Jerry Krause: Basketball is his legacy, but his heart belonged to baseball

Jerry Krause will be remembered, rightfully, for basketball — for turning the Chicago Bulls into a dynasty, for all for those rings.

Krause died Tuesday. He was 77 years old. He spent more than 50 of those years working in pro sports. Basketball is his legacy, there’s no doubt about it. But his heart, Krause would have told you, belonged to baseball.

Before he got the offer from owner Jerry Reinsdorf to become general manager of the Bulls in 1985, Krause worked for the Chicago White Sox as a scout for six years. Prior to that, he’d worked for the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics, who won three titles in 1972-1974 when Krause was in the organization. Don’t say Krause was anything but a winner.

[Elsewhere: Jerry Krause, architect of six Chicago Bulls championships, dies at 77]

At one point is his career, Krause spent 12 years scouting both baseball and basketball players in the same year. In the years that followed, he’d go on say that while he enjoyed being a general manager and winning titles, he loved scouting more.

So Krause returned to baseball scouting after raising all those championship banners with the Bulls. He was scouting for the Mets and Yankees after his NBA run, then returned to the White Sox, where he was named their scout of the year for 2010.

At the time he told the Chicago Tribune:

Krause then jumped over to the Arizona Diamondbacks, where he was named a special assistant to the general manager. He spent four seasons there, with an emphasis on scouting. He told the Chicago Tribune in 2016 that osteomyelitis, a bone infection, would keep him away from scouting that year and it was the first time since 1961 he wasn’t employed by a baseball or basketball team.

Once a scout, always a scout.

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz