Phillies president Dave Dombrowski: The human behind the title

Four questions for the baseball lifer about nothing to do with baseball.

Dave Dombrowski reveals some of his lighter side.Read moreJose F. Moreno/ Staff Photographer

Published Oct. 5, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET

We used to know better the people who ran our teams, but both trust and access have diminished. The men and women behind the moves — people like Phillies legend Paul Owens, 76ers personality Pat Williams, or Harry Gamble, who touched every corner of football in the region, including the Eagles — have become dehumanized.

In an effort at humanizing the most polarizing men in Philly, we posed the same four questions to the people who run the Phillies, Sixers, Eagles, Flyers, and Union. None of the questions deals with their teams, their leagues, or their careers; rather, we wanted glimpses into their personalities.

First installment: Dave Dombrowski, Phillies president of baseball operations.

How he’s drawn to sports in academia, craves international travel, wants to dunk with his tongue out, and would gladly lead the free world, if only he’d done the internship.

What would your career be if you were not running a pro sports team? An engineer? A truck driver? Heaven forbid, a sportswriter?

My talents are pretty limited. One thing I’ve always been intrigued with is being an athletic director at a college. I’ve been intrigued by the college scene all my life. And I’m only talking about my own experience of going to college [at Cornell and Western Michigan]. There’s something about being on a college campus. My wife is very involved in the University of Oklahoma [Karie Ross, a former sportscaster, is an Oklahoma native and alum]. I’ve gotten to know their athletic director, Joe Castiglione, very well. Going to football games — my daughter [Darbi] went to school there. Going back to Western Michigan, seeing football games, and basketball. My son [Landon] at Wake Forest.

A lot of times, when I’m on the road, I jog. I jog for an hour about four days a week. If I’m close to a college campus, I just love going through a college campus, just the atmosphere that’s there. I’d say that being an athletic director at a big-time university is something that would be of interest to me.

You have to disassociate yourself from your job for a calendar year, but you are completely anonymous. How would you spend that year? As a campaign volunteer? In Florence, immersed in culture? Learning standup comedy?

For me, it’s pretty simple on this one. I would love to travel more. I’ve traveled throughout the United States, all over, of course, with my job. With my family, we travel during the holiday time. We’ve always done that for years, to the Caribbean. But one of the things I haven’t had a chance to do, just basically because of the schedule which I work during the summer, and it’s so busy in the wintertime, the ability to get away and see different cultures, and be involved with them, I just find fascinating.

A couple of years ago we went on an African safari. I just loved being part of that culture. I’ve been really fascinated by wildlife for years, so being involved with seeing that — if I could jaunt over for it, I’d be involved with conservation of the habitats of animals. When I was with the Tigers, they asked us to be involved with endangerment for tigers, so my wife is on a board for that.

I haven’t been to Europe very much. I’ve been to Paris, which I loved. We loved taking those guided tours in, going through all the historical aspects of it. I’ve been to London, but that was just for a few days [in 2019], when we played the games there with the Yankees and the Red Sox. I’d love to travel, really, all around the world. To be immersed in different cultures and have a chance to experience them. That’s an easy question for me.

You have all been athletes. Which athlete’s career, regardless of sport, would you like to have experienced? Bill Russell? Babe Ruth? Pele? Udonis Haslem?

I would love to have lived Michael Jordan’s life. That’s an easy one, too. He’s arguably, to me, the greatest basketball player in history. He was a champion through and through. Won six world championships and was the most talented of the group. His abilities were amazing.

You have the chance to be a two-term president of the United States. Do you take it? Why, or why not?

For me it’s a “why not,” but with some conditions.

I’m not capable to do that job. I just don’t have the political knowledge of the world, or the United States. If you’re going to be in that position, you need to be a leader that can lead the whole country. I wouldn’t have the capabilities, or the knowledge, to do that.

Now, if you told me, ‘OK, you’ve been in that field your whole life. You understand politics, and not only in the United States. You understand the world’s issues, and the economics.’ Then I’d say, well, yeah. If I had that type of knowledge, I’d be interested.

The skills you have to lead in one area — for example, if it’s baseball, like I’m involved in — you could lead in other walks of life, if you had the knowledge in those areas. But I don’t have the background to lead in that area.