David Lee Forst (born May 18, 1976) is an American baseball executive with the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball. He is the general manager of the Athletics.
David Forst | |
---|---|
Oakland Athletics | |
General manager | |
Born: May 18, 1976 | |
Teams | |
|
Forst was born in Santa Monica, California, and raised in Encino, California.[1][2] He attended Brentwood School in Brentwood, Los Angeles.[3] Forst's wife is Rebe Glass, a lawyer with the San Francisco law firm Cooley Godward Kronish.[4] Glass and Forst met at Harvard, where Glass was captain of the soccer team and a member of the 1997 All-Ivy Team, Second Team.[4][5] They have a son (Judah) and a daughter (Sasha), and live in Berkeley, California.[6]
Forst attended Harvard University, where he played college baseball for the Harvard Crimson. Forst was the Crimson's starting shortstop and team captain, and in his senior year he batted .406/.437/.624, while setting a school record with 67 hits.[7][8][4] He was named an All-America third-team shortstop.[9] He graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in sociology from Harvard in 1998.[10][11]
Forst attended spring training with the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball (MLB) in 1999.[12] He played for the Springfield Capitals of the independent Frontier League in 1998 (batting .280/.350/.320; playing primarily third base) and 1999 (batting .294/.362/.376; playing primarily shortstop).[13][2]
In 2000, Forst sent his résumé to MLB teams and was hired by the Oakland Athletics as a scout.[12][14] He became the Athletics' assistant general manager in 2004, succeeding Paul DePodesta.[10] He turned down opportunities to interview for the general manager position with the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres.[11][15] After the 2015 season, the Athletics announced that, with Billy Beane being promoted to executive vice president of baseball operations, Forst would be promoted to general manager.[16]