Shapiro'89 takes the helm in the Princeton clubhouse

When Mark Shapiro '89 was a senior at Princeton, he had as much of a plan for his long-term future that a number of current seniors have: Absolutely none whatsoever.

"I left college without a definite direction," Shapiro said, pointing out that he started working in the corporate world, toying with the idea of Wall Street before eventually getting into real estate development.

He quickly grew tired of the real estate business, however, having been turned off by the menial number-crunching inherent in the job.

"I decided to try to focus on the things I felt passionate about in life," Shapiro said.

And that meant one thing — baseball.

The 34-year-old Baltimore native is now executive vice president and general manager of the Cleveland Indians baseball team, the second youngest general manager in Major League Baseball after the New York Yankees' 33-year old Brian Cashman.

Though he is the son of prominent majorand minor-league agent Ron Shapiro — a man who has counted Cal Ripken, Jr., Kirby Puckett and Eddie Murray among his clients — Mark Shapiro literally worked his way "from the ground up" with the Indians.

He started as a baseball operations assistant, doing grunt work for the then-struggling franchise.

"I was researching contracts sometimes, but most of the time I was filing or doing other office work, basically menial tasks," Shapiro said. Though the Indians were a struggling franchise when he started with the team in 1991, he loved working for them.

"When I started [in Cleveland]," Shapiro said, "this was the worst team in all of baseball.

"The office was so small," he said, but noted that the Indians' management were an idealistic group with big goals for the future.

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From those humble beginnings Shapiro would eventually be part of a true resurrection of baseball in Cleveland, working as a member of a management team that would make the Indians one of the most successful franchises in the 1990s.

Shapiro said it was a "tremendous" opportunity to have spent his entire baseball management career with one team.

"[The Indians] really invested in my development," Shapiro said. "That was a great benefit of being in one organization for my entire career."

"[Being in one organization] doesn't happen in sports, ever," Shapiro noted, "but it has given me the opportunity to know this organization inside and out. I know the personnel very well, and it has enabled me to operate very well."

Operating well was a talent Shapiro learned from his mentors, former Indians GM John Hart and former assistant GM Dan O'Dowd, the two men who most helped Shapiro grow as a baseball executive. Under their guidance, Shapiro had an invaluable learning experience, being part of the franchise while it built and opened brand new Jacobs Field in 1994.

"I was running the farm system when Jacobs Field was opened," Shapiro said, noting that the new stadium was a priceless asset for the rebuilding team. "The stadium made it possible for us to compete in big arenas with the higher payroll teams.

"Eventually we were able to reach the point where we could finally play in the free agent market, and be a championship team," Shapiro said. "The [stadium] plan obviously came into being exactly as we had hoped — it was perhaps the greatest juncture in this organization."

Hailing from Baltimore, Shapiro had to adjust to his new surroundings, though it was a transition he said came pretty easily to him.

"When you spend 10 years in one place and marry someone from the area, it really becomes just like home — though it did not feel that way when I moved here," he said. "But it's a feeling that has developed significantly since I moved here."

"It was a realization I had when I reached this point in my career that for the very first time I felt like this is my home," Shapiro said.

He added that prior to his success in Cleveland he "felt like if I were to move up in the business I would have to move. But it has been a great thing to be able to stay in one place."

Having be-come general manager this month, Shapiro has had to take all that he learned from Hart and O'Dowd and make the best of it. He got his first taste of the full brunt of public scrutiny in the past few weeks when he had to announce that the Indians were not re-signing All-Star right fielder Juan Gonzalez and were cutting payroll.

But that didn't seem to bother him.

"That's one thing I learned from John Hart," Shapiro said. "You have to be honest in this business. It's more natural for me to tell people what we have to accomplish, what are challenges are and the things we have to do to have the opportunity to be a very good team.

"We have to operate the way our revenues will allow us to," he said.

Shapiro had this advice to offer to those seniors currently unsure of their post-graduation plans: Don't be afraid.

"Don't feel like your first job is your lifelong career," Shapiro said, pointing out that the business one gets involved in is not as important as "finding people you believe in and with whom you can work.

"Don't worry so much about the job and career," Shapiro said, "as about finding leaders with whom you share the same values and vision.

"That's what I found in John Hart and Dan O'Dowd," Shapiro said. "I believed in those two guys and their vision. Wheth-er I was in baseball or somewhere else didn't matter so much. But those are the kind of people you should find — you know, when you're 23 years old you move on instinct, not intellect, so I just went with what was in my gut.

"It was one of the best professional decisions I could have made," he added.

For those interested in careers in baseball, Shapiro said students should "seek an opportunity wherever it comes, in any place or with any team," because there are only 30 major league franchises — a number that could fall to 28 if Major League Baseball acts on the proposal to contract two franchises.

"Any experience you can get at any level in any side of the operation should be something that you pursue," Shapiro said, "because of the limited number of opportunities out there."

He said, however, that in recent years it is becoming easier for the average university-educated undergraduate to become a baseball executive.

"It's shifting towards [college-educated] people," Shapiro said, pointing out that the baseball business now "goes beyond player personnel. It's now a multi-faceted business."