Bill Conlin: Phillies should consider Hunsicker as GM

0 Comments | Philadelphia Daily News, September, 2008

W HEN I'M King of the World  . . .

Gerry Hunsicker will be in play when Dave Montgomery launches the process of hiring general manager Pat Gillick's successor.

If you think the remarkable blossoming of the serially moribund Tampa Bay Rays is due to the genius of 31-year-old Andrew Friedman, a relative baseball newbie, think again.

Hunsicker was the leading candidate to replace fired Ed Wade until Gillick expressed interest. But Montgomery's admiration for the man who turned the Astros around before resigning in 2004 after a falling-out with billionaire owner Drayton McLane is genuine. Gerry is a local guy from Collegeville, and a Saint Joseph's graduate. He has excelled at every executive level of the game and has operated seamlessly behind a young Rays...