Five Intriguing Facts About New Pittsburgh Pirates GM Ben Cherington

2. Ben Cherington Graduated from the same college as Dave Littlefield and Neal Huntington 

Dave Littlefield was the General Manager for the Pirates from 2001 to 2007. Neal Huntington, as most people know, just finished his tenure as the Pirates GM, which lasted from 2007-2019. Both of them received graduate degrees from the University of Massachusetts Department of Sports Management. Interestingly, Cherington has a degree from the same Department at UMass.

3. Ben Cherington Graduated from the same college as Neal Huntington

Is this a typo? Nope. Not only do Huntington and Cherington hold degrees from the same graduate school, they also hold degrees from the same undergraduate school, Amherst College. The degrees were different though, Huntington received a degree in Psychology from Amherst and Cherington received a degree in English. Both played baseball for Amherst, Huntington was a first baseman and Cherington was a pitcher.

I don’t think Cherington having a similar educational background to Huntington and Littlefield is something that should be read into. As most of us know, the majority of learning happens on the job these days and there is no reason to believe this is any different for GMs. The similar education backgrounds are one heck of a coincidence though.