John Joseph Dunn (October 6, 1872 – October 22, 1928) was an American

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or dr ...

and

infielder An infielder is a baseball player stationed at one of four defensive "infield" positions on the baseball field. Standard arrangement of positions In a game of baseball, two teams of nine players take turns playing offensive and defensive roles. ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL ...

at the turn of the 20th century who later became a minor league baseball club owner.

Early life and playing career

Dunn was born in

Meadville, Pennsylvania Meadville is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Pennsylvania. The city is within of Erie and within of Pittsburgh. It was the first permanent settlement in Northwestern Pennsylvania. The population was 13,388 at the 2010 cen ...

, and grew up in

Bayonne, New Jersey Bayonne ( ) is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Located in the Gateway Region, Bayonne is situated on a peninsula located between Newark Bay to the west, the Kill Van Kull to the south, and New York Bay to the east. As of t ...

. When he was nine, a boxcar ran over his left arm while playing at a local railway. He was told by doctors that his arm had to be either amputated or risk death. He declined an amputation, but his arm was left crippled from above the elbow and couldn't lift the arm above his neck. In 1896 Dunn played for

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anc ...

in the Eastern League, and the following year he reached the major leagues as a pitcher for the

Brooklyn Bridegrooms The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1884 as a member of the American Association before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brooklyn until 1957, after which the club moved to Los Angeles, Califor ...

. He bounced around the majors for seven years, having one good season with the Bridegrooms in 1899, with a 23–13 record. When he wasn't playing, Dunn studied how the game worked from the sidelines.Montville: p. 33. He was also a

third baseman A third baseman, abbreviated 3B, is the player in baseball or softball whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base — the third of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. In the scoring system u ...

and

shortstop Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball or softball fielding position between second and third base, which is considered to be among the most demanding defensive positions. Historically the position was assigned to defensive specialists who ...

. After 1904, he pitched and managed in the minors for a few seasons, winning an

International League The International League (IL) is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the United States. Along with the Pacific Coast League, it is one of two leagues playing at the Triple-A level, which is one grade below Major League Baseball ( ...

pennant in 1905.

Minor league ownership

In 1907, Dunn took over as manager of the

Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. As one of the American League's eight charter ...

, a minor league club with no connection to the current major league team by that name. He bought the team on November 16, 1909 for $70,000. He allegedly received a $10,000 loan from

Philadelphia Athletics The Philadelphia Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954, when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and became the Kansas City Athletics. Following another move in 1967, the team became the Oa ...

owner/manager

Connie Mack Cornelius McGillicuddy (December 22, 1862 – February 8, 1956), better known as Connie Mack, was an American professional baseball catcher, manager, and team owner. The longest-serving manager in Major League Baseball history, he holds untoucha ...

. He developed a minor league powerhouse by scouting and developing his own players. He allegedly signed players by how they looked instead of skill, sometimes never seeing a player play before offering a contract. In 1914, the Orioles were running away with the league pennant but losing money at the box office because of a rival team in town from the new aspiring "third major league", the

Federal League The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, known simply as the Federal League, was an American professional baseball league that played its first season as a minor league in 1913 and operated as a "third major league", in competition with the e ...

. The

Baltimore Terrapins The Baltimore Terrapins were one of the most successful teams in the short-lived Federal League of professional baseball from to , but their brief existence led to litigation that led to an important legal precedent in baseball. The team played i ...

played at their new steel-beamed modern stadium, Terrapin Park, which was across the street from his older "American League Park" of 1901 from the club's days in the beginnings of the "upstart"

American League The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league b ...

. To make his payroll, Dunn had to move the team to

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

, and sell off his star player,

Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the S ...

, and 11 other players to the majors. He later said that selling Ruth was his biggest regret. Dunn was indirectly responsible for Ruth's famous nickname, with Ruth's teammates referring to him as "Dunn's $10,000 Babe" for the price he drew. The team moved back to

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

in 1916, and Dunn again put together a juggernaut, ultimately signing 10 more players who went on to have solid major league careers. The best of these was pitcher

Lefty Grove Robert Moses "Lefty" Grove (March 6, 1900 – May 22, 1975) was an American professional baseball pitcher. After having success in the minor leagues during the early 1920s, Grove became a star in Major League Baseball with the American League's ...

, who went 109–36 as an Oriole between 1920 and 1924. By that time, Dunn's team was in the midst of winning seven straight

championships, many by huge margins. In addition to Grove, Dunn discovered other quality major leaguers such as

Ernie Shore Ernest Grady Shore (March 24, 1891 – September 24, 1980) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball for the Boston Red Sox during some of their best years in the 1910s. He was born near East Bend, North Carolina. Shore gr ...

, Jack Bentley, Tommy Thomas, George Earnshaw, and Dick Porter. Dunn's team was regarded as the equal of many major league teams, and he kept them so by refusing to trade or sell players to the majors. It wasn't until the 1925 off-season, when the other, struggling teams in the league made an agreement with the majors on a set price for transferring players, that Dunn finally relented and began selling his stars for money. His team won one more league title in 1925 and then dropped back into the pack. Dunn's son, Jack Dunn Jr., played for the Orioles in 1914, 1918, and 1922, and was secretary and co-manager for several years until his death from pneumonia in 1923. Dunn's grandson, Jack Dunn III (1921-1987), managed the club in 1949. Dunn ran the Orioles until his death from a heart attack in Baltimore on October 22, 1928.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dunn, Jack 1872 births 1928 deaths 19th-century baseball players Major League Baseball pitchers Major League Baseball third basemen Brooklyn Bridegrooms players Brooklyn Superbas players Philadelphia Phillies players New York Giants (NL) players Baltimore Orioles (1901–02) players Binghamton Crickets (1880s) players Toronto Canadians players Albany Senators players Providence Clamdiggers (baseball) players Providence Grays (minor league) players Baltimore Orioles (IL) managers Minor league baseball executives Baseball players from Pennsylvania People from Meadville, Pennsylvania