Background
He was born on May 10, 1868, in Springfield, the son of John William Barrow and Effie Ann Vinson-Heller Barrow. His father was a grain dealer in Des Moines, Iowa, where he grew up and learned to play baseball.
He was born on May 10, 1868, in Springfield, the son of John William Barrow and Effie Ann Vinson-Heller Barrow. His father was a grain dealer in Des Moines, Iowa, where he grew up and learned to play baseball.
When his father's health failed, he quit school at sixteen.
Not yet twenty when chronic arm trouble ended his own nonprofessional playing career, Barrow organized and managed a local team and launched the career of Fred Clarke, a future major-league star. In 1894 Barrow joined with Harry Stevens, a sports concessionaire, to purchase the Wheeling team of the Interstate League. Doubling as field and office manager, he led his team to a championship (the writer Zane Grey was one of his players). The experience deepened his enthusiasm for baseball, and when the league folded in 1895 he rejected Stevens' offer to join his flourishing New York concession business in order to continue in sports, a costly decision because Stevens in time became a millionaire.
Barrow bought the Paterson, New Jersey, team of the Atlantic League and in 1896 recruited John ("Honus") Wagner, another future star. The following year Barrow became the league president, maintaining an office in Philadelphia where he also promoted prizefights and concession ventures.
When the league folded in 1899, Barrow rejected the opportunity to take up a promising career promoting vaudeville and lost a second chance at becoming a millionaire. Moving to the Eastern League in 1902, Barrow managed a champion Toronto team, which led to his first managerial offer from a major-league club. With the Detroit Tigers in 1903 and 1904 he endured two years of internal bickering, then resigned and returned to the minor leagues. Two unsuccessful years of managing at Indianapolis and Montreal prompted the disillusioned Barrow to leave baseball in 1906 to spend the next three years managing a Toronto hotel.
While managing the Eastern League's Montreal team in 1910, Barrow had become the league's president. A tough-minded executive who was respected as an innovator, he upgraded the league, renamed it the International League, and guided it through the stormy Federal League baseball war. But his tactics, such as levying stiff fines for umpire-baiting, alienated club owners, who reduced his salary in 1917 and prompted his angry resignation. He quickly accepted an offer from Harry Frazee, a theater promoter and the new owner of the Boston Red Sox, to manage the American League team. For three seasons Barrow served as field and office manager for the Red Sox, who won a pennant and the World Series in 1918. In 1919 he converted George ("Babe") Ruth from a star pitcher into a slugging outfielder; Frazee's financial reverses prompted Ruth's sale to the New York Yankees that year for $100, 000.
In 1921 Barrow also moved to the Yankees to become the team's general manager, a position he retained for twenty-five years. From 1921 through 1945 Barrow was "the man behind the Yankees, " assembling American baseball's most victorious team. In the beginning he faced critical problems, including two bickering owners and a player revolt against the manager, Miller Huggins. But Jacob Ruppert, Barrow's chief supporter, resolved the first difficulty by buying out his contentious partner for $1. 5 million. Barrow contributed $350, 000 and acquired 10 percent of the club's stock. As chief owner, Ruppert delegated almost full power to Barrow, who used it to shore up Huggins' position and stabilize the organization. During the 1920's Barrow consistently acquired key players, usually from impecunious owners like Frazee. Under Huggins' field leadership the teams won six American League pennants (1921-1923; 1926 - 1928) and three World Series, giving the newly built Yankee Stadium the name "home of champions. " As a general manager, Barrow's major flaw was a stubborn belief that playing talent could either be purchased or located by talented scouts.
But in the 1930's rival clubs were building farm systems to develop players, a trend Barrow despised along with such innovations as night baseball and large office staffs. In 1932 Ruppert overruled him and hired George Weiss to develop a Yankee farm system. In time, with Barrow's grudging acceptance, Weiss's farms produced the stars that achieved Yankee championships in 1936-1939 and 1941-1943. When Ruppert died in 1939, Barrow became the president and general manager of the Yankees. Late in 1945 the Ruppert trust sold the franchise to a triumvirate for the bargain price of $2. 8 million. The newcomers named Barrow board chairman, but he resigned in 1947, complaining that there were too many leaders. From 1947 Barrow lived in quiet retirement with his wife at Rye, New York.
Barrow was known as "Uncle Egbert" to his friends; according to writer Tom Meany, Babe Ruth referred to him as "Barrows, " treating him as if he were "a butler in an English drawing room comedy. "
He married Alice Calhoun in 1898. After the death of his wife in 1910, he married Frances Taylor in 1912.