves for Cooperstown, if the Angels recognized Mead’s loyalty and distinguished service by making him the 17th entity in the franchise’s own Hall of Fame?

jalexander@scng.com

@Jim_Alexander on Twitter

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[jordan]

I’ve never met Tim. Never had any interactions, but his fingerprints are all over everything Angels.  He will be next to impossible to replace. I wish him the best and it makes me feel good that an Angel will be leading the Hall. 

[disarcina]

I met Tim Mead at several of the AngelsWin.com Spring Training events.

He has always been very good to our group of folks.

If this is what he wants - and he has been with the Halos probably longer than anyone else these days save perhaps a long time 'in the stands' vendor who's worked Angels games forever......but if this presents an opportunity to top off his long career in MLB-- I'm all for him.  The HOF gets a HOF'er guy IMO.

 

Congrats Tim Mead

 

 

[ten ocho recon scout]

I mentioned it before, Ive met him on a handful of occasions. I was lucky enough to hang out with him for an extended length and talk candidly, about baseball and life in general.

I know his rep with the players is very good. He has always been well liked by the guys. The coppers I know that work the stadium like him a lot. Talking to him you can see why. Hes very easy going, friendly, and very respectful. Sqlt of the earth type.

Couldnt be more happy for the man, but sad for the org. People like that are hard to replace in any organization.