Major League Baseball

Yankees GM Brian Cashman revisits his college days at HOF induction

Published Apr. 11, 2022 7:08 p.m. ET

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By Jordan Shusterman
FOX Sports MLB Writer

WASHINGTON, D.C. — "I wasn’t supposed to be here."

That’s how the longest tenured current general manager in Major League Baseball began his Hall of Fame induction speech earlier this month in front of a packed Maloney Hall on the campus of The Catholic University of America in the Brookland neighborhood of Washington D.C.

"I wasn’t supposed to be at Catholic University, let alone at the Hall of Fame," Cashman continued. 

Thanks to the legendary Bob Talbot, though, here Cashman was.   

After growing up on Long Island and spending his early teenage years in Lexington, Kentucky, Cashman was sent to Georgetown Preparatory School in Rockville, Maryland, for his junior and senior years of high school. There, he excelled on the baseball team in the early 1980s. 

He committed to Tulane University, then one of the stronger Division I programs in the South. But Talbot, who single-handedly built the Catholic University baseball program over the previous decade, wouldn’t relent in his pursuit of Cashman as the next great Cardinals ballplayer. 

"'You’ll never play there. You’re going to be miserable down there. You can come here and play as a freshman,'" Cashman recalled Talbot insisting. "He said everything in a way that resonated with me."

In 1985, two weeks before he was supposed to report to Tulane, Cashman committed to Catholic, sight unseen. Having never even visited the campus, he headed back to the D.C. area to begin his collegiate career.

That same year, Talbot became dean of the university. Cashman played for new Catholic coach Ross Natoli, who had ample experience in the area as a player and coach at George Washington University. Although he wasn’t directly involved in recruiting Cashman, Natoli had coached varsity ball at Gonzaga High School, which competed against Georgetown Prep. 

"I knew he could play," said Natoli, who is now in his 37th season at the helm for the Cardinals' baseball team.

In addition to Cashman, the April 2 event commemorated Catholic’s 1977 baseball team, the only squad in school history to compete in the Division I postseason. That team featured Matty Kurkjian, brother of longtime ESPN MLB analyst Tim Kurkjian, who emceed the ceremony. 

Tim Kurkjian welcomed Cashman to the stage: "He’s a Hall of Famer at Catholic University, and one day, he’ll be a Hall of Famer in Cooperstown."

Indeed, he will, as Cashman’s résumé in the New York Yankees' front office, though very much still in progress, is tough to top. Four World Series titles as GM, plus another as assistant GM in 1996 before he took over for Bob Watson in ’98. Arguably even more incredibly, the Yankees have never had a losing season under Cashman’s watch. The historic payroll advantages have surely helped New York, but 28 consecutive winning seasons — the longest such streak in MLB history — is not something any other big-market team can claim. 

Now in his 25th season as GM, Cashman is still calling the shots when it comes to building the Yankees' roster, and that requires nearly 24/7 attention. While he was able to slip away from spring training for a few days for the Hall of Fame ceremony, duty called once he arrived in D.C. He was originally planning to appear at Catholic’s afternoon game against Juniata prior to the ceremony, but instead he had some business to attend to: His team needed a catcher.

Ben Rortvedt, whom the Yankees acquired from Minnesota last month as part of the Josh Donaldson blockbuster, was still dealing with an oblique injury that would prevent him from being ready for Opening Day. With Kyle Higashioka the only MLB-ready catcher on the Yankees' 40-man, a backup was needed urgently. 

As soon as the induction ceremony concluded around 6:15 p.m. ET, Cashman was on the phone. Twenty minutes later, the Yankees had a new catcher.

But this ceremony wasn’t about any of that. Rather than being surrounded by baseball luminaries, the way he surely will be one day in Cooperstown, Cashman was inducted alongside other standouts in Catholic University athletics history, including track stars, one of the greatest quarterbacks in school history, and a sharpshooter on the 2001 Division III national champion men’s basketball team. 

This event wasn’t about what these individuals have accomplished since college. Rather, it was about how they performed during their four years in Brookland. 

So who was Brian Cashman the baseball player?

