For the rugby league footballer of the 1950s for Great Britain, England, and Huddersfield, see James Bowden

For the American SCUBA diver, elite technical diver, cave diver, and deep diver, see Jim Bowden (diver)

James Goodwin Bowden IV (born 18 May 1961 in Boston, Massachusetts ^[1]) is a former Major League Baseball Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals. On October 16, 1992 he became the youngest General Manager in baseball history. He went on to win over 1,000 games as a GM. He was named MLB Executive of the Year by Baseball America in 1999. His teams finished in first place in 1990, 1994, 1995 and 1999. He is currently co-host on MLB Network Radio's "INSIDE PITCH" on Sirius 210/XM 175 and Fox Sports Radio's "Bowden & Lamb Show" and is a Baseball Analyst for FoxSports.com. Jim also Hosts the Show "GM's Corner" on FoxSports.com.

Early life and career

Bowden was raised in Weston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Rollins College in 1983.^[2] His entry to professional baseball came as an assistant in the Pittsburgh Pirates media relations department in 1985. He was a former college roommate of Squire Galbreath, whose father Dan and grandfather John were the principal owners of the Pirates. General manager Syd Thrift was impressed with Bowden and asked him to join the Pirates' baseball operations department as an administrator. Bowden computerized the Pirates' scouting files, and became a protege to Thrift. He followed Thrift to the New York Yankees,^[3] and eventually moved to the Cincinnati Reds where he was later promoted by the Reds Owner, Marge Schott to General Manager. He also served as team president during her suspension in 1993.

General manager

His first role as a general manager was with the Cincinnati Reds at age 31 in 1992. When he took this position, he was the youngest general manager in the history of Major League Baseball. He continued with the Reds until being fired in 2003.

Bowden is perhaps best known for his drafting of Joey Votto, Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Dunn, Aaron Boone, ((Danny Espinosa)), Austin Kearns, Jordan Zimmermann and Reggie Sanders and his trades for Ken Griffey, Jr. Denny Neagle, John Smiley, Pete Schourek, David Wells, Tyler Clippard, Jeff Brantley, Jeff Shaw, Danny Graves, Bret Boone, Ron Gant, Kevin Mitchell, Deion Sanders, Jose Guillen and Alfonso Soriano. He was the first GM to propose the use of Instant Replay in 1992 and also has supported the concepts trading amateur draft picks.

After he was relieved of his duties as GM of Cincinnati after a decade ^[4], Bowden worked as a commentator on ESPN before being hired by Major League Baseball to serve as GM of the Montreal Expos, who were soon to become the Washington Nationals.

Bowden was the general manager of the Washington Nationals beginning in November 2004. The team acquired such players as Ryan Zimmermann, Alfonso Soriano, Adam Dunn, Josh Willingham, Jose Guillen, Danny Espinosa, Tyler Clippard, Luis Atilano, Jordan Zimmermann, Chris Marrero and Derek Norris during his tenure.

Bowden is known for his frequent roster moves, accessibility to the media, willingness to sign players with track records for personal problems, and affection for athletic outfielders. In his 16 years as an MLB general manager he was well respected for keeping low payroll clubs competitive. On the other side of the coin he was almost universally disliked by his peers as well as many Reds players and other members of the organization.^[5]

Controversy

In 1993 Bowden fired rookie Manager Tony Perez after only 44 games.^[6] Perez was a star player in Cincinnati and immensely popular with Reds fans. At the time, it was the earliest firing of a first-year manager in 65 years.^[7] The firing drew significant criticism from Cincinnati fans.^[8]. However, he replaced Perez with Davey Johnson who went on to win divisional titles in 1994 and 1995 for the Cincinnati Reds making the decision a successful one.

In 1998 Bowden traded Jeff Shaw to the Los Angeles Dodgers for infielder Paul Konerko and left-hander Dennis Reyes.^[9] This move was met with shock in the Cincinnati area as hometown player and All-Star Jeff Shaw re-signed with the Reds at a discounted rate prior to the season.^[10] At the time Shaw was quoted as saying "We had a handshake deal that he wasn't going to trade me. Three months later, he traded me ... If I had been in the room with him, I would have killed him"^[5] However, Bowden ended up getting Paul Konerko for him in the deal, traded him to the White Sox for Mike Cameron who he later used in the deal that landed Griffey in Cincinnati. An impressive trail of trades which helped mold the Reds and put them back on the baseball map.

In 2003, Bowden made comments comparing the MLB players union to the terrorist organization al Qaeda. Commenting on the possibility of a strike by the players, he said, “If they (the players) do walk out ... I encourage all of them, "Make sure it's Sept. 11th. Be symbolic about it. Let [union head] Donald Fehr drive the plane right into the building, if that's what they want him to do".^[11] Bowden later apologized for the remarks and later understood it was the use of an insensitive metaphor.

In 2006 Bowden traded Gary Majewski from the Washington Nationals to the Cincinnati Reds along with Bill Bray, Royce Clayton, and Brendan Harris for Austin Kearns, Felipe López, and Ryan Wagner.^[12] The trade caused some controversy, as the Reds front office was apparently unaware of cortisone shots that had been given to Majewski because of arm pain before the trade.^[13] It was alleged that Majeski was known to be injured by Bowden and the trade was an attempt to dump him for some value to some unsuspecting team. In his time with that Nationals Majewski was an effective pitcher, with a 2.93 ERA in 2005 and a 3.58 ERA with Washington up until he was traded. With the Reds he had very little success, with a 7.28 ERA in parts of three seasons. He was not re-signed after the 2008 season and to date has not pitched in the major leagues again. A grievance was filed with MLB alleging misconduct by Jim Bowden and the Washington Nationals.^[14] MLB has never revealed their findings and no punishment is on record.

In April 2006 Bowden was arrested and charged with DUI.^[15]. The DUI charge was later dropped by the State of Florida for insufficient evidence.

He resigned from the Nationals on March 1, 2009.[16][17]

Sources

References

• "Nationals extend GM Bowden's contract through April", USA Today. 27 October 2005.
• "Jim Bowden's Segway", Washington Times. 19 February 2008.
• "Bowden makes deals--And enemies", Cincinnati Enquirer. 1 April 2001.
• "Boos for Bowden", Concord Monitor. 13 August 2005.

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