Background

Branch Rickey was born on December 20, 1881, in Portsmouth, Ohio, United States. He was the son of Jacob Franklin Rickey, a farmer and Wesleyan Methodist, and Emily Rickey, a homemaker. Branch had five siblings and a relative Beth Rickey, a political activist from Louisiana.

Education

Branch Rickey attended Valley High School in Lucasville, Ohio, but couldn't receive a high school diploma as the school simply didn't offer one. After graduation in 1899, Rickey, a teener, followed a course of intensive self-study and obtained a certificate of a schoolteacher. He then spent two years teaching at a one-room country school in Scioto County.

With the permission of his father, Rickey entered Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, in March 1901. In his freshman year, he played for the university's football and baseball teams (as a catcher). To help pay school costs, he also played baseball during summer vacation for a local semipro team, earning $25 a game. He later paid his way not only by playing in both collegiate squads but coaching them as well.

Completing a five-year course of study in three years, Rickey graduated from the university in 1904 with a Bachelor of Letters degree and earned a Bachelor of Arts two years later. In 1911, he received a diploma at the University of Michigan Law School.

Career

The start of Branch Rickey's professional career can be counted from the years of studying at Ohio Wesleyan University when he both played for and coached the local collegiate American football (the Shelby Blues of the Ohio League) and semi-professional baseball teams.

Upon graduation in 1904, he joined the Dallas baseball team in the Texas League. By the season's end, the Cincinnati Reds of the National League purchased his contract, only to exclude him from the squad when he refused to play on weekends. Over the next three years, Rickey appeared as a catcher for the St. Louis Browns and for the New York Highlanders (present-day the New York Yankees) of the American League, reaching a modest .239 lifetime batting average.

With his playing career at an end, Rickey tried to change direction and received a diploma in jurisprudence but his legal career, however, proved short and unsuccessful. Lucky for him, the owner of the St. Louis Browns, Robert Hedges, rescued Rickey from his failing Idaho law practice in 1912 by assigning him as his personal assistant. Rickey became the field manager of the team a year later. His emphasis on fundamentals and experimental training methods that he applied during his two years of service cemented him as a "Professor of Baseball."

From 1917 to 1918, Rickey served in the Chemical Corps of the United States Army. A year later, Rickey transferred his allegiance to the crosstown St. Louis Cardinals, where he served as field manager until 1925 and as general manager from 1925 until 1942. Under his leadership, the team emerged as the most successful franchise in the National League.

In 1942, following contradictions with Cardinal owner Samuel Breadon, Rickey left the team to become president and the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Rickey's early aspirations to rebuild the Brooklyn club by trading and selling older stars and creating a minor league chain like that of St. Louis were perceived with derision by cynical Dodger fans and reporters. Nevertheless, by 1946 Rickey, now a part-owner of the Dodgers, managed once again to form a competitive team and his popularity surged.

Meanwhile, Branch Rickey had embarked on a risky scheme to assure Dodger dominance after World War II. Believing that the racial segregation introduced into the organized baseball since the late 1880s was immoral, he correctly realized that political pressures would soon bring about the integration of baseball and perceived that the first owner to apply this new source of players would benefit both in the standings and at the box office. In 1945, on the pretext of creating a new Negro League, the Dodger organization began scouting African-American players in secret. After carefully assessing the skills and background of many players, Rickey chose Jackie Robinson, a former collegiate football star, to become the first African-American major leaguer in the 20th century.

The choice of Robinson as his standard-bearer proved an inspired one. Despite tremendous pressures and numerous instances of discrimination, Robinson led the International League in batting in 1946. The following year Rickey promoted the African-American athlete to the team's first baseman. It soon paid off as Robinson led the Dodgers to the National League pennant and was named Rookie of the Year. Besides, his presence attracted record numbers of fans in every National League city. Over the next nine years, the Dodgers, in large part due to Robinson and other African-American players, became the dominant team in the National League.

In the aftermath of the Robinson experience, Branch Rickey became a prominent spokesman on behalf of civil rights. In the late 1940s, he challenged Jim Crow laws by scheduling Dodger exhibitions throughout the South, forcing local officials to integrate their facilities or lose a sell-out crowd. In 1950, Rickey lost control of the Dodgers to Walter O'Malley and left the club. In subsequent five years, he worked as vice president and general manager for the Pittsburgh Pirates and as a chairman of its board from 1955 to 1959, as well as for the St. Louis Cardinals, but he was never able to recreate his earlier successes.

