Brian Cashman keeping busy in numerous ways

How's this for a whirlwind day: Brian Cashman woke up in Milwaukee on Thursday for the final day of baseball's general managers/owners meetings. He then flew to New York and made an appearance at a charity dinner on Staten Island. After that, he was scheduled to head to Manhattan to sleep outdoors as part of an effort to show solidarity with homeless youths.

Cashman, the Yankees' general manager, is on the board of directors of Covenant House International. He agreed to sleep outdoors Thursday night along with more than 40 other business and community leaders in what was called "The CEO Solidarity Sleepout'' as he continues to expand his charitable portfolio.

Whether it's rappelling down a building or tending bar in a bandana and wig, Cashman has decided to give back in ways that seem quirkier than his buttoned-down day-job image. But that doesn't mean he's forgotten his day job. Cashman spent the previous three days in meetings and industry events in Milwaukee.

Despite meeting with some agents and chatting with some of his general manager counterparts, Cashman said very little got done in what he expects to be -- at least for the Yankees -- a slow-moving offseason.

"The way the meetings were set up, it wasn't really conducive to getting much quality one-on-one time with opposing teams,'' he said at the 15th annual Teddy Atlas Dinner. "There were some agents that showed up there and asked to meet, so I met with them. I didn't get to meet with all of them. You were either behind closed doors in industry meetings, then we had the hour media sessions, then we had basically an hour to get showered and dressed and then we were off to an industry dinner. Unless you wanted to stay up to 12 midnight and on drinking and doing business that way . . . I didn't do that. I had some conversations, but it wasn't the typical GM meetings where you have a chance to sit down for an hour at a time with various clubs.''

Cashman is happy with his offense, which takes the Yankees out of the Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder and Jose Reyes sweepstakes. He is lukewarm about the top free-agent pitchers, so although he met with the agent for C.J. Wilson and Roy Oswalt, he is not being aggressive.

"I'm interested in doing things,'' he said, "but I just don't see any of those things getting accomplished soon.''

So perhaps that's one of the reasons Cashman agreed to sleep on the sidewalk -- he has the time to help out.

"This concept has apparently had great success in Australia,'' he said. "Everybody's looking for different ways to bring awareness, get the message out, obviously fund-raise. How do you say no if you're really committed to something?''

Cashman said he didn't expect to get a lot of sleep Thursday night. At least he took a nap on the plane from Milwaukee.