This story appears in the May 6, 2019, issue of Sports Illustrated. For more great storytelling and in-depth analysis, subscribe to the magazine—and get up to 94% off the cover price. Click here for more.
So many scouts have been laid off that the Boys of Summer now gather all year round. When longtime Sarasota Herald-Tribune writer John Brockmann began organizing lunches for old baseball men (average age: roughly 65), in the 1970s, he held them twice annually, at the beginning and end of the offseason. But this past January, when former scout Jim Thrift surveyed the room, he saw a group that did not lack for free time.