The Scout of the Year program celebrated its 40th anniversary Wednesday evening at the Winter Meetings in Dallas, honoring evaluators and administrators for their contributions to the game.

This year's domestic winners were Chris Buckley (Reds, East Coast), Tim Kelly (Yankees, Midwest) and R.J. Harrison (Rays, West Coast). Eddy Toledo (Phillies) was named international scout of the year, Pat Gillick (Phillies) received the director's award and Sandy Dengler (Rays, retired) won the Roberta Mazur distinguished woman in baseball award.

Gillick, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2011, is the first Cooperstown immortal honored by the Scout of the Year program, which is run by Mazur as executive director. Harrison, whose dad Bob was the 2023 West Coast scout of the year, became part of third father-son tandem to win awards. They joined Joe and Jerry Stephenson and Larry (Jr.) and Jeff Barton.

A closer look at each of this year's honorees:

Chris Buckley (Reds, East Coast)

Buckley, 65, played for a year in the Astros system before finishing his college degree and serving as an assistant coach at Pace, Duke and Seton Hall. While coaching, he was also teaching, giving hitting lessons and refereeing high school basketball to make ends meet and really just wanted to work full-time in baseball. So he jumped at the chance when Blue Jays scouting director Bob Engle offered him a job as a Florida area scout in 1989.

Buckley signed seven big leaguers as an area scout, most notably Shannon Stewart, before becoming a crosschecker (1996-2000), scouting director (2001-03) and special assistant (2004-05) for Toronto. He worked briefly with the Cubs before joining the Reds in February 2006 and serving as senior director and vice president of scouting (through the 2018 Draft), then vice president of player personnel (2018-23) and a special assistant (starting this year).

The 16 drafts Buckley ran for Toronto and Cincinnati produced 101 big leaguers, including Aaron Hill, Justin Turner, Todd Frazier, Yasmani Grandal and Hunter Greene. He also was instrumental in Cincinnati's signing of Aroldis Chapman to a record $16,250,000 bonus as part of a $30,250,000 contract in 2010. He credits his success to the legendary Blue Jays scouts who taught him the business.

"I could not have started at a better place," Buckley said. "I learned so much good stuff at Seton Hall about toughness and makeup, and then I got to Toronto and I was with Pat Gillick, Bobby Mattick, Bob Engle and Tim Wilken, who were all Scout of the Year winners. I was a young guy trying to find my way and now I was working with giants of the game."

Tim Kelly (Yankees, Midwest)

Kelly, 66, turned down the Guardians when they selected him as a catcher from NCAA Division III Wooster (Ohio) in the 32nd round in the June 1980 Draft and became a college coach after graduating. He took the head coaching job at D-III Wittenberg (Ohio) at age 24 and loved it. When the Yankees promoted area scout Stan Saleski to crosschecker and Saleski approached him about replacing him after the 1990 season, Kelly said no.

"Scouting hadn't even occurred to me," Kelly said. "I was having the time of my life dealing with college kids, and my brother even played for me. I was worried about being fair to my wife. I actually turned the job down. I was the assistant football coach too, and the head football coach, Ron Murphy, told me I was an idiot. My wife told me I was crazy. So I called Stan back."

Thus began 33 years of scouting that saw Kelly rise from area scout in 1991 to Midwest crosschecker in 2000 to national crosschecker in 2010, with him retiring after the 2024 Draft. He signed five big leaguers (Brian Reith was the most notable) as an area guy, as well as a future big league manager (Derek Shelton) and a longtime Yankees development official (John Kremer). He describes the 2006 Draft as the biggest highlight of his career, as he helped the club land 10 future big leaguers, including pitchers Ian Kennedy, Joba Chamberlain, Dellin Betances, Mark Melancon and David Robertson.

R.J. Harrison (Rays, West Coast)

Harrison, 70, caught on some powerhouse teams at Arizona State before signing with the Cardinals as a 23rd-rounder in 1975 and pitching for five seasons in the Minors. He managed for six seasons in the Mariners and Giants system, then spent a year as a roving catching instructor for baseball and two years out of the game. He always figured he'd wind up in scouting, and that opportunity came when Mets scouting director Roland Johnson hired him as a part-timer in 1991, then made him a full-time area scout the following year.

