More than 10 days ago John Hart stepped out of the shadows of his advisory role with the Atlanta Braves to become interim general manager after the dismissal of Frank Wren. He, team president John Schuerholz and former manager Bobby Cox make up a three-headed search committee to find someone more permanent.
The search may end with the 66-year-old Hart, at least in the short term.
But his roots in baseball stretch far.
» Get a complete look at Hart's baseball accumen this weekend on MyAJC.com
Cleveland Indians President Mark Shapiro claimed his branch of the Hart tree in 1992, after a memorable interview in the quaint rot of old Cleveland Stadium.
A Princeton man, just 25 and ready to remake the world, Shapiro was after a job in the player development department. Hart sat behind a worn desk that bore the scars of Bill Veeck’s careless smoking. The place reeked of many things, but success was not among them.
“It was amazing,” Shapiro remembers now, “because (Hart) could paint a picture of the organization regardless of the setting we were in that was so vivid, so passionate and so authentic.”
This is what Hart does above all else, and what he must help do again once more for the Braves: He seeds the clouds and believes it will rain talent.
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