became the first person to hold a general manager title with a major-league team, the
Cleveland Indians. In the first decades of baseball's post-1901 modern era, responsibilities for player acquisition fell upon the club owner and/or president and the
field manager. In some cases, particularly in the early years of the
American League, the owner was a former
player or manager himself:
Charles Comiskey of the
Chicago White Sox,
Connie Mack of the
Philadelphia Athletics, and
Clark Griffith of the
Washington Senators are three prominent examples. Other owners tended to be magnates from the business world, although some, like
Brooklyn Dodgers' president
Charles Ebbets, worked their way from front-office jobs into ownership positions. Most deferred player personnel evaluations to their on-field managers. One notable exception, cited by Mark L. Armour and Daniel R. Leavitt in their book
In Pursuit of Pennants, was
German immigrant Barney Dreyfuss, owner of the
Pittsburgh Pirates from 1900 to 1932. Dreyfuss had no playing background, but was one of the most astute judges of talent of his time. However, the duties of the modern general manager already had been assumed by two executives — Barrow of the
New York Yankees and
Branch Rickey of the
St. Louis Cardinals — whose formal title at the time was
business manager. Both were former field managers of big-league teams, although Barrow had no professional playing background. They assumed those positions (Barrow in 1920 and Rickey five years later) when clubs could legally control only 15
minor league players on option, and most young players were purchased or drafted from independently owned minor league teams. Rickey, creator of the modern and extensive
farm system during the 1920s and 1930s, played a critical role in inventing the need for a general manager as well: with most teams coming to own or affiliate with multiple minor league teams from
Class D to the top tier, and with dozens (and in some cases hundreds) of players under contract, they needed a front-office infrastructure to oversee the major league club,
scouting and player procurement, minor league operations and player development, and business affairs. The general manager, in lieu of the "owner-operator", provided that oversight. But both the owner-operator and the field-manager-as-GM models survived into the 1980s. Owners
Charlie Finley of the
Oakland Athletics and
Calvin Griffith of the
Minnesota Twins functioned as their own chiefs of baseball operations. During the 1970s and 1980s,
Alvin Dark of the Indians,
Billy Martin of the Athletics (after Finley sold them in August ), and
Whitey Herzog of the Cardinals combined manager and general manager duties, while
Paul Owens of the
Philadelphia Phillies and
Jack McKeon of the
San Diego Padres were general managers who appointed themselves field managers and held both posts. ==Superior executive levels==