"That was always in the back of the mind that scouting would be where my career headed when I got older," Harrison said. "My dad and I had a really close relationship and I grew up around it. I was tagging along as a batboy when he was running the Angels scout team in the 1960s. I'd go to the ballpark and sit and listen to guys like Rosey Gilhousen, George Genovese, Harry Minor and Jerry Gardner. Right away, as soon as I started scouting part-time, I knew this is what I wanted to do."

One of the first hires by the expansion Devil Rays in September 1995, Harrison has served the organization as a West crosschecker (Sept. 1995-98), national crosschecker (1999-2002), national scouting coordinator (2003-04), assistant scouting director (2005), scouting director (2006-15) and senior advisor (since the 2015 Draft). He signed four big leaguers with the Mets, highlighted by Vance Wilson, and the 10 drafts he ran for the Rays generated 57 big leaguers. His first two first-round picks became the best position player (Evan Longoria) and pitcher (David Price) in franchise history, and he also selected a two-time Cy Young Award winner (Blake Snell) and a four-time Gold Glover (Kevin Kiermaier).

Eddy Toledo (Phillies, international)

Toledo, 71, was a teenage right-hander in the Dominican Republic who hoped to sign with a big league club before an elbow injury ended that dream. But he quickly pivoted to another.

"Ramon Naranjo with the Expos has worked me out before I got hurt, so I asked him if I could show him a couple of my friends," Toledo said. "Eduardo Calderon was a right-hander and Jose Moreno was a second baseman who would go on to play in the big leagues. When I showed him those two guys, Ramon asked me to help him and I became a bird-dog scout with the Expos. That was the beginning."

Toledo is still active 54 years later, going from Expos bird dog (1970-72) to Red Sox bird dog (1973-75) to Angels scout (1976-80) to Mets scout and director of Dominican operations (1980-2006) to Rays Dominican director (2007-12) to Mariners Dominican director (2013-19) to Phillies scout (2022 to date). He has signed 38 big leaguers, including stars such as Nelson Cruz, Carlos Gomez, Jose Reyes and Julio Rodriguez.

Pat Gillick (Phillies, director's award)

Gillick, 87, was part of a 1958 College World Series championship team at Southern California before pitching for five seasons in the Orioles system. The Astros hired him as assistant farm director in 1963, moved him into scouting a couple of years later -- he signed Cesar Cedeno out of the Dominican Republic in 1967 -- and promoted him to scouting director in 1974. He spent the next two years running player development and scouting for the Yankees before becoming one of the most successful general managers in baseball history.

The expansion Blue Jays hired Gillick to run their organization in 1976, and he masterfully built them into a perennial contender by their seventh season and World Series champions in 1992 and 1993. He left Toronto after 1994 and later served as GM for the Orioles (1996-98, with consecutive American League Championship Series appearances), Mariners (2000-03, including a record-tying 116 victories in 2001) and Phillies (2006-08, culminating in a World Series title). After his third championship, Gillick stepped down and became a senior adviser for Philadelphia.

"Pat did it every place he went and he didn't take all his people with him everywhere he went," Buckley said. "That's how good he is. He's very smart and he's a visionary. You can't outwork the guy and he knows how to communicate and get the best out of people."

Sandy Dengler (Rays, retired, distinguished woman in baseball)

After graduating from Syracuse and going to secretarial school, Dengler was looking for a job and living in Westport, N.Y. That also was the home of John Gaherin, who was the chief negotiator for MLB and the first director of its Player Relations Committee. A mutual acquaintance mentioned Dengler to Gaherin, who launched her 43-year career in baseball by hiring her in 1975.

Dengler, who got her master's degree in industrial labor relations from a joint Baruch/Cornell program in 1982, stayed with the PRC through 1987, when her husband retired from the New York Police Department and they moved to Florida. She spent 1988-96 running the Pirates' operations at their training base in Bradenton, Fla., then worked with the Rays from 1997-2018 as director of major league administration. She said two of her proudest moments came when Tampa Bay made its World Series run in 2008 and when she became the first woman ever to represent her franchise at the Draft in 2018.

Dengler said her award caught her off guard and is even more special because it's named after Mazur.

"Roberta has worked tirelessly for decades to support scouts and get them recognition," Dengler said. "Scouts are the foundation of what goes on on the field. There also are so many women in baseball who work their lives in the sport they love, and you never see use get recognized. I am beyond thrilled."

Thanks to Rod Nelson of the SABR Scouts Research Committee for his research assistance.