Longtime Los Angeles Angels' Scouting Director Bobby Fontaine Jr. Passes Away

On Monday, the Los Angeles Angels announced that their former scouting director, Bobby Fontaine Jr., had passed away on Friday, Oct. 2, at the age of 73.

Fontaine, a native of San Jose, CA, ran the Angels' scouting department from 1987-99, leaving before the full fruits of his labor in Anaheim could blossom. That occurred in 2002 when the Angels won their first and only World Series title with a defeat of the San Francisco Giants.

That legendary team featured a number of noteworthy players that Fontaine oversaw the singing of, including the starting outfield of leftfielder Garrett Anderson, centerfielder Darin Erstad and rightfielder Tim Salmon, along with young reliever Francisco Rodriguez, who would eventually grow into the dominant closer known a "K-Rod."

He also bucked conventional wisdom when he took one-handed pitcher Jim Abbott out of the University of Michigan with the No. 8 pick in the 1988 MLB Draft. Abbott would go on to win 47 games for the Angels from 1989-92, including a career-high 18 in 1991. He would finish his 10-year career with 87 wins while pitching for the Angels, New York Yankees, White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers, with the highlight being the no-hitter he threw against the Cleveland Indians for the Yankees on Sept. 4, 1993.

In a reflective piece published by MLB.com's Rhett Bollinger, he notes the touching tribute that was penned by longtime Angels' head of communication Tim Mead regarding the passing of his friend:

“Beyond the titles and accomplishments, he was regarded as a true baseball lifer who loved the game and believed deeply in the importance of teaching the next generation of scouts,” Mead wrote. “He continued sharing his knowledge and experience through scouting education, serving as a lead instructor for scout schools and drawing upon lessons accumulated from more than 50 years around professional baseball.”

Fontaine began working as an area scout for the Padres in 1972 at the age of 19 when his father, Bobby Fontaine Sr., was the scouting director for the Padres, who had entered the National League as an MLB expansion franchise for the 1969 season. Fontaine Jr. would eventually serve as San Diego's scouting director until 1977 when he began a four-year term as the Padres' general manager.

In 1982, Fontaine Jr. left the Padres for a role as West Coast Scouting director for the Montreal Expos, with Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson his most notable find while working for the Expos.

He left the Expos for the position of director of player development for the Chicago White Sox from 2001-03, before becoming scouting director for the Seattle Mariners from 2004-08 and completed his career in the Toronto Blue Jays' scouting department.

In 2021, Fontaine co-authored a memoir with longtime Angels' beat writer Taylor Blake Ward, with Mead writing the Foreward, called, In Search of Millionaires (The Life of a Baseball Gypsy): The Accounts of Bob Fontaine Jr. The book taught that scouting is not an exact science with much failure experienced, but through hard work and diligence success can eventually be found.