November 25, 2004
Cardinals VP hired as Arizona assistant GM
By Ray Mileur
Cardinal Vice President and Former Colorado general manager Bob Gebhard was hired Wednesday as assistant general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Gebhard fills the role held by Sandy Johnson, who resigned as senior assistant general manager to take a position with the New York Mets. Gebhard, vice president of the St. Louis Cardinals for the past five seasons, became the first general manager of the Rockies in 1991 and remained with Colorado through 1999.
We had anticipated this move earlier, Brian Walton reported that Gebhard appeared to have the job with Arizona a couple of days ago. As Vice President for the Cardinals, Gebhard had a strong scouting background, he helped in player evaluation and advised on multiple baseball operations fronts.
The Cardinals promoted Gebhard to Vice President, Special Assistant to the General Manager in January of 2001. As Vice President he worked closely with Senior Vice President/GM Walt Jocketty on the club's day to day major league operations including
player evaluations and contract negotiations.
Gebhard has also worked for the Minnesota Twins, Colorado Rockies and the Montreal Expos. Gebhard's playing career spanned 11 seasons and included big league duty with the Twins and Expos. A right handed pitcher, he was originally drafted by the Twins in the 15th round of the first ever amateur draft in 1965. (I remember it well, though I was thinking he went in the 14th round, guess my mind is slipping.)
Gebhard's departure does not have any significant impact on the current contract negotiations.
