Bob Fontaine (scout)

Bob Fontaine Jr.

The son of former San Diego Padres GM Bob Fontaine, Bob Fontaine, Jr. scouted for the Padres from 1974 to 1980. He was the Montreal Expos' west coast scouting supervisor in 1982. Fontaine was Scouting Director of the California Angels from 1987 to 1999. From 2001 to 2003 he was the Director of Player Development for the Chicago White Sox. From 2004 to 2008, he was the Scouting Director of the Seattle Mariners before Tom McNamara replaced him. His son, Matthew Thomas, was drafted by the Seattle Mariners in the 41st round of the 2007 amateur draft.

With the Angels, he was at the center of the team's attempt to break into the newly-opened Russian market. The Angels began scouting the country in earnest and signed Ilya Bogatyrev, Yevgeny Puchkov and Rudolf Razhigaev, who played organized baseball for a couple of seasons before the effort petered out.

Further Reading

• Tom Singer and Doug Miller: "The Glasnost Gang: When the Halos 'invaded' Russia: In 1992, the Angels signed three Russian players. Here is their story", mlb.com, March 25, 2016. [1]