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Bragan Jr. stepping down as Suns GM

Jacksonville SunsPeter “Pedro” Bragan Jr., the GM of the Jacksonville Suns (Class AA; Southern League) for 24 of the past 26 seasons, is stepping back from day-to-day duties and will be replaced by current AGM Chris Peters for the coming season.

Bragan will assume the duties of team president. His father, Peter Bragan Sr., is still the team’s Chairman of the Board; his mother, Mary Frances Bragan, is Madame Chairman.

Peters has been Suns AGM for the past two seasons; before that he had front-office stints with the Fort Myers MIracle (High Class A; Florida State League), the Minnesota Twins and the Clearwater Phillies (High Class A; Florida State League). Also being promoted: Casey Nichols, the team’s director of sales and promotions, moves up to the AGM position.

“These guys have been around here for a good while and they are both wonderful assets to the club,” said Bragan Jr. “I am not really leaving or going anywhere, but I just want to give Chris and Casey the opportunity that they both so richly deserve, and to ask them to take more of the day-to-day responsibility away from me.”

It’s hard to see Bragan moving too far away, given how closely his family is intertwined with Jacksonville baseball over the years. Indeed, the Bragan name has been an integral part of Minor League Baseball since the 1940s. Peter Bragan Sr. and family bought the Suns from Lou Eliopoulos in 1984 and built up the franchise over the years. (You can still find the senior Bragans at Suns games, firmly ensconced in their comfy chairs on the concourse, bell ready to be rung.) Pedro’s uncle, Bobby Bragan, began his minor-league managerial career in 1948 with the Fort Worth Cats (Texas League), took over the presidency of the Texas League in 1968 and ascended to the MiLB presidency in 1975, serving a three-year term. And his cousin, the late Bobby Bragan Jr., once headed the NY-Penn League’s Elmira Pioneers.

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