Born: Oct. 26, 1929 at Central Falls, R.I.
Died: Dec. 13, 2021
Hemond possessed 59 years of professional baseball experience, including 23 seasons as a general manager with the White Sox (1971-85) and Baltimore Orioles (1988-95) and five seasons as Senior Executive Vice President with the Arizona Diamondbacks (1996-2000). He later served as Executive Advisor with the White Sox (2000-07) until rejoining the Diamondbacks organization. Hemond, who was considered the architect of the highly successful Arizona Fall League that began in 1992, also was a nationally recognized ambassador of the game, serving as president of the Association of Professional Baseball Players of America.
Beyond his contributions to the game, Hemond was widely known as a champion of service and philanthropy. The winner of the Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, Hemond also helped form the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation. Hemond, a military veteran of the United States Coast Guard, is the inspiration for two additional prominent MLB awards: The Baseball America Award, presented to a person who has made significant contributions in scouting and the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) award for the executive who has shown great respect for scouts.
