He spent 1954 as general manager of the Burlington Bees of the Class B Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League, then joined the front office of the Kansas City Athletics, newly transplanted from Philadelphia, in 1955.
[4] Kansas City finished last in 1965, but it possessed at the big-league level (Bert Campaneris, Dick Green and Catfish Hunter) and in its farm system (Sal Bando, Rollie Fingers, Blue Moon Odom, Gene Tenace, Rick Monday, and others) a core of players that—after the franchise moved to Oakland in 1968—would help the A's win three consecutive world championships from 1972 to 1974.
[6] He succeeded Frank Cashen, who had returned to team owner Jerold Hoffberger's Carling 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 of free agency in MLB which was made possible by the Seitz decision overturning the reserve clause.
The first happened just before the start of the regular season when Reggie Jackson, Ken Holtzman and minor-league right-handed pitcher Bill Van Bommel were acquired from the Oakland Athletics for Don Baylor, Mike Torrez and Paul Mitchell on April 1.
[8] The other came at the trade deadline on June 15 when Holtzman, Doyle Alexander, Grant Jackson, Elrod Hendricks and Jimmy Freeman were sent to the New York Yankees for Rudy May, Dave Pagan, Rick Dempsey, Scott McGregor and Tippy Martinez, the last three becoming part of a nucleus that kept the Orioles as perennial contender for the next decade.
[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 youngsters Jim Thome, Manny Ramírez and Charles Nagy, and trading for Sandy Alomar Jr. and Carlos Baerga.
[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 to Jacobs Field in 1994, including American League pennants in 1995 and 1997.