Branch Rickey

Every Sunday of his working life he stayed away from the ballpark. By his own account he had promised his mother never to play or watch on a Sunday, and he kept it for 62 years in the game, appointing deputies to run his clubs. He grew up Methodist on a farm in the southern Ohio hill country and taught grade school to pay his way to Ohio Wesleyan. As a catcher he was poor. Cincinnati bought him in 1904 and let him go over the Sunday rule before he played a game. Four seasons brought him 120 games and a .239 average. He took a law degree at Michigan in 1911, opened a law office in Boise, and drew one client, who did not want a lawyer.

He took over the Cardinals in 1917 and found a club too poor to outbid anyone for talent, so he stopped buying players and started manufacturing them. St. Louis bought minor league teams outright — five by 1923, 33 by 1937 — and filled them from open tryout camps. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who held that the chains were strangling the minor leagues, freed at least 74 Cardinal farmhands in 1938. The system won anyway. Rickey left for Brooklyn in October 1942, and on October 23, 1945 the Dodgers announced that Jackie Robinson had signed to play in Montreal.

Both explanations are documented and neither cancels the other. Rickey was a Methodist teetotaller who had preached on the temperance circuit, who said he could not do something about racism in every field but could do something about it in baseball, and who told for 40 years the story of a black player he coached at Ohio Wesleyan trying to rub the color off his skin. He was also the executive New York columnists called El Cheapo, who paid low, who preached trading a man a year early rather than a year late, and who looked at the Negro leagues and saw an unclaimed talent market. He paid the Kansas City Monarchs nothing for Robinson, and nothing for Don Newcombe. When Effa Manley of the Newark Eagles threatened to sue over Monte Irvin, he dropped Irvin.

The farm system stopped being an advantage the moment everyone copied it, which is the measure of it — within a few years every club ran one, and the arrangement he improvised out of poverty is still how professional baseball sorts its young players. The second monument never played a game. In 1959, at 77, he took over the proposed Continental League, and the established owners killed it the only way they could, by agreeing to expand themselves. Four franchises followed, two of them in 1962. The Mets are one. Rickey died in Columbia, Missouri in 1965 and was elected to the Hall of Fame two years later.

Branch Rickey's life against the full span of the corpus.

• The Cardinals farm system other
  Built out of poverty — five clubs by 1923 and 33 by 1937, and then everybody copied it 1924
• Jackie Robinson's contract with the Montreal Royals other
  Signed August 28 and announced October 23. The Kansas City Monarchs got nothing 1945
• Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida other
  The first full-time spring training complex, on a disused Navy training base 1947
• The first full-time team statistician other
  He hired Allan Roth, then argued that on-base percentage beat batting average 1947
• The batting helmet as standard equipment other
  His Pirates were the first club to wear them permanently on offense and defense 1953
• The Continental League other
  A third major league that never played a game and forced expansion anyway 1959

• 1904 aged ~23 Cincinnati buys him and releases him over the Sunday rule He never appeared in a league game for the Reds. Manager Joe Kelley would not carry a catcher who took the Sabbath off.
• June 28, 1907 aged 25 Washington runners steal 13 bases on him in a single game His arm had gone. By the end of the afternoon he had stopped throwing, and he was finished as a player that season.
• 1911 aged ~30 Graduates from Michigan law school and opens a practice in Boise He got one client, who did not want a lawyer. Two winters later he took a job with the St. Louis Browns.
• May 30, 1925 aged 43 Fired as Cardinals manager and moved upstairs to run the front office Sam Breadon told him it was the greatest favor one man had ever done for another. It was where he turned out to be great.
• 1938 aged ~57 Landis frees at least 74 Cardinal farmhands in the Cedar Rapids decision The commissioner ruled the club controlled more than one team in the same league. The best player set loose was Pete Reiser.
• October 29, 1942 aged 60 Leaves St. Louis after 25 years to run the Brooklyn Dodgers At the lunch where he was introduced he met a 39-year-old Brooklyn Trust lawyer named Walter O'Malley.
• October 23, 1945 aged 63 Announces that Jackie Robinson will play for Montreal in 1946 The contract had been signed on August 28. Rickey had gone to the Dodgers board for approval to look for the man in 1943.
• August 18, 1959 aged 77 Sells his Pirates stake and takes charge of the Continental League at 77 The majors offered four expansion clubs instead. His owners took the deal against his advice and the league dissolved.
• December 9, 1965 aged 83 Dies in Columbia, Missouri, 11 days short of 84 He had collapsed on November 13 while saying he would now tell a story about spiritual courage, and never spoke again.

• Jackie Robinson 1919–1972
  First African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era, breaking the color barrier. signed
• Roberto Clemente 1934–1972
  Puerto Rican baseball star whose excellence and humanitarian service made him an enduring Latino and American icon. drafted for Pittsburgh
• Ty Cobb 1886–1961
  The highest batting average ever recorded, and a reputation still under argument. served with in 1918