People say that scouts are the lifeblood of the game, the unsung heroes.
From the beginning of Major League Baseball, someone had to discover the young men who would become great players. It might have been in some farm town or a major city. Wherever baseball is played, scouts have had to find them in order to give them the opportunity to play professional baseball.
To their credit, scouts are the ones who found the Babe Ruths, the Lou Gehrigs, the Rabbit Maranvilles and the Ty Cobbs. Scouting goes too far back for me to know the exact procedures, but I know that veteran owners used former players to give them tips by mail or phone calls, to say that there’s a youngster they need to see. With the infancy of our game and the Hall of Famers that came out of it, somebody had to discover them.
Scouting has been a part of the game’s history forever. At the earliest times, scouts probably didn’t get much recognition or compensation, but they were doing it at the time for the ownership or for their long-time baseball contacts.
A scout has to project what he thinks the player will be. Sometimes, the outstanding young player is playing against inferior competition. So the scout has to adjust. He may want to see the young player again against a better pitcher, for instance, or vice versa, so that he can equate more accurately and project more readily and properly.
As a scout, you have to have a love for the game and a strong desire and the same competitive spirit that players possess on the field, but for an off-the-field position. Scouts and their families make sacrifices, because you don’t find ballplayers by staying at home. In the old days, there were long automobile trips, but now, scouts have the option of flying. But it still can be grueling if you are traveling to different parts of the country on a daily basis to find players.