Achievements

• 

  Branch Rickey went down in the history of baseball as arguably one of the most innovative executives. His major contribution to the game was the farm system concept, which allowed a major league club to control a chain of minor league franchises through which it could develop young players before promoting the best to the parent team. Due to the scheme, teams like the Cardinals could compete against teams financed by richer owners. Rickey was instrumental in assembling championship squads for the teams he managed as well as surplus players who were sold profitably to other teams. Under his leadership, the Cardinals, as well as the Brooklyn Dodgers, emerged as the most successful franchises in the National League at the time.
  
  Rickey's role in breaking baseball's longstanding ban against African-American athletes was even more important. It turned to be not just a risky experiment but the trigger which somewhat stimulated the launch of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The event opened the door for subsequent generations of African-Americans in baseball that undoubtedly helped change the course of American history. The introduction of Jackie Robinson into the Brooklyn Dodgers from Rickey's easy hand increased both the own popularity of the athlete and the popularity of the team.
  
  Rickey was always full of newfangled ideas, such as sliding pits, "pitching strings," and batting tees. He hired the first statistician in baseball (the Dodgers' Allan Roth), drafted the first Hispanic superstar, Roberto Clemente, and applied mathematical formulas to anticipate a team's success in offensive and defensive categories (and to question some commonly held assumptions about whether factors such as strikeouts are a reliable predictor of a team's ability to prevent runs).
  
  In 1967, Branch Rickey was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He was also elected to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum, and the National College Baseball Hall of Fame. His star was opened in the St. Louis Walk of Fame in 1997.
  
  A ballpark in Portsmouth, Ohio, and an arena at Ohio Wesleyan University, are named after the noted baseball manager. There is the Branch Rickey Memorial Highway in Ohio as well. The Branch Rickey Award was established by Rotary International of Denver, Colorado, in 1992. The monument to Rickey was erected outside of Coors Field, Denver, in 2005.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Branch Rickey's Little Blue Book: Wit and Strategy from Baseball's Last Wise Man

    (Excerpts and sayings from the revered baseball manager wh...)

    1995
  • The American Diamond: A Documentary of the Game of Baseball

    (A historical take on the American game of baseball.)

    1965

Religion

Branch Rickey often spoke before the Young Men's Christian Association and other civic groups and was an early sponsor and supporter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He believed that sports exemplified the moral precepts that make American great and that help to mold individual character.

Rickey was deeply religious, sowing Biblical quotations and religious axioms like Johnny Appleseed sowed apple seeds.

Politics

Branch Rickey was a prominent spokesman on behalf of civil rights. He was politically and socially conservative. As an old man, he regularly attacked Communism, Communists, and liberal politicians.

As a stalwart Republican, Rickey supported every candidate his party nominated to oppose FDR, whose muscular foreign policy against the fascist threat abroad was the one point on which Rickey agreed with him. For Rickey, the GOP (the Republican Party) meant, besides free enterprise and anticommunism, Lincoln and the antislavery movement, and it fit nicely with his religiously informed views on contemporary racial issues.

Views

Rickey was interested in his players' moral welfare and he always made it a point to inquire about a boy's character and family circumstances before deciding whether to sign him.

The noted sports manager appreciated baseball with a genuine aesthetic and believed, with an almost evangelical faith, in its place in American life. Two guiding principles motivated him in challenging baseball's pre-World War II apartheid policy. The first was fundamental respect for democratic principles and "fair play," and the second was a religious conviction that it wasn't only the right time to break baseball's color line but was the right thing to do.

Quotations: "Baseball is a game of inches."

"It is not the honor that you take with you but the heritage you leave behind."

"Luck is the residue of design."

"Trade a player a year too early rather than a year too late."

"The greatest untapped reservoir of raw material in the history of our game is the black race."

"Ethnic prejudice has no place in sports, and baseball must recognize that truth if it is to maintain stature as a national game."

Membership

Rickey was a member of the Delta Tau Delta Fraternity. In St. Louis, the baseball manager was a Master Mason in Tuscan Lodge #240. While living in Brooklyn, he became a member of Montauk Masonic Lodge #286.

