John Hart (baseball)

John Henry Hart (born July 21, 1948) is an American Major League Baseball executive. In addition, he was once the former general manager of the Cleveland Indians and Texas Rangers; now he currently serves as senior adviser, baseball operations, for the Rangers.

Biography

Hart was born John Henry Reen in 1948 in Tampa, Florida. He attended Seminole Junior College where he was catcher on the baseball team. In 1969 he won All-American honors and began his professional career as a catcher in the Montreal Expos organization. He caught with them for three seasons before leaving the organization and returning to Florida. He graduated in 1973 from the University of Central Florida with majors in history and physical education.

Hart then coached high school baseball in the Orlando, Florida area before joining the Orioles organization in 1982 as a minor league manager. He managed in their minor league organization for six seasons before joining the major league team as third base coach in 1988.

In 1989, John Hart joined the Cleveland Indians as a special assignment scout, but then replaced Doc Edwards as manager for the final 19 games of the regular season (the team put up an 8-11 record during those games). For the next two seasons, Hart served as Director of Baseball Operations for the club. In September of 1991, John Hart replaced Hank Peters as general manager and executive vice president of the Indians. During the next 10 years, the Indians were 870-681 under Hart. They won six American League Central division titles (1995 – 1999 and 2001) with appearances in the World Series in 1995 and 1997.

At the beginning of the 2001 season, Hart announced that it would be his last season as general manager of the Indians. After the season, Hart stayed true to his word and Assistant GM Mark Shapiro took over as general manager on November 1. But rather than take another position with the club, or retire, John Hart instead took the general manager position that had opened up with the Texas Rangers after the departure of Doug Melvin.

On July 21, 2004 the Rangers announced a contract extension for Hart for a guaranteed two more years and an annual mutual option to extend the contract each year thereafter. In addition, the contract stipulated that once it was terminated by either side, it automatically converted to a five year agreement for Hart to serve as senior advisor to the owner. Just over a year after agreeing to the extension, John Hart stepped down as general manager of the Texas Rangers on October 4, 2005 and was replaced by Jon Daniels. During his four years with the Rangers, the team compiled a record of 311-337, never advancing to the playoffs.

After Hart garnered interest for the general manager position on other teams in the 2005 off-season, the Rangers extended his senior advisor contract for three more years in exchange for Hart refusing to consider any other GM positions. Thus Hart remains with the Rangers today and is locked up through the year 2013.

Awards

*All-American honors - 1969
*Appalachian League Manager of the Year – 1982
*International League Manager of the Year – 1986
*"Sporting News" Major League Executive of the Year - 1994 and 1995
*Elected to Winter Park High School's (FL) athletic hall of fame - 2002

External links

* [http://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/hartjo99.shtml Baseball Reference - John Hart]
* [http://www.baseball-almanac.com/awards/aw_sney.shtml Baseball Almanac - Sporting News Executive of the Year awards]