Rickey, "Branch" (Wesley Branch)
Baseball
b. Dec. 20, 1881, Lucasville, OH
d. Dec. 9, 1965
Rickey played in just 120 major-league games, mostly as a catcher. He batted only .239 and once set a dubious record by allowing 13 stolen bases in a game. But he was probably the most important executive in baseball history.
After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan College in 1904, Rickey played minor-league baseball. He appeared in 66 games with the St. Louis Browns in 1905 and 1906 and in 52 games with the AL's New York Highlanders (now the Yankees) in 1907, then studied law at Ohio State University and the University of Michigan, where he coached the baseball team in 1910 and 1911.
Rickey briefly practiced law before returning to Michigan as baseball coach again in 1912 and the following year he was hired to help run the Browns while still coaching at Michigan. He introduced the concept of the "Ladies' Day" with the Browns in 1913.
Late that season, he became the team's manager and held that job through 1915, when he was named business manager. In 1917, Rickey moved across town to the NL's Cardinals, where he built attendance with "Ladies' Days" and "Knothole Gangs," allowing youngsters to get in free.
He took over as field manager in 1919 and introduced several new ideas, including classroom instruction, sliding pits, and batting cages. Rickey also began to organize baseball's first farm system by buying minor league teams where young players could be trained.
Rickey wasn't particularly successful as a manager and returned to the front office during the 1925 season. But, with players constantly moving up from the farm system, the Cardinals won nine pennants from 1925 through 1946.
In 1943, Rickey became president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Again, he built an NL dynasty by putting together a farm system. An important difference was that, beginning with the signing of Jackie Robinson in 1946, there were black players in that system.
The Dodgers won six pennants from 1947 through 1956. During that period, they had four rookies of the year, four most valuable players, and one Cy Young Award winner, all of them black.
Rickey joined Walter O'Malley and John L. Smith in purchasing the Dodgers in 1946. He sold his stock for $1 million in 1951 and became chairman of the board of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He left that position in 1959 to organize the Continental League.
The threat of a third major league forced both existing leagues to expand into new territories to preempt the Continental League's plans. Many observers thought that was Rickey's goal in the first place.
In 1963, Rickey briefly rejoined the Cardinals as a special advisor, retiring in October of 1964. A little more than a year later, he suffered a heart attack while giving an acceptance speech after his induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. He died a month afterward.
An enigmatic figure, Rickey was a deeply religious man who wouldn't play or manage on Sunday, yet he initiated Sunday doubleheaders to attract more fans. Nicknamed the "Mahatma" for his supposed inscrutability, he believed in integrating the major leagues, but he also had an ulterior motive, since he knew the Dodgers could become a better team by adding black players.