A couple days ago, I received an email from Dorian (thanks, Dorian!) linking me to the infographic you see below. With it, he asks, “Do you think Branch Rickey deserves his place here?”
Yes, I do.
As a player, his career never amounted to much. Nevertheless, the name Branch Rickey resonates far and wide, especially in association with the name Jackie Robinson. And while the breaking of the color barrier blazed the trail to integration, both in baseball and throughout America, Rickey’s contributions do not stop there. We can also thank Rickey for drafting Roberto Clemente in the 1950s. Clemente went on to become Major League Baseball’s first Latino player to win a World Series as a starting player, to win the World Series MVP award, and to win the National League MVP award. Clemente also became the first Latino player inducted into the Hall of Fame.
In addition to these integral changes, Branch Rickey also created baseball’s minor league farm system while serving as president of the St. Louis Cardinals. This innovation allowed him to develop players within the organization to get them ready for Major League competition. St. Louis became one of baseball’s best teams during this period, and before long, teams throughout Major League Baseball adopted his system. It revolutionized the game as people knew it.
When he moved on to Brooklyn, Rickey also created the first full-time spring training facility, which allowed the Dodgers to train and analyze prospective players in one place. This system also went on to get adopted by teams throughout baseball.
One could argue that all these changes would have occurred in baseball eventually, with or without Rickey. And yes, I agree that they were all bound to happen. But change always has to start somewhere, and in the world of baseball, Branch Rickey served as the catalyst for these revolutionary developments.
On April 10, 1947, Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey issued a press statement during the sixth inning of an exhibition game against their minor league affiliate, the Montreal Royals. The statement read: “The Brooklyn Dodgers today purchased the contract of Jackie Roosevelt Robinson from the Montreal Royals. He will report immediately.”
Yesterday was Jackie Robinson Day, the sixty-sixth anniversary of Robinson’s Major League debut. To celebrate and recognize Robinson’s impact on baseball and on the nation as a whole, his number 42 was worn on jerseys throughout baseball, a number that had been retired throughout the MLB in 1997 by Commissioner Bud Selig.
With the release of the movie “42” this past weekend, Jackie Robinson Day has received a significantly greater amount of attention this year. At Dodger Stadium yesterday, Harrison Ford, who played Branch Rickey in “42,” threw out the ceremonial first pitch. (For those who don’t know, Branch Rickey was the general manager that provided Robinson with the opportunity to join the Dodgers in the 1940s.) Former Brooklyn Dodgers ball boy, Norman Berman, threw out the ceremonial first pitch in Miami.
The movie itself proved to be a hit at the box office. Drawing in over $27 million over the weekend, “42” has possibly established itself as the most successful baseball movie ever. This proved to be the most successful opening weekend for a baseball movie ever, and it was definitely the most successful movie overall for the weekend. The timing of the movie’s release no doubt aided its success, with the start of baseball season still fresh in the minds of fans and, of course, yesterday being Robinson’s holiday. Predictions have been floating around that the flick could wind up making around $100 million.
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to watch the film this weekend with my dad, and I highly recommend it. If you like baseball, history, civil rights, sports in general, or even business, this movie is worth watching. If all you want is an entertaining drama, this movie does that too. Virtually everybody can derive some kind of enjoyment from this movie. It is being applauded for its accuracy in the retelling of Jackie Robinson’s early experiences. It’s not perfect, of course, but no historical film ever is. We get introduced to Chadwick Boseman, who plays a compelling Jackie Robinson, and we also get the pleasure of seeing Han Solo/Indiana Jones star as the man who made it all happen.
But don’t take my word for it. Go see the movie for yourself! You won’t be disappointed. And if you missed out on the opportunity to celebrate Jackie Robinson Day yesterday, you can still have your chance today, as those Major League Baseball teams that did not play yesterday will be sporting the number 42 today.
There is a certain undeniable charm to Minor League Baseball. Young, aspiring ball players in their late-teens and early-twenties, running out every ground ball as if his life depended on it. Spending their lives on the road in cheap motels, dreaming dreams of castle-like stadiums, celebrity fame, and million-dollar paychecks. One summer, a good friend and I took a road trip to Omaha to watch the Triple-A Royals (now the Storm Chasers) as they won a thrilling game with a walk-off home run. The tickets were cheap, the sun was hot, and the bleachers were uncomfortably hard, but it was still cool to sit there and think that each one of those players was a potential future Kansas City Royal.
The minor leagues as a farm system for major league teams, however, didn’t start out that way. Young players did not start their professional careers by signing with a major league team and then working their way up through their minor league structure. Rather, the minor leagues started out as entitites of their own; dozens of lower-level professional leagues out of which any major league ball club could scout promising talent, and attempt to persuade those players to join their particular big-league team. In other words, playing for a given minor league team did not obligate a player to join a specific major league club when they were ready to take the next step up.
What we know as the Minor Leagues today originally started out as the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues. During a meeting at the Leland Hotel in Chicago, minor league executives formed the NAPBL on 5 September 1901. The executive elected Patrick T. Powers the first president of the association. During its first season, in 1902, the NA consisted of fourteen leagues and ninety-six teams. By 1909, those numbers increased to thirty-five leagues and 246 teams. Even united under the NA, however, major league teams played no direct role in the growth and development of future big-leaguers. The concept of farm teams was not born until the 1920s.
Branch Rickey joined the St. Louis Cardinals as president in 1917, moving over from the St. Louis Browns. He recognized early on that the city of St. Louis wasn’t quite large enough to adequately support two major league teams financially. Meanwhile, the National Agreement of 1921 exempted players in five of the leagues in the minors (including the top three of these leagues) from the annual player draft. The leagues, therefore, could hold onto players as long as they wished, or even hold out until a major league team offered the right price for a player. This had allowed the minor leagues as a whole to thrive, but it also resulted in disgruntled minor league players and hurt those Major League teams, such as the Cardinals, that did not possess fat checkbooks.
In order to ensure that the Cardinals could compete with teams like the Yankees and the Cubs, Rickey convinced the team’s majority owner, Sam Breadon, to purchase a controlling interest in the International League’s Syracuse team, the Texas League’s Houston club, as well as a string of other lower-level minor league teams. By 1930, seven minor league clubs were owned by or had close working agreements with the Cardinals. This allowed the organization watch and develop their own future players, molding them to become major leaguers.
In addition to developing the farm system, Rickey increased the number of scouts he hired and sent them out to sign as many young prospects as possible for as little money as possible. Out of the larger pool of ball players, the Cardinals were able to develop and discover quality players more consistently. On the flip side, of course, many promising young players opted for better-paying careers, rather than risk an attempt with baseball, which started out paying next to nothing.. Nevertheless, as a result of Rickey’s innovative system, the Cardinals quickly became one of the top clubs in the Majors, winning the World Series in 1926 over the Yankees, then securing another pennant in 1928 (only to lose the championship to the Yankees in a sweep).
The Detroit Tigers were the first to begin emulating the minor league farm system during the 1920s, and by the 1930s, all Major League teams were following suit. It was, you might say, an early form of Moneyball, a system that gave clubs with a financial disadvantage a fighting chance at competing with big money teams. Over time, the system grew and developed into the Minor League Baseball organization that we know today.
