Thank you, University of Nebraska Press, for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
Mr. Book just finished Leave While The Party’s Good: The Life And Legacy Of Baseball Executive Harry Dalton, by Lee C. Kluck.
Dalton was GM of the Orioles when they won the 1966 World Series in his first season and then three consecutive pennants from 1969-71 (won the 1970 World Series). He also served as GM of the Angels and the Brewers, with the Brewers winning their first pennant until his leadership (1982). And, while he was already running the Brewers when the Angels won the 1979 AL West title, most of the core of that team was put together by Dalton.
One amusing story from the book was when Dalton had to reign in Earl Weaver, who had thrown the team’s entire supply of bats onto the field, while Dalton was director of the Orioles’ farm system, before he became their GM (he didn’t officially held the title, but he was doing the job and that is how history has treated him).
On Dalton’s first day as Orioles GM, he had to make the decision on whether to approve the trade to send Frank Robinson to the Orioles, which of course he did. As Angels GM, he traded Jim Fregosi for Nolan Ryan. I hadn’t known that the Ryan deal was only possible because the Yankees had turned down his offer of Fregosi for Thurman Munson. One fan said, at the time, that Dalton should “get the Most Valuable Dumbbell Award” for making the Fregosi-Ryan trade.
In addition to all of the great information on Dalton’s career, the book provides very good coverage of the labor issues that were happening in baseball at the time.
I did find a couple of errors in the book. The author wrote that Dalton had agreed to a trade that would have sent Frank Robinson to the Yankees in 1974 in exchange for Bill White. But, Bill was a Yankees broadcaster and it should have said Roy White. He also said that in March 1977, Dalton tried to get Bucky Dent from the Yankees and then said he was interested in getting Dent so he could trade him to the Yankees. The author meant that he tried to get Dent from the White Sox, who traded him to the Yankees in early April. However, these were isolated incidents. They were the only errors I found, while the book did pass all of the random fact checking tests that I performed.
As much as I didn’t like finding a couple of errors, they didn’t detract from the enjoyment of this book. So I am still giving it an A. Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews
Mr. Book originally finished reading this on July 13, 2024.
