Meet a SABR Member: Tony Blengino
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| By Rick Balazs |
The stereotype that scouts are constantly on the road watching baseball games is not totally unfounded. Just ask Tony Blengino, SABR member and assistant director of amateur scouting for the Milwaukee Brewers.
“All spring long, we have about 20 area scouts working every day,” Blengino explained. “If we’re not at a game, we’re writing reports, or planning our next move, or making travel arrangements.”
Among his current responsibilities, Blengino is responsible for all amateur scouting in Canada, and prior to that, scouted in the northeast part of the U.S. Scouts who usually search for talent in the northern part of the country often head to Florida in February and March since baseball games in the north don’t often start until April. During this time of year, scouts can see an astoundingly large number of games.
“You can get in five games per day and see players outside of your territory. You’re seeing over 100 baseball games,” he explained. “When you think about that, it’s almost a season’s worth of baseball in a month’s time.”
The weeks leading up to the June amateur draft are also particularly long and intense for Blengino and the Brewers’ scouting staff.
“It’s literally early morning until early morning, every day,” he said. “And once you get to draft meetings, forget about having a life for a few weeks.”
The long hours and travel do not deter Blengino and scouts from loving their jobs, though.
“It’s an everyday job, but it really isn’t a job,” he said. “It’s something that we love to do. It’s really not work in that sense.”
As Blengino acknowledges, getting a job in the major leagues is very competitive. Blengino could not rely on a prior professional playing career to get his foot in the door, as his playing days finished after high school baseball. Blengino realized at a young age that, if he were to enter the game at the professional level, it would have to be off the field, not on it.
“I was a very small kid. I had a very late growth spurt. By the time I grew at all, I was in high school, and I wasn’t one of the guys at that point in time,” he said. “I knew if I was going to get into the game, I knew it was going to be off the field.”
His involvement in SABR helped him to do just that. He joined SABR in the early 1990s, and his membership with SABR and subsequent work on the book Future Stars helped him gain valuable experience and contacts to help him get his start in professional baseball.
“I was a crazy baseball fan just like anyone else,” he said. “I was really into statistics and read all the Bill James stuff. SABR helped me make the connections and make the big steps along the way to where I am now.”
Blengino still tries to stay up-to-date with the latest SABR activities and would like to make time to become more involved with the local chapter in Wisconsin.
“I still get all the publications and read them and stay connected with the friends I have made,” he said. “I’d love to have some kind of relationship up here (in Wisconsin) with the local chapter.”
Prior to his career in baseball, Blengino worked as a CPA out of college, first at a Big 8 accounting firm before working as a CFO in the non-profit arena. Blengino said that the background he gained in accounting and business has benefited him in his career in baseball.
“Even in the baseball arena, that business background comes up huge,” he said. “Suddenly you find yourself negotiating contracts, and that knowledge really helped me in an area scouting position. In an area scouting position, you’re an entrepreneur. You’re responsible for your area. Getting players signed is ultimately how you make your bones in this business. If I didn’t get quality players signed, I wouldn’t have had a chance to advance.”
The fact that, outside of some free-lance scouting, he did not have experience in professional baseball did not seem to faze Blengino too much when he pursued a major league job.
“If you’re really focused on what you’re looking for and asking the right questions, and getting the right directions from your organization, it’s something that you can pick up quickly if you have the basic foundation, which I felt that I did,” he said. “It’s a combination of instincts and the willingness to admit that you don’t know it all, and getting out there and grinding it out.”
Grinding it out is exactly what Blengino has done on his way to working in Major League Baseball. Looking back at the path that has taken him to where he is today, he wonders how he was able to accomplish so much along the way.
“I remember writing the book, having two small kids, coaching little league teams, working a busy full-time job. I don’t know how I did it,” he said. “But you have to roll up your sleeves and do it for a period of time, and all it takes is that one break.”
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| | Created On: 2006-07-20 |
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Page Link: http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,2335,35,235
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