Daniel F. O'Brien Sr. (March 26, 1929 – January 16, 2017) was an American

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professional ...

executive who served as the

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

of the Texas Rangers,

Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion team ...

and California Angels of

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), ...

(MLB).

Biography

Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey,''California Angels 1990 Media Guide,'' page 6 O'Brien was a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School. He attended

Seton Hall University Seton Hall University (SHU) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in South Orange, New Jersey. Founded in 1856 by then-Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley and named after his aunt, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Seton Hall is the ...

and graduated from

Florida Southern College Florida Southern College (Florida Southern, Southern or FSC) is a private college in Lakeland, Florida. In 2019, the student population at FSC consisted of 3,073 students along with 130 full-time faculty members. The college offers 50 undergradu ...

, where he played varsity baseball and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

. He served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

during the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

and was discharged in 1954. O'Brien was a general manager in Minor League Baseball during 1955–1963 in the Pittsburgh Pirates and Milwaukee Braves organizations, then spent another nine years (1964–1972) as the chief assistant to Phil Piton and

Hank Peters Henry John Peters (September 16, 1924 – January 4, 2015) was an American professional baseball executive who held senior management positions for the Kansas City Athletics, Cleveland Indians and Baltimore Orioles of Major League Baseball between ...

, presidents at the time of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (NAPBL), the governing body of the minor leagues. O'Brien came to the major leagues when he joined the Texas Rangers as a vice president during the 1973 season, and was promoted to general manager of the Rangers later that year; he would continue in that post through 1978, although he shared power with co-general manager Eddie Robinson in both 1977 and 1978. In 1979, O'Brien became president of the

, then in their third year as an

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 ...

expansion team, and he added the general manager title to his duties during 1981–1983, replacing Lou Gorman. He left Seattle in 1984 and joined the front office of the

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive Fi ...

in 1986, working with Peters again as his top assistant during 1987–1989. O'Brien then moved to the California Angels as top aide to general manager

Mike Port Michael D. Port (born July 24, 1945) is an American former professional baseball executive. He was vice president of umpire (baseball), umpiring for Major League Baseball (MLB) from August 2005 through March 2011. He previously served as a front-of ...

, and then succeeded Port as the team's GM from the close of the 1991 season through 1993. He was replaced by Whitey Herzog at the end of the 1993 campaign. Of O'Brien's three major league teams, only the Rangers of the late 1970s experienced sustained success, contending for, but never winning, the

American League West The American League West is one of Major League Baseball's six divisions. The division has five teams as of the 2013 season, but had four teams from 1994 to 2012, and had as many as seven teams before the 1994 realignment. Although its teams curr ...

division title. The Mariners climbed to the middle of the pack in the AL West in 1982, then fell into the basement with 102 losses in O'Brien's last year. In Anaheim, O'Brien inherited a .500 team, but the Angels lost 90 games in 1992 and 91 games during the 1993 season. His son and namesake, Dan O'Brien Jr., served as general manager of the Cincinnati Reds during 2003–2006. O'Brien died on January 16, 2017, in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, at the age of 87.Obituary
''Star Telegram''. Retrieved on January 18, 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Obrien, Dan Sr. 1929 births 2017 deaths California Angels executives Florida Southern Moccasins baseball players Florida Southern Moccasins men's basketball players Major League Baseball general managers Major League Baseball team presidents Minor league baseball executives Seattle Mariners executives Seton Hall University alumni Sportspeople from Elizabeth, New Jersey Texas Rangers executives Thomas Jefferson High School (New Jersey) alumni United States Army personnel of the Korean War