Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Cardinals ready to promote Mozeliak to GM role

ST. LOUIS -- The St. Louis Cardinals will remove the "interim" tag from general manager John Mozeliak's title at a 4 p.m. ET news conference.

Mozeliak has been the team's interim GM since Walt Jocketty was fired on Oct. 3. He had been Jocketty's assistant.

Mozeliak will get a three-year contract, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Mozeliak has been with the Cardinals for 11 seasons. He has been involved in the team's scouting department in addition to being Jocketty's assistant.

Other candidates who interviewed included Cleveland Indians assistant general manager Chris Antonetti, Arizona Diamondbacks assistant general manager Peter Woodfork, Chicago White Sox assistant general manager Rick Hahn and Colorado Rockies manager of minor leagues Jon Weil, according to the Post-Dispatch.

Antonetti turned down an offer to be GM of the Cardinals, despite calling it "one of the best jobs in the game" and admitting to being "blown away" and "immensely impressed" with Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt.

It appeared Antonetti was leaning toward moving to St. Louis until Indians owner Paul Dolan stepped up, defined the succession process under which Mark Shapiro will eventually be the club president and Antonetti the GM and made other promises.

Antonetti said he was "very fortunate to have a choice of two of the best jobs there are with two of the best owners to work with," Antonetti said. "The Cardinals may be one of the top five GM jobs in the business, but we are very happy where we are and Paul Dolan made it impossible to leave."

ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick and ESPN's Peter Gammons contributed to this report.


Source: ESPN.com

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