Mike Flanagan's journey through the Orioles' organization has taken him from the pitching mound to the coaches' office, and from the broadcast booth to the owner's ear. Now he's ready to get into the jewelry business.

Sitting with reporters at the Camden Yards warehouse yesterday, Flanagan removed his World Series ring from his right hand and spun it on a table. He doesn't usually wear it, but the moment seemed right with his introduction as one half of the replacement for Syd Thrift, the club's outgoing vice president of baseball operations.

Running his fingers over the gold band, Flanagan said, "It would be great to pass out rings one year."

He has won a Cy Young Award and a World Series championship. He has served twice as pitching coach, and spent six of the past seven years as a television analyst on Orioles games. For Flanagan, who will inherit Thrift's title while working closely with Jim Beattie, the new executive vice president of baseball operations, taking a front-office position seemed like a natural progression.

"It did once I had no desire to be back in uniform," Flanagan said. "I've wanted to give something back to the game. I've wanted to sort of pay attention to the operation here in Baltimore as I was watching how other organizations were run. That was one of the main advantages to the broadcasting side of the business. It gave me an opportunity where I've met most of the general managers and met most of the advanced scouts for other organizations and seen how trades have gone down. And I've paid close attention to the views and values of those people we encounter in the everyday life of being a broadcaster.

"This became sort of a progression in watching and caring about the organization and the people involved. There are hundreds of good people around here. We do feel like we can hit the ground running."

Nobody with the Orioles anticipates that the New Hampshire native will land on his face.

"He has a great eye for talent," said Joe Foss, the Orioles' vice chairman/chief operating officer. "He brings a very current understanding of our players both at the big-league level and in the system. He is a person who knows our baseball operations personnel and he's well-respected."

Said manager Mike Hargrove: "I've known Mike for a long time, and in the last three years I've really gotten to know him better. Mike is a common-sense, logical person who's very secure in who he is and what he believes in, and I think that will help him make the right decisions for the Orioles. Mike is an information gatherer and he's not afraid to seek other people's opinions, and that's very important."

Flanagan, who turns 51 later this month, pitched for the Orioles from 1975 to 1986, and again in 1991. He has never strayed far from the organization, even accepting a job as instructor during the team's winter workouts and in spring training. Trusted enough to become an advisor to majority owner Peter Angelos, he'll assume greater responsibilities.

Reached at his law offices yesterday, Angelos said, "I, like everyone else, recognize that Mike is a special human being. He's a man of strong intellect, integrity, and a man who has an exceptional comprehension of baseball. He is very articulate. He's very measured and very stable. He's a very sensible person. And from a baseball standpoint, he has a very keen and very imaginative mind."

He also has built a relationship with Angelos that other employees, including former general manager Frank Wren, never could.

"We earned the right with each other to disagree," Flanagan said. "I think a lot of the credibility I have is on advice that was not followed, and maybe with the test of time he's seen that many of those ideas came true. I don't think I can be perceived as a yes man or a shill because you couldn't survive seven years in that [advisory] position. And it was too important of a position not to be brutally honest."

Flanagan didn't openly campaign for his latest job, even as Angelos and Russell Smouse, the club's general legal counsel, were bringing in outside candidates. "I have never thrown my hat into the ring," he said. "I've seen a lot of ex-players who want the game of baseball. I have always tried to put it so that, hopefully, the game of baseball would want me."

A lack of front-office tenure didn't deter Angelos from making the hire or intimidate Flanagan, who said, "I guess we wouldn't have put a man on the moon if you had to have experience to do it."

Offering perhaps his final statements with the Orioles, Thrift recalled how he watched Flanagan pitch as a freshman at the University of Massachusetts, a memory that served him well yesterday.

"I had a great vision," he said, smiling, "that someday he was going to be vice president of baseball operations in Baltimore."

And someday, he would leave the comfort and security of the broadcast booth to do it, with the full blessing of his wife and three children.

"I genuinely care about the organization," Flanagan said. "People have asked, 'Why would you want to do this?' It was rather obvious to me. Why wouldn't you?"

Sun staff writer Joe Christensen contributed to this article.