"...the former lawyer was a forceful personality and a formidable negotiator."
We have chosen to spotlight Branch Rickey's achievements this month, to commemorate the 125th anniversary of his birth and the 41st anniversary of his death this December. In baseball circles Rickey was nicknamed "The Mahatma" a term used in India and Tibet to mean, "one of a class of persons venerated for great knowledge and love of humanity," a nickname Rickey surely earned in his distinguished baseball career.
Most Americans know the story of Jackie Robinson, the courageous, gifted African American baseball player who endured virulent racism when he broke baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
In contrast, comparatively few people know about Branch Rickey, an imaginative baseball executive who brought Robinson into the league and had as much to do with the destruction of the color barrier as Robinson himself. Known for his pompous air and knack for flamboyant speech, the former lawyer was a forceful personality and a formidable negotiator. Rickey was an astute student of baseball, famous above all for his sharp eye for hidden talent and his mind for innovation.
As a player and a coach, Branch Rickey's career was entirely unremarkable. His Hall of Fame career took off only when he made his move into the front office as a shrewd and charismatic executive. During his tenure with the St. Louis Cardinals and Brooklyn Dodgers, Rickey had introduced and supported several new innovations that revolutionized baseball, including batting cages, pitching machines, batting helmets, and the acquisition of minor-league baseball teams to develop and "farm out" talent to his major league squads. The idea of "farm leagues" would soon be adopted by every other major league team, and would later help pave the way for Rickey to bring Jackie Robinson into Major League Baseball.
The "color barrier" as it is now called, was never a written rule in baseball, but an unspoken "gentlemen's agreement" universally honored around the league. This exclusion of African Americans led to the creation of the Negro Leagues, which despite a comparatively small following and fewer resources, boasted a talent pool rivaling that of the Major Leagues.
"...Rickey had become sold on the idea of tapping the wealth of talent available in the Negro Leagues."
By the 1940s, amid slowly changing social attitudes, Rickey had become sold on the idea of tapping the wealth of talent available in the Negro Leagues. Part idealist and part businessman, Rickey knew that the first team to break the color barrier would incur huge risks and possibly reap equally huge benefits. He began to assemble and all-African American farm team in the hopes of finding one special player to promote to his team. He was convinced that not only would the first team bold enough to try such a move get first pick of the finest talents, but would also do so at the smallest price. However, Rickey also knew that the first African American player would endure an unimaginable burden, and would need a wealth of spiritual and emotional strength as well as amazing talent.
Rickey found that player in Jackie Robinson. While at UCLA, Robinson was the school's first athlete to letter in four different sports, and was a shoo-in for a starring role on the track team in the 1940 Olympics had they not been cancelled by war. He was an accomplished tennis player and champion swimmer as well, and regarded as among the nation's finest athletes in football, basketball and baseball. Despite these accomplishments, Robinson was never honored formally for his achievements by his athletic league.
In a now-famous early meeting between Rickey and Robinson, Rickey berated Robinson with a plethora of slurs and abuse that he knew the player would face from players and fans alike. Infuriated, Robinson finally erupted, asking, "Do you want a player afraid to fight back?" Rickey calmly replied that he wanted a man "with the guts not to fight back." At that meeting the two men made an agreement that for one year, Robinson would remain silent and do nothing to publicly respond to the slurs and jeering hurled at him by fans and opposing players.
"...Rickey decided that it was time to move forward with baseball's 'Great Experiment'."
With that, Rickey knew he had his man. After one year of Robinson playing in Canada for a minor league team, Rickey decided that it was time to move forward with baseball's "Great Experiment". The experiment captivated America. Though he faced indescribable pressure and vicious insults, Robinson proved his abilities on the diamond to be superlative. He played with such skill and carried himself with such unwavering poise that Dodgers fans soon embraced him and practically every African American in the country became a Dodgers fan. Of course, Rickey looked like a genius, with Robinson leading the Dodgers to a dynasty that included seven National League pennants between 1947 and 1956.
After being released by the Dodgers in 1950, Rickey found employment with the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates. His work there was largely undistinguished, save for one more monumental accomplishment: he drafted and signed baseball's first Latin superstar, Roberto Clemente, another Hall of Famer who proved to be as great a man as he was a player. Clemente died tragically in a plane crash while on a humanitarian mission to bring aid to the earthquake-stricken nation of Nicaragua.
Despite being a sub-par player and coach, Branch Rickey's career as a luminous baseball executive left his indelible mark on the sport and even more so on our nation. His courageous willingness to take risks, challenge social norms and help empower even more courageous men helped spur the nation to change its attitudes towards sports integration. He never wrote a law or led a protest, but he and Jackie Robinson used the popularity of "America's Pastime" to forever change the way generations of Americans think about race and fairness, and helped sow the seeds of change for the future.
Reference: 11-22-06, "Branch Rickey," BaseballLibrary.com Image: http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/
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