Hank Peters | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1924-09-16)September 16, 1924 St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | January 4, 2015(2015-01-04) (aged 90) Boca Raton, Florida, U.S. |
| Occupation | Major League Baseball executiveBaltimore Orioles Hall of Fame |
Henry John Peters (September 16, 1924 – January 4, 2015) was anAmericanprofessional baseball executive who held senior management positions for theKansas City Athletics,Cleveland Indians andBaltimore Orioles ofMajor League Baseball between1965 and1991. During his dozen years asgeneral manager of the Orioles (1976–1987), Baltimore won twoAmerican Leaguepennants (in1979 and1983) and the1983 World Series championship. Peters was namedThe Sporting News Executive of the Year after both pennant-winning seasons.
In addition, as president of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (1972–1975), Peters was the chief executive ofminor league baseball and helped it survive one of the worst crises in its history.[1]
The native ofSt. Louis, Missouri, spent more than 40 years in organized baseball.
In 2001, Peters was inducted into theBaltimore Orioles Hall of Fame.
Peters graduated fromCleveland High School.[2] After high school, he served for three years in theUnited States Army during World War II in theEuropean Theater of Operations.[2][3]
Following his military service, Peters joined theSt. Louis Browns after answering a newspaper advertisement, and eventually worked his way into their scouting department. When the Browns left St. Louis forBaltimore after the1953 season, becoming the modern Orioles franchise, Peters stayed in theMidwest. He spent 1954 as general manager of theBurlington Bees of the Class BIllinois–Indiana–Iowa League, then joined the front office of the Kansas City Athletics, newly transplanted fromPhiladelphia, in 1955.[1]
By 1960, Peters was in charge of the Athletics' scouting and minor league system. In the autumn of that year,Charlie Finley bought the team, and Peters became farm system director of theCincinnati Reds, whose recently hired general manager,Bill DeWitt, was his former boss with the Browns.
Peters spent only one season in Cincinnati before returning to the Athletics and Finley, where he would work for the tempestuous owner for four full seasons and hold the title of general manager during the1965 campaign.[4] Kansas City finished last in 1965, but it possessed at the big-league level (Bert Campaneris,Dick Green andCatfish Hunter) and in itsfarm system (Sal Bando,Rollie Fingers,Blue Moon Odom,Gene Tenace,Rick Monday, and others) a core of players that—after the franchise moved toOakland in 1968—would help the A's win three consecutive world championships from 1972 to 1974.
After leaving Finley and the Athletics, Peters joined the Indians as director of player personnel and assistant general manager working underGabe Paul from 1966 to 1971, but the Indians had only one successful season (1968) during that six-year time frame. He then served as the sixth president in the history of the National Association, the umbrella group that governed the minor leagues, during a critical period. The minors had been suffering from over 20 years of plunging attendance, contraction and decline, and were in danger of extinction.[1] Theshort-seasonNorthern League folded in the autumn of 1971, and other circuits like theClass ACarolina andWestern Carolinas leagues, the short-seasonNorthwest League and theRookie-levelPioneer League, then operating with the bare minimum of four teams,[5] were on the verge of collapsing.
"We had so many leagues that were in danger of going out of business," Peters said. His response was to encourage the creation of "co-op" teams that received players from multiple MLB clubs to keep the struggling leagues afloat. "I spent a lot of my time trying to convince Major League Baseball that they really needed these leagues. I’m proud that we were able to create clubs, getting two or three players from this team and a few from another team and so on, so that we could put together an unaffiliated team and each league could have at least four teams. Some of those leagues that were in trouble are now strong and prosperous."[1]
Peters was appointed executive vice president and general manager of theBaltimore Orioles on 3 November 1975.[6] He succeededFrank Cashen who had returned to team ownerJerold Hoffberger'sCarling National Breweries, Inc. as its senior vice president of marketing and sales.[7] The challenge that Peters faced was maintaining the Orioles as perennial contenders despite the limited finances of both the ballclub and the brewery and the advent offree agency in MLB which was made possible by theSeitz decision overturning thereserve clause.
During his initial year in Baltimore, Peters executed a pair of blockbuster deals that were influenced by the oncoming free agency following the1976 campaign. The first happened just before the start of the regular season whenReggie Jackson,Ken Holtzman and minor-league right-handed pitcher Bill Van Bommel were acquired from theOakland Athletics forDon Baylor,Mike Torrez andPaul Mitchell on 1 April.[8] The other came at the trade deadline on 15 June when Holtzman,Doyle Alexander,Grant Jackson,Elrod Hendricks andJimmy Freeman were sent to theNew York Yankees forRudy May,Dave Pagan,Rick Dempsey,Scott McGregor andTippy Martinez, the last three becoming part of a nucleus that enabled the Orioles to continue as perennial contenders for the next decade.[9] Peters augmented that nucleus with afarm system that producedEddie Murray,Cal Ripken Jr.,Rich Dauer,Mike Flanagan,Dennis Martínez,Sammy Stewart,Mike Boddicker andStorm Davis. The Orioles won theAmerican League pennant in1979 and1983 and also captured theWorld Series in the latter year.
Following the 1983 world championship, the Orioles went into decline, and after enduring their first back-to-back losing seasons in three decades, in 1986–87, Peters was fired on October 5, 1987.[4]
In 2001, Peters was inducted into theBaltimore Orioles Hall of Fame.
Less than a month later, on November 2, 1987, he returned to the Indians as their president and chief operating officer.[4] Although the Indians never compiled a winning record during Peters' four full years in the job, he lay the foundation for the strong Cleveland teams of the 1990s, signing youngstersJim Thome,Manny Ramírez andCharles Nagy, and trading forSandy Alomar Jr. andCarlos Baerga.[3] Peters also broughtJohn Hart from Baltimore to the Indians' organization as his hand-picked successor.[10] As the club's top baseball operations executive from September 1991 through October 2001, Hart would lead the Indians through their period of sustained success that began with their move toJacobs Field in 1994, including American League pennants in1995 and1997.
Peters was married to the former Dorothy Kleimeier, with whom he had a daughter and a son, until her death in 2010.[11] He died of complications from a stroke inBoca Raton, Florida on January 4, 2015, aged 90.[12]
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Kansas City Athleticsgeneral manager 1965 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Baltimore Oriolesgeneral manager 1975–1987 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Cleveland Indianspresident 1987–1991 | Succeeded by |
| Awards | ||
| Preceded by | Sporting News MLBExecutive of the Year 1979 1983 | Succeeded by |