Leave While the Party's Good: The Life and Legacy of Baseball Executive Harry Dalton

Finalist for the 2025 Seymour Medal Harry Dalton was a front office executive in Major League Baseball for more than forty years, serving as general manager for the Baltimore Orioles (1966–71), the California Angels (1972–77), and the Milwaukee Brewers (1978–91). He was the principal architect of the Orioles’ dynasty and of the only American League Championship the Brewers ever won. In this definitive biography of Dalton (1928–2005), Lee C. Kluck tells the full and colorful story of a man many consider the first modern baseball executive. In 1965 the Orioles hired Dalton to be the chief team builder and to oversee baseball operations. This was a turning point in the history of baseball, creating a new kind of executive that other teams soon began to model. In Leave While the Party’s Good Kluck details Dalton’s pre-baseball life, showing that from an early age he developed traits that would shape the rest of his life in baseball. Dalton’s early career in Baltimore, building up the organization’s farm system, would inform his later days in higher management and help turn the Orioles into a dynasty. Dalton’s move to California coincided with the arrival of free agency, forcing him to evolve his team-building approach. Following his departure from the California Angels after trading for the pieces that would make them winners in 1978, Dalton hired on with the Milwaukee Brewers’ owner Bud Selig and made the Brewers a winning team for most of the next decade, including another pennant in 1982. Dalton won with big payrolls and small ones. He won before and after free agency. He built winning teams from nothing. Leave While the Party’s Good details all this and gives insight into how his legacy continues to influence baseball today.  

Table of Contents:
Preface Acknowledgments Introduction 1. An All-American Son of the Commonwealth: 1928–54 2. Present at the Creation for Forty-Five Dollars a Week: 1954 3. Competing Philosophies and Losing Baseball: 1954–61 4. The World of Harry Dalton: 1960–65 5. Changes: Winter 1965 6. Can You Believe It? 1966 7. A Different Reality: 1967–68 8. The Best Team in Baseball: 1969–71 9. The Daltons Go West: Fall 1971 10. Getting His Hands in the Dirt: 1971–72 11. Looking for the Right Combination: 1973–76 12. New World, New Dalton, Same Results: Winter 1976–Fall 1977 13. Working on His Terms: November 1977–October 1978 14. Laying the Foundation for a Winner: 1979–80 15. A Taste of Things to Come: 1981 16. The Wallbangers: October 1981–October 1982 17. Reversal of Fortune: Winter 1982–October 1985 18. Streaking: Winter 1986–Fall 1988 19. The Last Ride of the Dalton Gang: Winter 1988–Fall 1991 20. Exile, Carefree Days, and Living Nightmares: 1992–2005 Epilogue: Legacy Notes Index

About the Author :
Lee C. Kluck is a sports historian from Wisconsin. He is a frequent contributor to the Society for American Baseball Research. This is his first book.  

Review :
"Without a doubt, once you read this book, you'll find yourself, along with the author, feeling and believing Harry Dalton is clearly worthy of a plaque in Cooperstown."-Southern New England SABR chapter newsletter "Kluck's biography of Harry Dalton is a rare breed in the baseball literature, given the relative paucity of works examining the life of a general manager. . . . Kluck's biography of Dalton is sure to inspire the development of many more biographies of baseball executives."-Bevis Baseball Research “Front office executives in baseball are too often overlooked as crucially important figures in the history of the sport. Chief among them would be Harry Dalton, extraordinarily impactful as the general manager of three American League franchises over the period of a quarter century. But he is overlooked no longer, as Lee Kluck’s deeply researched biography gives Dalton’s remarkable career the prominence it deserves.”-Steven Treder, author of the Seymour Medal–winning Forty Years a Giant: The Life of Horace Stoneham “Providing an in-depth examination of Harry Dalton’s career in Major League Baseball, Lee Kluck masterfully shows Dalton’s link to baseball’s past and the continuing impact Dalton has on today’s game.”-Willie Steele, editor of NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture