Rickey, Branch, 1881-1965

<p>Wesley Branch Rickey (December 20, 1881 – December 9, 1965) was an American baseball player and sports executive. Rickey was instrumental in breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier by signing black player Jackie Robinson. He also created the framework for the modern minor league farm system, encouraged the Major Leagues to add new teams through his involvement in the proposed Continental League, and introduced the batting helmet. He was posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967.</p>

<p>Rickey played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Browns and New York Highlanders from 1905 through 1907. After struggling as a player, Rickey returned to college, where he learned about administration from Philip Bartelme. Returning to MLB in 1913, Rickey embarked on a successful managing and executive career with the St. Louis Browns, St. Louis Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates. The Cardinals elected him to their team Hall of Fame in 2014.</p>

<p>Rickey also had a career in football, as a player for the professional Shelby Blues and as a coach at Ohio Wesleyan University and Allegheny College. His many achievements and deep Christian faith[1] earned him the nickname "the Mahātmā."</p>

<p>In a career that spanned multiple generations and multiple revolutionary changes in baseball, Branch Rickey was always looking to innovate.</p>

<p>A conservative and religious man who notably refused to participate in Sunday ball games as a player and a manager, Rickey was anything but traditional in the way he approached baseball as an executive. He invented the modern farm system and the batting helmet, was an advocate for expansion into new markets and most notably broke the color barrier when he brought Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.</p>

<p>“The scope of his thinking constantly surprised even those who knew him well,” his grandson, Branch B. Rickey, recalled. “He was always lecturing, tutoring, motivating, cautioning and inspiring.”</p>

<p>Rickey’s life in baseball began as a player for the St. Louis Browns and New York Highlanders from 1905-07. After struggling on the diamond, Rickey left the game and enrolled in law school at the University of Michigan.</p>

<p>Rickey returned to baseball in 1914, this time as an executive and manager for the St. Louis Browns, before moving across town to manage the Cardinals in 1919. Team president Sam Breadon fired Rickey the manager in 1925 after seven middling seasons, but chose to retain Rickey as general manager because of his acumen for developing players.</p>

<p>It was in the front office where Rickey found his calling. He invested in the purchases of several minor league teams and created a feeder system – later termed the “farm system” – that developed young players and seasoned them for the major leagues. By the early 1930s, Rickey’s investments paid off as the Cardinals, led by homegrown talent including Pepper Martin, Joe Medwick and brothers Dizzy and Paul Dean, won three pennants and two World Series from 1930 to 1934. Soon, other major league teams copied Rickey’s idea and created their own farm systems.</p>

<p>In his two decades with the Cardinals, Rickey made his club nearly perennial contenders in the National League with his shrewd negotiating tactics.</p>