Man With the Plan

Do-everything travel director Mickey Morabito remains the A’s hidden treasure after 43 years

BY JON BECKER

With another dreary, last-place season in the forecast, the A’s are fortunate to have Mickey Morabito and his dry sense of humor around for the 43rd straight year.

Oakland’s quick-thinking, do-everything director of travel has long known when it’s time to lighten a mood. When someone bemoans the A’s seemingly hopeless plight, Morabito deftly points out how Oakland can and will distance itself from every other MLB team this season.

“We jumped Seattle and the Angels into the No. 1 spot in most air miles traveled for this season. So we are leading Major League Baseball in something,” Morabito said — drolly — during a phone conversation while he waited to board a flight to spring training.

Sure, the A’s 51,527 air miles for 2023 puts them safely ahead of the Mariners (49,036) and Giants (46,111), but it leaves them a long way from where they want to be as a team. Getting there won’t be easy. This is where the eminently likable Morabito provides subtle assistance on a daily basis.

Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa, who worked with Morabito in Oakland from 1986 to 1995, said it’s easy to explain what’s made Morabito such a popular and valuable co-worker and friend.

“Mickey’s got a really good personality, and you look forward to his company,” La Russa said. “He’s interesting and fun. He could take it, and he could dish it out. There ain’t no way that you get to 43 years unless you’re 43 years special.”

Former equipment manager Steve Vucinich, whose epic 54-year run with the A’s ended with his retirement last year, said Morabito has always done right by everyone he works with.

Mickey Morabito has handled all the A’s travel arrangements since arriving in 1980. Here, Morabito, center, waits with (from left) Rich Sauveur, Omar Oliveres, Tim Hudson, Kevin Appier, Ben Grieve and Mark Mulder in the loading dock under Camden Yards in Baltimore for the bus back to the team hotel following a 2000 game against the Orioles.

“I guarantee you, Mickey is at the top of everyone’s list, from the hotel people to the airline people. From the bellmen to the bartenders, Mickey treats everyone with respect,” Vucinich said.

“He’s a treasure,” said Michael Zagaris, the iconic Bay Area sports and music photographer who has been the A’s team photographer since 1981. “Everyone loves him. I don’t think he’s ever had an enemy ... well, there were one or two (expletives). But that’s on them, not Mickey,”

Morabito’s 43 years in Oakland make him the team’s most senior full-time employee. He’s also Major League Baseball’s longest-tenured traveling secretary — by a long shot. Arizona’s Roger Riley is next, with 28 years on the job.

“Why do I still do it? Working in baseball is all I’ve ever done, and I still enjoy it,” said the 71-year-old Morabito. “I enjoy traveling and staying in nice hotels on somebody else’s dime.”

A’s director of travel Mickey Morabito doesn’t have much down time during spring training, but his real work will come this season. Because of an expanded MLB schedule, the A’s will lead the majors in air miles this season — 51,527. Next up are the Mariners (49,036) and the Giants (46,111).

All fun aside, Morabito’s core responsibilities of overseeing every aspect of team travel have never changed, even if they’ve been altered since he took over the A’s travel in 1980. Back then, the A’s took commercial flights, sometimes flew on game days and occasionally changed planes en route.

Travel has gotten better since then. The A’s have their own chartered plane for every trip, and Morabito sets up all the A’s travel arrangements, from flights to hotels, buses and delivery trucks, well in advance of the sixmonth season. There will always be plenty of other flights for him to arrange during the season for players coming up to the A’s or down to Triple-A Las Vegas.

(He surely has a quip about the franchise-record 64 players the A’s used during last year’s perpetual roster shuffle, but the less said about the 2022 season, the better).

Making the best of any situation comes naturally for Morabito, who made his name in the game while working for boorish Yankees owner George Steinbrenner during the “Bronx Zoo” era of the late 1970s. There, in the tabloid capital of the world, Morabito’s job as the public relations manager meant he had to defuse the almost daily drama between Steinbrenner, Reggie Jackson and manager Billy Martin.

“You never knew who was fighting or arguing with whom each day,” said Morabito, whose close friendship with Martin in New York would ultimately shape his life’s path.

First, Morabito had to survive working for the volatile Steinbrenner, who seemed to go through PR directors at nearly the same rate he switched managers — and “The Boss” changed managers 20 times in his first 23 years.

Like most under Steinbrenner, Morabito hit the ground stumbling when he was hired. It wasn’t long before Morabito was fired for the first time by Steinbrenner, apparently for hiring the wrong limousine driver to pick up his boss at the Fort Lauderdale airport. And the next two times

Morabito was told he was fired, Steinbrenner had forgotten and forgiven by the next morning. Morabito’s most infamous reprieve was in 1978, nearly a month after one of the five times Martin was replaced as manager. Morabito arranged for a small group of Yankees beat writers to have lunch with Martin. Soon after, Steinbrenner was fielding calls from those writers who were seeking comments about Martin ripping Reggie.

As Morabito recalled, Steinbrenner told him: “I’ll tell you what, Morabito. I’m gonna send my driver out tonight to pick up the early editions of the papers. If it comes out bad, more of that Billy-Reggie (stuff), you’re gone. Fired!”

Convinced the stories in the morning edition of the New York tabloids could be nothing but bad, Morabito started packing up some of his belongings.

In an amazing stroke of good fortune for Morabito, New York’s largest newspapers had gone on strike that night. There would be no stories for Steinbrenner or anyone to pore over that morning or for the next month.

A year later, Martin would be at the center of another huge break for Morabito.

A’s owner Charlie Finley hired Martin to manage the A’s in 1980, and one of the manager’s first moves was to bring Morabito with him as the traveling secretary and temporary PR director.

“Dad loved Mickey and trusted him. He knew Mickey always had his back, and dad obviously had Mickey’s back,” said Billy Martin Jr. during a recent phone call from Arlington, Texas. “George was so hard on Mickey that I remember my father saying to me, ‘I want Mickey here with me, but I really want to save him from George.’”

Morabito vividly recalls his first day with the A’s. He arrived at spring training in Scottsdale, and Martin called him and the coaching staff in for a short, jarring meeting.

“Don’t bother looking for any housing in Oakland. No one knows this yet, but we’re gonna be in Denver next year,” Martin told them, revealing Finley had a deal to sell the A’s to Denver oilman Marvin Davis.

After the initial shock, Morabito reasoned that he’d still made the right decision, he’d spend one season in Oakland and continue his career in Denver. Then everything changed, when Martin turned the A’s into a contending and valuable team.

Morabito’s one-year plan in Oakland is now at 43 years … and counting.