Personality

Branch Rickey was named after John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Rickey removed "Wesley" from his name at the age of twelve. Brought up by almost impoverished parents, he learned from them a deep and abiding religious faith, a strong work ethic, and profound respect for learning.

His intense moralism and sermonlike speeches during his service for the Brooklyn Dodgers made sportswriters nickname him the "Deacon" or the "Mahatma" (referring to Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi), and his office at the time became known as the "Cave of the Winds."

Rickey's elaborate planning of bringing Robinson to the Dodgers reflected both his own complex personality and the racial perceptions of the era. Before signing Robinson, he studied the work of sociologists like Frank Tannenbaum and Dan Dodson and met with leaders of the African-American community urging restraint in the enthusiasm of African-American fans. He sent Robinson first to play for the Dodgers' top farm team, the Montreal Royals, in 1946 and started other talented African-American players at lower levels of the Dodger minor leagues.

Physical Characteristics: Branch Rickey was 1.75 meters tall.

Quotes from others about the person

• Andrew O'Toole, author: "The core of the 1960 championship team [notably Roberto Clemente, Dick Groat, Bill Mazeroski, Elroy Face and Vern Law, among others] was put together and nurtured by Rickey."
  
  Dan Parker, journalist: "Rickey believes in economy in everything except his own salary."

Connections

Branch Rickey married Jane Moulton on June 1, 1906. The family produced six children. One of them, Branch Rickey, Jr., followed in his father's footsteps and became a Major League Baseball executive.

Father:

Jacob Franklin Rickey

(born 1854 – died 1939)

Jacob Franklin Rickey was a Wesleyan Methodist.

Mother:

Emily Rickey

(née Brown; born 1856 – died 1935)

Brother:

Frank Wanzer Rickey

(born 1888 – died 1953)

Frank was related to baseball as his brother. He scouted for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Brother:

Orla Edwin Rickey

(born 1875 – died 1944)

Wife:

Jane Rickey

(née Moulton; born February 16, 1882 – died October 16, 1971)

Son:

Branch Rickey, Jr.

(born January 31, 1914 – died April 10, 1961)

Branch Rickey, Jr. served as a sports executive with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates for about twenty years.

Grandson:

Branch Barrett Rickey

(born November 1, 1945)

Branch Barrett Rickey, or Branch Rickey III, presided over the American Association (Minor League Baseball league) from 1991 to 1997. He is the 17th (current) President of the Pacific Coast League (PCL).

great-granddaughter:

Kelley Jakle

(born June 27, 1989)

Kelley Alice Jakle is an American actress and singer-songwriter. She appeared as Jessica Smith in the Pitch Perfect series and in the first and second seasons of The Sing-Off in 2009 and 2010. She had a role in 42 movie, a biographical sports film about ballplayer Jackie Robinson. She performs in an Americana duo band, Robin Alice.

colleague:

Jack Robinson

(born January 31, 1919 – died October 24, 1972)

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was an American professional baseball player. Competing as the second baseman, he was the first African-American to enter Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era.

References

• Branch Rickey: American in Action Rickey's biography from Arthur Mann.
  1957
• 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story New York Times Bestseller on Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey, and the hidden hand of God that changed history from journalist and baseball lover Ed Henry.
  2017
• Rickey & Robinson: The True, Untold Story of the Integration of Baseball In the book, legendary sportswriter Roger Kahn reveals the true, unsanitized account of the integration of baseball, a story that for decades has relied on inaccurate, second-hand reports.
  2014
• Branch Rickey: A Biography Based on nearly one hundred interviews and vast amounts of research, including exclusive access to Rickey's own papers, the book is the definitive biography of the legendary executive.
  1982
• Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman A book from Lee Lowenfish offers an intriguing, richly detailed portrait of a man whose life is itself a crucial chapter in the history of American business, sport, and society.
  2007
• Branch Rickey Bestselling author and reporter Jimmy Breslin provides a lively portrait of Rickey and his times, including such colorful characters as Dodgers' owner George V. McLaughlin, diamond greats Leo Durocher, George Sisler, and Dizzy Dean.
  2011
• Branch Rickey in Pittsburgh The book focuses on Rickey's tenure as the general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. In addition to contemporary accounts, Rickey's personal correspondence and interoffice memorandums are used to document his struggle to revamp the fate of a small-market team.
  2000