{"id":17779,"date":"2016-03-18T00:20:37","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T07:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=17779"},"modified":"2016-03-17T08:47:47","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T15:47:47","slug":"blue-jays-ceo-wants-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2016\/03\/18\/blue-jays-ceo-wants-to-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays CEO wants to win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toronto Blue Jays new president and chief executive officer Mark Shapiro. (photo from Toronto Blue Jays)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The Toronto Blue Jays almost made it to the World Series in 2015. With spring training having just started, we\u2019re crossing our proverbial fingers (in the most Jewish way possible) that we\u2019ll see that same Blue Jay magic \u2013 and more \u2013 in the months to come. Eyes will particularly be on the new leader at the helm, Mark Shapiro, who officially joined the Jays as president and chief executive officer last fall.<\/p>\n

Shapiro has arrived at a pivotal time for the franchise, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this season. Many are eager to find out in what direction he\u2019ll take the team, but one thing is certain: he wants to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, winning has to be the primary area of focus,\u201d Shapiro told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cA relentless, obsessive commitment to building a winning team.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuilding a team isn\u2019t just collecting talent,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s about players that are committed, that are willing to take risks and commit to something bigger than themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said he wants to integrate more sports psychology into the team\u2019s routine, and \u201cbuild a business organization that obsesses about fan experience at every interaction and every touch point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next on his list is Rogers Centre, which is in dire need of a renovation, one that may cost upwards of $400 million.<\/p>\n

Shapiro, like anyone else who has experienced the dome, has been a fan of the awe-inspiring structure since his first Jays game, which was in 1989, soon after he completed his history degree at Princeton. \u201cMy memory is seeing this building and just being blown away at what an incredible engineering marvel it is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rogers Centre isn\u2019t the only spot that needs an upgrade. The team\u2019s spring training facility in Dunedin, Fla., is widely considered to be the worst in Major League Baseball. Shapiro has to choose between renovating or moving the Jays to a new facility when the team\u2019s lease expires in 2017.<\/p>\n

To make matters more difficult, team cornerstones Jos\u00e9 Bautista and Edwin Encarnaci\u00f3n become free agents at the end of this year and the Jays\u2019 stock of minor league prospects was depleted by last year\u2019s trade deadline frenzy. Still, there\u2019s every reason to believe Shapiro will hit it out of the park, given that he\u2019s spent an entire lifetime surrounded by the game, its players, its strategy and its details.<\/p>\n

Shapiro invested nearly a quarter-century with the Cleveland Indians, having worked his way up from player development to team president. It was there that the Sporting News<\/em> named Shapiro Executive of the Year in 2005 and 2007.<\/p>\n

His managerial style hasn\u2019t changed all that much, he maintains. \u201cIf you have a moral compass and a set of well-defined values, those are going to be the determinacy of how you lead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But baseball and Shapiro go farther back than Cleveland. Son of Baltimore attorney and sports agent Ronald M. Shapiro, the game was ingrained at a very early age.<\/p>\n

\u201cBaseball was a part of the fabric of my childhood growing up. It was a connection and a bond for me with my dad,\u201d said Shapiro. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to separate out baseball from my childhood, whether it was stickball, wiffleball, Little League or playing catch in the street. Maybe it was the fact that my dad, at some point in my adolescence, started representing Major League players and they started being part of my life. Baseball, informally or formally, was always a part of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among his baseball heroes growing up was Baltimore Orioles\u2019 Brooks Robinson, for \u201cconsistency, the way he treated people and his artistic style of play,\u201d said Shapiro. Jewish ball player Al Rosen, aka \u201cthe Hebrew Hammer,\u201d who played for the Cleveland Indians from 1947 to 1956, was also a role model.<\/p>\n

The Hebrew Hammer wasn\u2019t his only source of Yiddishkeit growing up. Shapiro said he was reared with a \u201cstrong Jewish identity,\u201d associating most with the \u201ceducation, culture, understanding of history, and the values intertwined in that history.\u201d They include, he said, \u201cwork ethics, commitment to community, compassion and tolerance,\u201d which, he said, were \u201cdefining attributes and values that were a part of my childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shapiro and his wife Lissa Bockrath-Shapiro try to instil those same values in their children, son Caden, 13, and daughter Sierra, 11.<\/p>\n

Even though today\u2019s Jewish players are few and far between, every now and again Shapiro will run into a fellow Jew and shmooze.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously a rarity and, obviously, there\u2019s a lot more front office guys, like Mike Chernoff [Cleveland Indians general manager]. When we saw a Jewish player, we\u2019d always chuckle with pride at that player succeeding. It was a topic of conversation,\u201d said Shapiro.<\/p>\n

Cleveland player Jesse Levis and Shapiro used to kibbitz about being MOTs, members of the tribe. Since he began work in Toronto after the ball season was over, Shapiro has not yet met lone Jewish Jay Kevin Pillar.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, one item needs clarification. There\u2019s been no shortage of times that Shapiro has been asked why he pronounces his name Sha-pie<\/em>-roh instead of the usual Sha-peer<\/em>-oh. For the record \u2013 and he wants to set the record straight \u2013 his name has always been that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say, \u2018Are you trying to hide the fact that you\u2019re Jewish?\u2019 If I did, wouldn\u2019t I call myself Smith?\u201d he said with a laugh. \u201cCome on, really, there\u2019s got to be a better way to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story is familiar to many: as immigrants coming through Ellis Island, there was a name change and a mispronunciation that stuck. Philadelphia and Cherry Hill, N.J., lay claim as the \u201conly places in the world you\u2019ll hear ShapI<\/em>ro spelled Shapiro, and you\u2019ll hear Shapiro spelled Schapiro,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

To be sure, fans are less concerned about the name than they are about the game. And, if he could impart one message, it would be that he\u2019s here to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite Blue Jays stories are waiting to be written,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dave Gordon<\/strong> is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work can be found in more than a hundred publications globally. He is managing editor of landmarkreport.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto Blue Jays new president and chief executive officer Mark Shapiro. (photo from Toronto Blue Jays) The Toronto Blue Jays almost made it to the World Series in 2015. With spring training having just started, we\u2019re crossing our proverbial fingers (in the most Jewish way possible) that we\u2019ll see that same Blue Jay magic \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3688,5514,5515],"class_list":["post-17779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-baseball","tag-blue-jays","tag-mark-shapiro"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}