The Dallas Morning News, October 9, 2005, Sunday

Copyright 2005 THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

October 9, 2005 Sunday
SECOND EDITION

SECTION: SPORTS DAY; Pg. 1C

HEADLINE: Next! Mr. Daniels ... Mr. Hicks will see you now

BYLINE: BRAD TOWNSEND, Staff Writer

BODY:
ARLINGTON - Between peeks at the e-mail pouring into his laptop and glances at the caller ID on his ringing office and cellphones, Jon Daniels is asked whether reality has set in.
For the first time in an hour, his face changes expression. The Rangers' new general manager cracks a smile, briefly.
"I think it will set in when the honeymoon is over," he says. "And that point's coming soon."
Daniels, 28, is the youngest general manager in major league history, but he is not naïve. He was born five years after the Rangers came to Arlington, but he is keenly aware of the franchise's history and the skepticism that greeted his promotion five days ago.
His wife, Robyn, didn't believe him when he phoned her with the news. His parents say they were "pleasantly shocked."
In the ensuing days, he has taken the wisecracks in stride. He has been called Doogie Howser, GM; Rangers manager Buck Showalter's puppet; frightfully inexperienced. But no one who knows him would dare call him incapable.
"This guy is a brilliant baseball mind," Rangers owner Tom Hicks says. "And as you get to know him, you're going to see why I made the decision."
Fortunately, The Life and Times of Jon Daniels is a short read, although the resume page belongs in Ripley's. His career arc resembles a streaking comet.
Five years ago this week, he was unemployed after finishing a Colorado Rockies internship that paid him $275 a week while he bunked in a friend's unfinished basement.
A year ago, he was driving a late-'90s model Honda Civic. He may well be the first general manager in pro sports history still paying college loans. Though known as J.D. throughout the Rangers organization, he goes by a less hip name back home in Queens, N.Y.
"Jonathan," notes Daniels' father, Mark, "has an intense natural curiosity."
His mother, Mindy, adds matter-of-factly: "I think he just kept his eye on the ball. He knew what he wanted."
Early love of sports
Daniels grew up a Mets fan, collected baseball cards and, like his neighborhood friends in northeast Queens' upper-middle-class Bayside area, spent much of his free time watching, playing, reading and talking sports.
He never played organized baseball beyond Little League. As Hicks put it during Tuesday's news conference announcing John Hart's resignation and Daniels' promotion from assistant GM: "He came from a different gene pool, and that's OK."
Hiring youthful baseball GMs has become vogue, and it is little wonder: The Yankees' Brian Cashman and Boston's Theo Epstein have overseen world title teams, and 38-year-old Mark Shapiro's Cleveland Indians just finished two games out of the wild-card spot.
It also is fashionable to cast these young GMs as computer-nerd stat geeks, but Rangers officials and longtime Daniels acquaintances say it's a mistake to pigeonhole him.
They describe him as decisive but open-minded; highly confident yet approachable. Rangers pro international scouting manager A.J. Preller says Daniels has been that way since they met as freshmen at Cornell.
"He knows what he wants and he's a go-getter, but in the right way," Preller says. "He knows he doesn't have all the answers, but he's definitely a guy who exhibits leadership qualities."
His grade school principal at Public School 26 obviously saw potential. He nominated 11-year-old Jonathan to take the entry exam for Hunter College High School, a public school for gifted students.
About 2,500 students from New York's five boroughs are selected annually to take the exam, and only 230 earn enrollment into the seventh grade. In 1989, Daniels was one of those students.
"I didn't want to go," he recalls, noting that all of his friends attended the neighborhood schools. He says his parents have never pushed him in any way, but on this issue, Mark, a former special education teacher and private school headmaster, was firm.
It's a decision he never regretted, not that those six years were easy. Hunter College High School is in Manhattan, more than an hour's bus ride away.
"It's hard to let your little boy, 12 years old, get on a bus," Mindy says with a sigh.
After a couple of years on the bus, Daniels went the public transportation route. The Q17 bus to the Main Street Subway Station. The 7 train, past Shea Stadium, to Queensboro Plaza. The N train under the river to Manhattan. The 6 train to 96th and Lexington.
"You grow up quick when you're a kid from Queens, riding the subway by yourself," Daniels says. "You see things. You have an awareness of your surroundings. I think that made me a little more observant than I otherwise would have been."
Business background
Hunter served him well in other ways.
