Wesley Branch Rickey Biography - Raised On A Farm, Tentative Steps In The Big Leagues, Becomes Major League Executive, Develops Farm System - SELECTED WRITINGS BY RICKEY:
1881-1965
American baseball executive
The names Rickey and Robinson will always be linked in the annals of sport because of their respective roles in breaking major league baseball's "color line," a seminal event which is regarded as having had a monumental effect — perhaps most of all symbolically, but also in a practical sense — on the Civil Rights movement. Wesley Branch Rickey's determination, in the face of opposition from other baseball owners, to sign a black player and desegregate professional baseball; his recruitment and signing of Jackie Robinson; and his orchestration of Robinson's debut in the major leagues opened the door for blacks in baseball and helped change the course of American history.
SELECTED WRITINGS BY RICKEY:
(With Robert Riger) The American Diamond: A Documentary of the Game of Baseball, Simon & Schuster, 1965.
Additional Topics
Wesley Branch Rickey was born in 1881 in southern Ohio, the son of Jacob Franklin Rickey, a Wesleyite Methodist, and raised on a farm. Rickey was greatly influenced by his mother, Emily, who helped to give him a sense of moral purpose and a strong religious faith. Rickey attended school in a one-room schoolhouse in Rush Township, Ohio and later in the nearby town of Lucasville but was unable to ea…
Rickey graduated from OWU in 1904 with a B.Litt. degree. Meanwhile, he had become a professional baseball player during the summer months, when on vacation from college. He played minor league baseball for two consecutive seasons and at the end of the 1904 season was promoted from the Dallas team in the Texas League to the Cincinnati Reds, who were in need of help at Rickey's position, catc…
While playing professional baseball, Rickey continued to coach at the college level. He spent two years as football and baseball coach at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. In 1906, he was married to Jane Moulton. In 1907, Rickey enrolled in the University of Michigan Law School, from which he earned a law degree in 1911 while also coaching the university's baseball team. In 1911…
Rickey served for twenty-six years as an executive of the Cardinals, and he was also the team's field manager for over six seasons during this period. In 1922, a controlling interest in the Cardinals was purchased by a wealthy St. Louis businessman, Sam Breadon. Although Breadon and Rickey were temperamental opposites, they combined to create one of baseball's most successful franchi…
In October 1942, in the midst of a deteriorating relationship with Breadon, Rickey resigned from the Cardinals and shortly thereafter was named general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The stands at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, where the Cardinals played, were segregated, but in New York City, the chances for successfully integrating a major league team seemed much better. In 1943, while …
Rickey's tenure with the Dodgers lasted until 1950, when he was forced out by a fellow owner, Walter O'Malley, who became the team's president (and who ultimately moved the team to Los Angeles, earning O'Malley the enmity of Brooklyn fans). One month after leaving the Dodgers, Rickey became the general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a second division club with whom …
Rickey was a genuine innovator who had a good bit of the college professor in him. His chief innovation, of course, was the farm system concept, which enabled teams like the Cardinals to compete against teams bankrolled by deeper-pocketed owners. Rickey was continually coming up with newfangled ideas, such as sliding pits, "pitching strings," and batting tees; he hired the first stat…
In the spring of 1903, Ohio Wesleyan was scheduled to play Notre Dame at South Bend, Indiana. Rickey's star was the first baseman, Charles "Tommy" Thomas, an African American equally skilled at baseball and football…. [When] Rickey and his team filed into the lobby of the Oliver Hotel at South Bend, the clerk told Rickey that while he and the rest of the team were welco…
Barber, Red. 1947: When All Hell Broke Loose in Baseball. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982. Burk, Robert F. Much More Than a Game: Players, Owners, and American Baseball Since 1921. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Chalberg, John C. Rickey and Robinson: The Preacher, the Player, and America's Game. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2000. Cohen, Stanley. Dodgers! The F…
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