Harry Dalton, top baseball general manager
Harry Dalton, who was one of baseball's most successful and respected executives, died yesterday from complications of Parkinson's disease at his daughter's home in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 77.
Considered a shrewd trader and brilliant evaluator of talent as a general manager, Mr. Dalton was credited with building the Baltimore Orioles into one of baseball's powerhouses in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He later overhauled the Milwaukee Brewers, turning a team that had never had a winning season into an American League champion.
In 1970, after the Orioles's World Series victory over the Cincinnati Reds, Mr. Dalton was named Major League Baseball Executive of the Year. He repeated the feat in 1982, when the Brewers won their only AL pennant.
A native of Springfield, Mass., and a graduate of Amherst College, Mr. Dalton also had an indirect hand in the direction of the Boston Red Sox in the 1980s and 1990s. Lou Gorman and Dan Duquette, general managers for the Sox then, considered Mr. Dalton their mentor.
''Harry was smart and demanding, but with no ego. He passed out responsibilities but wouldn't micromanage you," Gorman told The Baltimore Sun last night. Gorman was the farm director for Mr. Dalton for seven years in Baltimore. ''He was great at extrapolating our opinions, distilling them, and making a final judgment."
Mr. Dalton gave Duquette his first job in Major League Baseball, hiring him out of Amherst College as an administrative assistant for the Brewers. When Duquette took the reins of the Sox in 1994, he said he owed much of his career to his former boss.
Mr. Dalton, who also was the general manager of the California Angels in the 1970s, was voted into the Halls of Fame for both the Orioles and Brewers.
Much of the Orioles's success came from two key decisions by Mr. Dalton: trading for future Hall of Famer Frank Robinson in 1965 and promoting future Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver in 1968.
Robinson was 30 in December 1965, and at the time the Cincinnati Reds considered him past his prime. In a deal that Lee MacPhail started before leaving Baltimore for the commissioner's office, Mr. Dalton finished off his first trade as the Orioles' general manager -- he acquired Robinson from the Reds for pitchers Milt Pappas and Jack Baldschun and outfielder Dick Simpson.
Robinson went on to win the Triple Crown in 1966 and led the Orioles to their first World Series title.
''If you wanted to talk to him about any problems you had, you could talk to him," Robinson, now manager of the Washington Nationals, said last night. ''He was a very sharp baseball man."
Mr. Dalton promoted Weaver to the manager's job in the middle of the 1968 season.
Weaver led the Orioles to the World Series three consecutive years and ran the team for 17 seasons en route to a place in Cooperstown. ''Harry was level-headed, and I was hotheaded, but we got along fine," Weaver told the Sun. ''I knew my place. He was the boss, a Hall of Famer at what he did."
Mr. Dalton was a proponent of building a farm system of young players, and did it by relying on scouts who were called the ''Dalton Gang."
In addition to Duquette and Gorman, current Atlanta Braves general manager John Schuerholz began his career under Mr. Dalton's tutelage.
''Having [Dalton] in the front office was like having Earl [Weaver] on the field -- you didn't get out-managed or out-general managed," said Boog Powell, a former first baseman and one of several top players developed in Mr. Dalton's system.
After the Orioles lost the 1971 World Series to Pittsburgh, Mr. Dalton became general manager of the Angels and spent six years with them. Following the 1977 season, he moved to Milwaukee and took over the Brewers' baseball operations.
In December 1980, Mr. Dalton bolstered the Brewers by getting pitchers Rollie Fingers and Pete Vuckovich and catcher Ted Simmons in a trade with St. Louis.
During the 1982 stretch, Milwaukee traded for Don Sutton, who helped pitch Milwaukee into its only World Series. The Brewers lost in seven games to St. Louis.
Mr. Dalton retired in 1994, ending a 41-year career.
After he graduated from Amherst College, Mr. Dalton served in the US Air Force for three years, mostly in Korea and Japan, and he was presented the Bronze Star.
According to the Baltimore Sun, Mr. Dalton started with the Orioles in 1954 in a low-level office job at $45 a week. The club had just moved from St. Louis.
Moonlighting as a cabdriver to make ends meet, Mr. Dalton rose up the ranks of the ball club. In 1961, he took charge of minor league operations. Five years later, he became general manager.
''Everyone kind of knew that, sooner or later, Harry would be general manager," Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson told the Sun. ''He was just a little brighter than everyone else."
Mr. Dalton leaves his wife, Patricia; three daughters, Kim Fusco and Cindy Dalton, both of Scottsdale, and Debby Dalton, of San Francisco; and two grandchildren.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this obituary. 
