Mayo: Goodbye to a scouting legend

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Over the years and too many conversations, texts and emails to rely, that’s how Mike Radcliff sometimes would finish any communication with me. It didn’t matter if I used to be heading anyplace within the rapid future, nor was it the purpose. It was actually his approach, I believed, of telling me to maintain myself, wherever I could be.

Hearing the news that he had died on Friday was like a intestine punch to everybody in baseball who had are available contact with him. And on condition that he’d spent greater than 35 years working for the Twins, that’s lots of people. My colleague Jim Callis had it proper when he stated that he didn’t know of a scout who was extra appreciated AND revered than Mike Radcliff. That’s a mixture that’s onerous to drag off.

Battling pancreatic most cancers for the previous a number of years didn’t maintain him from his work, even when he needed to be taught new methods to do it based mostly on how he was doing. In a really perfect world, he’d be out on the street main as much as every Draft attempting to assist the Twins, the group he known as house for many years, make the very best choices potential. One of my final exchanges with him about that very topic got here in 2021, when he informed me he was “grinding chemo” and submitting video experiences on school pitchers. (Not coincidentally, I’m certain, the Twins took three school arms within the high 5 rounds in that 12 months’s Draft.)

Any probability to see Mike at an occasion, to run a Draft prospect or Twins high 30 listing by him, to select his mind, was a win.  His breadth of information, his uncanny recall of what appeared like each participant he had ever seen or heard about, his generosity in sharing that encyclopedic knowledge, his full lack of ego with out sacrificing any conviction in his personal beliefs … all of it was current any time you interacted with him. He had such respect for the sport and the individuals who labored to higher it and I don’t know if I’ve come throughout anybody extra real, honest, hard-working and actual.

We would share amusing at a number of Winter Meetings, typically on the Scout of the Year Reception, as a result of it took me a couple of years to acknowledge him with no visor or bucket hat on his head, one of many trademark instruments of his commerce. 

To say he can be sorely missed is a gross understatement. The affect he had on the Twins, on the scouting trade and on the sport he beloved a lot, can’t be overstated. As present Twins scouting director Sean Johnson informed our Twins beat author, Do-Hyoung Park, “He was the gold standard for literally everybody.”

As I informed my son, a senior in school who desires to pursue work in baseball, Mike Radcliff is the mannequin it is best to observe. Honestly, that will be true even when he needed to discover a profession elsewhere. The gold normal for actually all people ought to lengthen past the baseball world.

Scouts dwell behind the scenes. It’s a thankless and tireless job with as many misses (perhaps extra) than hits. They are the spine of the sport and by no means get sufficient public credit score for ensuring baseball continues to thrive.

It’s regrettable that we are able to solely pay homage to Mike after he’s left us, however I sincerely hope he’ll proceed to be that mannequin of how all of us ought to make our approach by way of this world. I believe then, wherever we’re, we could be assured of “safe travels.”