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Regarding Jack Dunn
There is a neat little summary of Dunn's career in Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia, but the best - and most comprehensive - portrait of Dunn I have run across is in Neil J. Sullivan's The Minors.
Dunn operated an indepedently run franchise that was the model of what minor league teams "could have been." The International League, which the Orioles dominated throughout Dunn's tenure, was the strongest of the minor leagues during these years.
As a scout and talent evaluator, Dunn "showed persistence and thoroughness in being able to find such a player [as Ruth] in such an obscure place."
"Dunn's eye for talent was matched by a fierce determination to win, insistence of discipline, and generous rewards for the players who met his standards."
"Jack Dunn was a very serious businessman who made his living from the sport of baseball and who profited by extending opportunity to talented young men. Dunn was no wealthy sportsman pursuing a hobby; nor was he an idle figurehead who awaited profits while subordinates did the work. He knew the business of baseball as a player, manager, and owner. He knew what was required to be successful, including the risks that had to be assumed. Unlike other minor league owners who were content to be wards of the majors, Dunn trusted his own abilities and work ethic."
"In a league of teams that were independent franchises, Dunn had no peer. He repeatedly discovered talent from sandlots to reform schools to colleges. Few other baseball executives worked as hard or as successfully as Dunn."
Sullivan notes that Baltimore crushed good competition in exhibitions with major league teams and in season play with many high-quality IL teams. Connie Mack is said to have trusted Dunn's baseball judgement explicitly. McGraw also had confidence in Dunn's ability to find good players; both he and Mack negotiated with Dunn on a regular basis, seeking to purchase players from him.
Dunn and Branch Rickey were practically separated at birth, according to Sullivan, who writes that both were "talented and tireless scouts who found great players at the very beginning of their careers." Unfortunately for the minor leagues, Rickey's genius continued to work towards their enslavement after Dunn's heart attack in 1928 put a sudden end to his efforts to save them.
Dunn's Orioles were a team that was the equal (or better) of most major league clubs of its day, run as a one-man operation, by a bright and energetic baseball man who, through intelligence and hard work created an enormously successful dynasty. That this is a "minor league" club is more a designation giving it in a sweeping endictment by the self-appointed "major" leagues as opposed to an actual statement on the excellence of the organization or quality of the teams it fielded.
Jack Dunn is a man who's success in and influence on the game of baseball is on par with men like McGraw, Mack and Rickey. He merits inclusion with them here.
There is a neat little summary of Dunn's career in Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia, but the best - and most comprehensive - portrait of Dunn I have run across is in Neil J. Sullivan's The Minors.
Dunn operated an indepedently run franchise that was the model of what minor league teams "could have been." The International League, which the Orioles dominated throughout Dunn's tenure, was the strongest of the minor leagues during these years.
As a scout and talent evaluator, Dunn "showed persistence and thoroughness in being able to find such a player [as Ruth] in such an obscure place."
"Dunn's eye for talent was matched by a fierce determination to win, insistence of discipline, and generous rewards for the players who met his standards."
"Jack Dunn was a very serious businessman who made his living from the sport of baseball and who profited by extending opportunity to talented young men. Dunn was no wealthy sportsman pursuing a hobby; nor was he an idle figurehead who awaited profits while subordinates did the work. He knew the business of baseball as a player, manager, and owner. He knew what was required to be successful, including the risks that had to be assumed. Unlike other minor league owners who were content to be wards of the majors, Dunn trusted his own abilities and work ethic."
"In a league of teams that were independent franchises, Dunn had no peer. He repeatedly discovered talent from sandlots to reform schools to colleges. Few other baseball executives worked as hard or as successfully as Dunn."
Sullivan notes that Baltimore crushed good competition in exhibitions with major league teams and in season play with many high-quality IL teams. Connie Mack is said to have trusted Dunn's baseball judgement explicitly. McGraw also had confidence in Dunn's ability to find good players; both he and Mack negotiated with Dunn on a regular basis, seeking to purchase players from him.
Dunn and Branch Rickey were practically separated at birth, according to Sullivan, who writes that both were "talented and tireless scouts who found great players at the very beginning of their careers." Unfortunately for the minor leagues, Rickey's genius continued to work towards their enslavement after Dunn's heart attack in 1928 put a sudden end to his efforts to save them.
Dunn's Orioles were a team that was the equal (or better) of most major league clubs of its day, run as a one-man operation, by a bright and energetic baseball man who, through intelligence and hard work created an enormously successful dynasty. That this is a "minor league" club is more a designation giving it in a sweeping endictment by the self-appointed "major" leagues as opposed to an actual statement on the excellence of the organization or quality of the teams it fielded.
Jack Dunn is a man who's success in and influence on the game of baseball is on par with men like McGraw, Mack and Rickey. He merits inclusion with them here.
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