At 5-foot-7, 160 pounds, he wasn’t exactly the first-guy-off-the-bus type. But he quickly established himself as a premier slash-and-dash leadoff hitter for Natoli’s Cardinals. As a second baseman who started every game during his four years (just as Talbot promised), Cashman developed a penchant for swinging early in the count, much to Natoli’s dismay. 

"I knew my limitations," Cashman told FOX Sports. "So essentially, I didn’t wanna get behind in the count."

A right-handed hitter, Cashman would stand as far up in the box and close to home plate as possible, often refusing to look down at Natoli coaching third base in case he was getting a sign to take the pitch.

Cashman routinely insisted that he’d see enough from a pitcher in warm-ups to feel comfortable swinging right away. "He’d go, 'Why do you want me to take the first pitch? I’ve just seen six,’" Natoli told FOX Sports.

"I’d see the best pitch of the game, first-pitch fastball, and I hammered that typically," Cashman said.

Natoli particularly remembers a game against his alma mater, George Washington. 

"First pitch of the game, he hits a line drive to right-center field for a standup triple. I just remember [GWU head coach John Castleberry] yelling at his pitcher, 'How could you let that little guy hit a triple off you?!’"

Nearly four decades later, Natoli and his longtime assistant, Bobby Picardo, still often argue about the merits of taking pitches vs. being aggressive early in counts. Of course, not every player had the ability to make it work like Cashman. 

The theme of the '77 team — a scrappy, smaller-college team that held its own against higher-level opponents — was still relevant a decade later, when Cashman suited up for the Cardinals. 

In his speech, Cashman fondly recounted the time the Cardinals went out to College Park and defeated the University of Maryland. He said he was looking forward to opening the Washington Post the next morning and reading about what his team had accomplished.

The only problem? It was the home team’s responsibility to call in the result of the game to the newspaper, and UMD opted not to do so out of embarrassment over losing to a Division III school. 

Back then, it wasn’t uncommon for certain Division III schools to challenge themselves with mostly Division I schedules. This, in addition to the guaranteed playing time, also helped Talbot entice Cashman to come to Catholic.

"I just loved the fact that we had the chance to play against the big boys, whether it was Navy, George Mason, George Washington, Georgetown, Maryland," Cashman said. "We were D-III independent, so we could play whoever we wanted, and we had a really challenging schedule. 

"My freshman year, out of the gate, we played 11 games in 10 days, no off-days. My body wasn’t ready for that. I thought, ‘This college stuff is the real deal.’"

Is there something ironic about Cashman once relishing playing against the big boys, only to become the GM of the ultimate big boys atop the baseball universe? Perhaps. But it also helps explain how Cashman climbed the ladder in the Bronx as quickly as he did.

"I knew he was going to be successful," Natoli said. "I didn’t even know if it was going to be in baseball. One thing I did know is he had an uncanny ability to prepare to be successful.

"I would define him as a resilient ball of energy that would not be denied, someone who truly stands up for what he believes in. He wasn’t afraid to stand up to the boss and really earned his trust and earned Mr. Steinbrenner’s trust and respect because Brian really stood up for himself and what he felt was right. I think that George respected that."

Fast-forward to today, and Cashman is still chasing that elusive 28th championship for the Yankees. Without a trip to the Fall Classic since 2009, pressure is mounting among the fan base with possibly the highest expectations of any professional team in North America. 

New challenges continue to arise — most recently, contract extension negotiations with star outfielder Aaron Judge, the source of ample discussion leading up to Opening Day thanks to unusually transparent comments from Cashman himself.

But even while he pursues the Yankees' 28th ring, Cashman will stay connected to his CUA roots. "How could I not?" he said after the ceremony. "My head coach is still here!"

"He’s still the same guy I coached from 1986 to 1989," Natoli said. "That’s the best thing about Brian."

Jordan Shusterman is half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He lives in D.C. but is a huge Seattle Mariners fan and loves watching the KBO, which means he doesn't get a lot of sleep. You can follow him on Twitter @j_shusterman_.

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Jordan Shusterman