Q: What was your working relationship like with Billy?
A: It was a job. It was a work of labor. He was a little difficult to work with. We got the job done. I had a great staff and our minor league system did a good job of preparing players for us. And our scouting department, before this so-called Moneyball, did a great job of bringing good young players into the system.
Q: Was he a clubhouse presence like he was portrayed in the movie?
A: More so than any general manager I’ve ever worked with. He’d lift weights during the game right across the hall and be in the clubhouse. Generally when we were home, he was in the clubhouse almost every night.
Q: Did you find that to be OK? Undermining?
A: He’s my boss. I guess he has the right to be in the clubhouse. In the past, general managers really didn’t come in the clubhouse that much. In fact, when I was a player, I rarely saw my general manager. But times have changed.
Q: What were your thoughts at the time of the way he and Paul DePodesta (aka Peter Brand, played by Jonah Hill in the movie) did their player evaluations?
A: It was different. It was certainly a different thing to a degree, but everybody in baseball knows that on-base percentage is important. He really zeroed in on that, and everybody bought into it that there was something really different that they were doing.