It helped him get into Cornell, where in 1999 he earned a degree in applied economics and management. Like his father, who went from educator to business owner, Jon had entrepreneurial interests.
But as with Mindy, who grew up attending Mets Sunday doubleheaders with her father, baseball was never far from Jon's mind.
"He took me to my first baseball game," says brother Ryan, 10 years Jon's junior. "We'd go to Shea Stadium; we'd always try to get seats over the plate. He'd show me the angle of pitches, the power of the bat and different stats he'd pull out of his head."
Preller was one of Daniels' Cornell housemates. Several, including Preller, were enrolled in the Labor Relations Program. One of their classes was Arbitration in Sport. Sometimes Daniels sat in on the class, just for fun.
Preller graduated to a job in baseball commissioner Bud Selig's office, working with Frank Robinson in on-field operations. Daniels went to Boston to work for Allied Domecq, which had just acquired Dunkin' Donuts, Baskin-Robbins and Togo's.
Earning a salary in the 40s, Daniels worked in the department assigned to synergize the companies. It also is where he met and began dating Robyn.
But he says that whenever he talked to Preller, "I probably spent more time talking to him about his job than I did focusing on mine." Daniels phoned his father and said his heart was set on a career in baseball. He was 23. Mark encouraged him to give it a shot.
Through Preller, Daniels met then-Rockies (and current Red Sox) assistant GM Josh Byrnes. In early April 2001, Byrnes phoned and offered the internship. Jon and Robyn decided she would return to her native California, he would pack up the Civic and they would see how this baseball fantasy played out.
When his internship ended in October 2001, Daniels' heart tugged him to New York, which was still reeling from terrorist attacks. With Robyn in town for Thanksgiving, they were driving in the city when Daniels saw the number of Rockies GM Dan O'Dowd flashing on his cellphone.
They pulled over at Bell Boulevard and 35th Avenue. O'Dowd told Daniels that new Rangers GM Hart was looking for a young, energetic person and that O'Dowd had recommended him. As he listened, Daniels grabbed a piece of paper, scribbled "Texas?" and showed it to Robyn.
"She nodded her head approvingly," Daniels says. "I was a little surprised."
A man with a plan
On New Year's Day 2002, he packed the Civic and headed to Arlington, where Robyn met him. They married in November 2003 near Miami, with Hart among the small group of guests.
Now J.D. is in the general manager's chair, though still in his old office for the time being. He drives a Tahoe, and it looks as if he'll be able to pay those college loans, too.
In khakis and a blue long-sleeved polo shirt, looking very much like a 28-year-old in charge, Daniels estimates that reality has set in about 90 percent.
The rest, he says, will hit during free agency, the winter meetings and when he makes his first major personnel decisions.
"That's the important 10 percent," he says.
Any uneasiness? Again, for a moment, his expression changes.
"I'm confident because I have great people around me and we've got a good plan. But I'd be lying if I told you I was sleeping easy right now. I don't take the responsibility lightly."
E-mail btownsend@dallasnews.com
JON DANIELS
Age: 28
Birthplace: New York City
Wife: Robyn (married in November 2003)
Notable: After general manager John Hart's resignation, Daniels was promoted from Rangers assistant general manager Tuesday, becoming at 28 years, 2 months the youngest general manager in major league history. ... Joined the Rangers in January 2002 as baseball operations assistant; was promoted to director of baseball operations in October 2003, then to assistant general manager in July 2004 . . . . Wife Robyn is a project manager for Davaco Inc., coordinating field staff for clients when they build out retail spaces. ... Jon and Robyn met while working for Boston-based company Allied Domecq in 1999 . ... Daniels' father, Mark, is a former private school headmaster who owns a window treatment business in New York. ... His mother, Mindy, is an assistant teacher at Lexington School for the Deaf in New York. ... On his office desk top shelf, Daniels keeps an "I{heart}NY" coffee mug next to a photo of ice skaters in Central Park. "I try to get a little New York flavor in here," he says, "to ... [tick] people off."
"I'm confident because I have great people around me.
But I'd be lying if I told you I was sleeping easy right now.
I don't take the responsibility lightly."
Jon Daniels
JON DANIELS
EDUCATION
Cornell University Class of '99
Applied Economics and Management
RELATED EXPERIENCE
July 2004 to October 2005
Assistant General Manager, Rangers
October 2003 to July 2004
Director of Baseball Operations, Rangers
January 2002 to October 2003
Baseball Operations Assistant, Rangers
April 2001 to October 2001
Intern, Colorado Rockies
INTERESTS
Video scouting,
statistical analysis
REFERENCES
Available upon request