One of the more intriguing subjects Ned Colletti touches on in his memoir, ‘The Big Chair,’ was his experience working under former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt. Prior to joining the Dodgers in November 2005, Colletti was an assistant general manager with the San Francisco Giants for nine seasons.
Being that he was employed by another club, Colletti and McCourt needed to seek permission from San Francisco bras before proceeding with the interview process. There was some hesitation on the part of the Giants before a 72-hour window was granted.
What ensued was anything Colletti ever could imagine. He flew to Los Angeles to meet with McCourt. The first interview began in the early afternoon and continued into the late evening, without any breaks.
The grueling process continued a couple days later, with McCourt purposely raising the temperature in the hotel suite to make Colletti uncomfortably warm. The former Dodgers general manager came to learn it was a means of testing his mettle.
A third round of interviews concluded with McCourt offering Colletti the position of general manager of the Dodgers, with just over one hour to spare in their three-day negotiating window.
While the process was trying and hardly conventional, and though McCourt ultimately took his share of lumps and became Public Enemy No. 1 after dragging the Dodgers into bankruptcy court, Colletti has fond memories of his former boss.
“Frank took a lot of shots in the city, and I understand why. I also understood he was very smart and a very astute business man,” Colletti told DodgerBlue.com in an exclusive interview.
“The three days of interviewing was just one segment of it. Whenever I had a major decision to make on a player, there was yet another process that I would try to keep as short as possible. It was in season most of the time, I’d go into his office for a 3 o’clock meeting and I wouldn’t sit down.
“I had the idea maybe I could get out of there in 15 minutes. I’d end up sitting down and we’d go for an hour or hour and a half. He told me, ‘I just try to build thought process and I want you to continue to build your thought process, where you see things from so many different windows.’
“The interview was one thing, but the rest of the experience had a little bit of the interview tied to it. The thread of his approach, which was really thorough, and really to dig deep on your thought process, that never waned. He taught me a lot.”
Together, Colletti and McCourt guided the Dodgers to three postseason berths, including back-to-back trips to the National League Championship Series in 2008 and 2009. McCourt then sold the team for a record $2.15 billion, a sale that was completed in May 2012.
