From an article in the LATimes about Dodgers General Manager Paul DePodesta:
The primary architect of the Dodger roster is not the owner of one year but rather the general manager of 11 months, soft-spoken, unassuming Paul DePodesta, who turned all of 32 last month and is looking forward to his only child’s first birthday this month.
Architect is a description the Harvard-educated DePodesta would find flattering because the fictional character he admires most is Howard Roark, the fiercely independent architect in Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel, “The Fountainhead.”
Roark dismissed traditional methods and stood by his radical designs in the face of severe criticism. Rand presented him as a man of extraordinary conviction, and, no surprise here, Gary Cooper played him in the movie.
Fans alarmed at the wholesale shakeup of the Dodgers probably feel DePodesta is more interested in detonating dynamite than in drawing up the blueprint for a winning team. Not that he would be insulted ? Roark too blew things up when he deemed it necessary.
Tradition? Ka-boom! Time-honored methods? Ka-bluwee!
“There are a lot of things we do because that’s the way we’ve always done them, and I do my best to not accept that as an explanation,” DePodesta said. “Circumstances change and you have to be proactive about changing with those circumstances.”
See the full article for additional information.