After Tulane, Friedman worked as an analyst with Bear Stearns and then as an associate at a private equity firm. But his first love was always baseball, and in 2003, he started working in the front office for the Tampa Bay Rays and is largely credited with transforming the franchise.

He used his Tulane education as a catalyst to land one of the most high-powered positions in baseball—as president of baseball operations for the Los Angeles Dodgers. And since Friedman took over the Dodgers’ baseball operations, the team became the first team in a decade to win back-to-back National League pennants. It started as a dream on the sandlot at Tulane, but it was his mind for the bottom line and a keen eye for numbers developed in the lecture halls of Freeman that made his dream a reality.