Gary Hughes is Smiling Up in Heaven -- He's Got Another Hall of Famer on His Resume

A high school teammate of the Jim Fregosi at Serra High School in San Mateo, Ca., Garry Hughes was awed by the athletic skills of his classmate.

"Jimmy wasn't a two-sport star," Hughes, who passed away last year, told me. . "He was a four-sport star: football, basketball, track and baseball. He held the California state record in the broad jump. That shows you how old we are.

"When I saw how quickly Jimmy went from high school to the big leagues in baseball, it made me realize if you have the elite athlete and they commit themselves to baseball, they will advance quickly."

And during his days as a talent evaluator in pro ball, Hughes stayed true to his belief.

So true, he now even has two players he drafted and signed as members of the NFL Hall of Fame. First came John Elway, whom he signed for the New York Yankees, and last week, the name of John Lynch was added to Hughes’ list of NFL Hall of Famers.

Lynch’s childhood ambition was to play in the NFL, where he was an all-pro safety, and is now the general manager of the San Francisco 49ers, but it was baseball where he made his professional debut.

After his junior year at Stanford, however, he was ready to give up the dream of football. He and then-Stanford coach Dennis Green did not have the best of relationships . He let it be known he wanted to pursue a career in baseball.

The expansion Florida Marlins were in the formative stages back in 1992, preparing for their big-league debut in 1993. And after selecting catcher Charles Johnson in the first round of the 1992 First-Year Player Draft, Hughes, the Marlins’ scouting director, selected "Lynch, John, right-handed pitcher from Stanford," in the second round.

How serious were the Marlins and Lynch? Well, in the first game played in franchise history, the starting pitcher for the Marlins short-season New York-Penn League affiliate, Erie, was John Lynch.

"I will never forget throwing the first pitch," said Lynch. "Unfortunately the first seven were balls. Every time I threw a pitch the Hall of Fame grabbed something else -- a ball, my hat. I came in after the first inning and they undressed me and took my uniform. It's a fond memory that I will have forever. ...

"I still have the video of that game. Sunshine Network came up there. (Marlins owner) Wayne Huizenga and all the executives of the Florida Marlins turned this elementary school field into what looked like a big-league field."

Lynch's baseball career, however, lasted just that one summer in Erie. Green left in the summer of 1992 for the NFL, and legendary Bill Walsh returned to be the Stanford head coach. Walsh wasted no time calling Lynch, and asking him to return for a final season. Walsh said in watching film he felt Lynch could become an all-pro Safety.

Lynch was taken back.

"It took a lot of courage because I'm talking to Bill Walsh, but I said, `With all due respect coach, I played 30 percent of the plays (in 1991), and you're telling me I'm all-pro?'" Lynch said. "Like the great ones do, he didn't just say it, he showed me. He made a tape of a bunch of plays with me playing, then a tape of (football Hall of Fame safety) Ronnie Lott.

"Bill said, `Do me a favor and make it in your contract that you can come back for your senior year at Stanford.' I did that. Football really took off. I became an All-American and really discovered how much I truly love football after Bill Walsh inspired me."

Initially, Lynch told Hughes he would return to baseball after that senior season. But Hughes, who also had drafted and signed Elway as an outfielder out of Stanford, knew better. Lynch did become an All-American selection that senior season, and the third-round draft choice of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1993.

And for the rest of the story. ...

Well, Lynch did report to spring training in 1993 with the Marlins, and was assigned to Class A Kane County, where his roommate was Pat Leahy, the grandson of long-time Notre Dame football coach Frank Leahy. And the two of them shared their apartment with future MLB all-star Edgar Renteria.

After two starts for Kane County, however, Lynch's basebal career was history. He went to camp with the Bucs and wound up with a 15-year NFL career in which he was a nine-time Pro Bowl selection, and spent four years as a Broncos teammate of Elway.

"How many (baseball) scouts can say they have two NFL general managers on their resume," said Hughes.

Elway, after a career that earned him a spot in the NFL Hall of Fame, was the general manager of the Denver Broncos until recently when he decided to share his duties and now focuses on the overall operation.

And Lynch? After a career that has been capped off by his selection to the Hall of Fame, Lynch is the general manager of the San Francisco 49ers.

"I was really committed to baseball," Lynch recalled. "Football was always my first love. I was the No. 2 quarterback the day I stepped on campus (at Stanford), and I got frustrated by not getting on the field and having fun. Meanwhile, I was getting playing time from the time I was a freshman on the baseball field and really was having fund. When the Marlins drafted me, I decided it may not be my first love, but it was something I did love, you you take your best option."

And along came Bill Walsh, and there went baseball.

Hughes was one of those guys who was always looking for that surprise, even in his early days of scouting.

In his third year as a scout with the Yankees, Hughes, whose area was Northern California, was the Yanks' point man in scouting Elway at Stanford. Drafted in the second round in 1981, Elway quarterbacked Stanford that fall as a junior, signed with the Yankees and played at Rookie-level Oneonta in the summer of '82.

“All I did was put in my reports on him -- detailing the way he was and the player I felt he would become,” said Hughes. “It is what I was paid to do. There was no question in my mind he would be an outstanding Major League player. But drafting him? That was George Steinbrenner.
”I told George all along that John was going to play football. George said, OK, but we are going to take him.’ I said, Let's take him in the lower rounds.’ George took him in the second round.

“We had two rounds the first day, and George was convinced that when the draft broke for the day, the other teams would go back and re-evaluate the draft board and take him, so we drafted him. I'm up in the front of the Draft room on the squawk box with George, [and] a third-year scout. He says we're going to pick him and he better sign. I said, `Wait a minute, I already said I'd be astounded if he did not play football. I don't want you to come back at me if he plays football.’

Elway did sign and did play football, eventually.

His professional debut, however, came with the Yankees short-season Oneonta affilate.

”And he was impressive,” said Hughes. “I think he started off 0-for-19 or 1-for-19, but within six weeks, he was leading the team in every offensive category -- including stolen bases. He was built for Yankee Stadium. He had that left-handed power. Obviously, he was an outstanding athlete and he had a great arm. It's become popular for scouts to say he wasn't that good, but that's not true. If he played baseball and concentrated on the game, the sky was the limit for that guy.

Appearing in only 42 of Oneonta's 76 games because he had to get back to Stanford for football, Elway led the team with a .318 batting average. He also stole 13 bases, hit four home runs and drove in 25 runs.

That spring, he became the first pick of the NFL Draft in 1983 by the Colts, the Yanks provided Elway the leverage to force the Colts to trade him to the Denver Broncos. In Denver he became a Hall of Fame quarterback and now serves as the team's president.

In the NFL at that time, the Colts would have lost the rights to sign Elway after one year because he had signed professionally with a baseball team.

"We were out fishing one day after the football draft, and I asked him what he was going to do," remembered Hughes. "He said, 'If they don't trade me, I'm going to play baseball.' I laughed, but he told me he was dead serious."

And obviously the Colts took Elway at his word — eventually — trading him to the Denver Broncos.