Sun Devil Baseball Mourns Passing of Scott Reid

TEMPE -- Sun Devil Baseball and the Major League Baseball community are mourning the loss of former Sun Devil player and long-time MLB fixture Scott Reid, who passed away at the age of 74 this week.

A pivotal part of ASU's 1967 NCAA Championship, Reid would go on to work for the Tigers as a scouting director, adviser and vice president of player personnel for nearly 20 years as part of a career that lasted more than 50 years in professional baseball.

"Myself and the entire Sun Devil Baseball fraternity are saddened to learn of the passing of Scott Reid. Scott was a staple in professional baseball for over 50 years and his accomplishments in that realm cannot be understated," said ASU head coach Willie Bloomquist. "He left his mark with us when he led Arizona State to a National Championship in 1967 and went on to become a trusted and highly sought-after fixture at the next level due to his overwhelming knowledge of the game. He represented Sun Devil Baseball with class and professionalism throughout his career and we are proud to call him one of our own. Our thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues in this difficult time."

Reid played college baseball at Arizona State before playing 38 games over two seasons with the Phillies. Reid bat .301 in his one season at Arizona State, helping guide the Sun Devils to their second national championship. He earned All-Western Athletic Conference honors and was named a First Team All-American that season while also earning a spot on the All-College World Series team.

He hit two home runs with four RBI in the CWS opener against Oklahoma State. He added two more RBI against Boston College and added another two-hit game with an RBI against Stanford in the quarterfinals.

After ASU and Reid were blanked by Houston in the semifinals, Reid recorded a pivotal RBI in another two-hit effort in the elimination game against Stanford as the Sun Devils walked off the Cardinal, 4-3, in 14 innings.

After going hitless in the first game against Houston, Reid was dominant in the Championship rematch, going 2-for-3 with two RBI and scoring four runs in an 11-2 rout for the Sun Devils and the program's second College World Series title.

While Sun Devil faithful will remember his key contributions in that title run, his bigger impact on the game happened while around the diamond rather than on it.

After the playing portion of Reid's career ended in 1973, he became a coach and scout in the Phillies and Cubs organizations, serving as Cubs scouting director in 1986 and 1987. He was one of the early hires in the Marlins front office as a Major League scout in 1992, beginning nearly a quarter-century of working with Dave Dombrowski, including a World Series championship with the Marlins in 1997.

Reid became an assistant to Dombrowski with the Marlins in 1999 and was promoted to vice president a few months later. When Dombrowski joined the Tigers before the 2002 season, he brought Reid with him as part of his inner circle of advisers, with Avila eventually joining them.

"There was not a conversation or a trade that we made that he wasn't involved," said Dombrowski, now the Phillies' president of baseball operations.

Together, the group took a Tigers roster that set an American League record with 119 losses in 2003 and built an AL champion a few years later, followed by four consecutive division titles and another AL title in 2012. Reid had input on virtually every move. More than an adviser, Dombrowski called Reid a special person and a friend.

"He was very involved from a talent evaluation perspective," Dombrowski said, "but I think it also spoke to how close a group that we had. It was just a very, very close group. We were together for a very long time. We were businesspeople, but we were friends."

Along the way, Reid was a veteran mentor and source of advice for young scouts and officials across baseball. Among them was Tigers manager A.J. Hinch, who served as director of player development with the Arizona Diamondbacks from 2006 to 2009 and Padres pro scouting director from 2010 to 2014.

Hinch also took time to remember Reid before Wednesday's doubleheader against Cleveland.

"He meant a lot to this organization, meant a lot to a lot of people in this organization," Hinch said. "Our thoughts are with his family, with his friends, with colleagues, people around the game that he touched. Just gone too soon."

"You cross paths with so many people in the game and overlap in games and scouting events and Futures Games," Hinch said. "When I was in the front office and in scouting departments in my various stops, I always came across [Reid]. He touched so many lives of young scouts and was a mentor to a lot of people."

Reid was a mentor for Scott Bream, who eventually succeeded Reid as Tigers vice president of player personnel when Reid became a senior adviser to Avila.

"He worked with all the guys in that department," Dombrowski said. "He took a guy like Scott under his wings and basically trained him. But there were many others. He could teach them about scouting, evaluating players, filling out reports. He was a true professional in that regard, and he really liked doing that with young people."

Fitting, then, that both of Reid's children became involved in baseball. Brian Reid worked as a scout for the Tigers and remains in scouting with the Mets.