BRANCH RICKEY (1881-1965)

by Chuck Chalberg

The French-born American historian and philosopher Jacques Barzun once suggested that baseball provides the key to understanding America and the American character. Barzun himself put the matter a bit more elegantly – and certainly more directly and concretely: “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game – and do it by first watching some high school or small town teams.” While Branch Rickey was a vociferous reader, it has not been established that he ever encountered Barzun or Barzun’s take on baseball.  Nonetheless, the two men, one a French immigrant and the other an Ohio farm boy, shared the same sentiment on the game that once was indisputably America’s game.

Rickey, however, did Barzun one better. He embodied the thinking behind the philosopher’s line. Trained as a lawyer, he decided to make baseball his life’s work. By his own reckoning, he abandoned an adult’s profession for a child’s game. “But what a game,” Rickey was known to expound, “what a game!” Over the course of better than a half-century, the man virtually everyone came to call “Mr. Rickey” played the game, scouted the game, coached the game, and managed the game. And if all of that was not enough, he was also either the general manager or part-owner of four major league teams: the St. Louis Browns, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

To top everything off, when he was well past normal retirement age, he tried to organize a third major league to break up the monopoly of the American and National Leagues and, perhaps more to the point, return major league baseball to New York City.  He failed at that effort, but the attempt did force the hand of the existing owners and lead to the creation of the New York Mets (as well as the California Angels, Houston Colt 45s, and Minnesota Twins). Back in St. Louis, the octogenarian Rickey had a hand in what might have been the biggest steal in the history of major league trades. He helped obtain Lou Brock from the Chicago Cubs for a pitcher by the name of Ernie Broglio. (If you’ve heard of him, you know too much and it’s no fair asking “Mr. Rickey” a question on Chautauqua night!)

It was, in short, quite a career and quite a life. It was also a life that embodied the American character. Rickey’s was the classic American story. Born on an Ohio farm, he sought to escape the agrarian life. And he did just that. Ironically, his ticket was a game with deep agrarian American roots.

Named after John Wesley, the man who was christened Wesley Branch Rickey was too much of a believing Christian to declare that baseball was America’s religion.  But he was never too much of an enthusiast for baseball – and for his country – to believe anything other than that baseball was the quintessential American game.

Whether baseball remains America’s game as we plunge into the 21st century is a matter for debate and speculation. Football, unfortunately, does have its misguided (maybe even un-American?) devotees. There might even be a few right here in Bronco land. But what is beyond debate or speculation is that the heyday of Branch Rickey coincided with a time in American history when baseball was without question the “national pastime.”

Its lofty standing has a number of explanations, not the least of which is that the game itself dovetails so neatly with the American character. It would be too much to say that baseball expresses the American character or reveals the American character. But it would not be too much to say that the game and the country have a good deal in common.  This certainly was the case during the first half of the 20th century. It’s no doubt still the case today, even though baseball is no longer the only game in town.

So just what is the case? Let’s let Mr. Rickey take over for just a minute. Baseball, he would enthuse, is the only game which tests the mettle of each player and then welds all players into a cohesive unit. More than that, it’s the only game “where the player can be an individualist first and a team player second – and all within the rules and the spirit of the game.” 

Barzun preferred the “rules and realities” of the game. No matter. The philosopher and the ball player were on the same page. Only in America would a philosopher opt for “realities” over “the spirit.” And only in America could a farm kid and a ball player be taken for a man of great wisdom and even a national sage.  Come hear what he still has to say to us on the Chautauqua stage.

RECOMMENDED READING

Chalberg, John. Rickey and Robinson: The Preacher, the Player and America’s Game. Harlan Davidson, 2000.

Crepeau, Richard. Baseball: America’s Diamond Mind.  Orlando: University Press of Florida, 1980.

Eig, Jonathan. Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007.

Kahn, Roger. The Boys of Summer. New York: Harper and Row, 1972.

Kahn, Roger. The Era, 1947-1957:  When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers Ruled the World. New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1993.    

Lamb, Chris. Blackout: The Untold Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Spring Training. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.

Lowenfish, Lee. Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman.  Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.

Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Tygiel, Jules. Past Time: Baseball As History.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

JOHN C. “CHUCK” CHALBERG

Chuck Chalberg has been teaching American history for thirty-five years, including an NEH fellowship at the University of Michigan and a Fulbright lectureship in Hungary. He has written a biography of American anarchist Emma Goldman, a dual biography of Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey, and a history of his adopted home town of Bloomington, Minnesota, and edited a collection of documents on American isolationism. He has also written for such publications as The Weekly Standard, National Review, The Elysian Fields Quarterly, The Journal of Sport History, Crisis, and American Scholar.

Chalberg also portrays Teddy Roosevelt, H.L. Mencken, G.K. Chesterton, Huey Long, Patrick Henry, George Orwell, and golf’s Bobby Jones. A native of Brainerd, Minnesota, he has an A.A. degree from Brainerd Junior College, a B.A. from Regis College (now University) in Denver, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.  He is married, the father of five and grandfather of two.

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TIMELINE

Dec. 21, 1881              Born near Stockdale, Ohio

1904                            Graduates from Ohio Wesleyan University

June 1, 1906               Marries Jane Moulton

1905-1907            Plays major league baseball for the St. Louis Browns and the New York Highlanders (later the Yankees)

1911-1912                   Coaches the University of Michigan baseball team

1913-1917                   Employed by the St. Louis Browns

1917-1942                   Serves as general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals

1942-1950                   General manager and part-owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers

August 28, 1945    Signs Jackie Robinson to a major league contract

October 23, 1945       Announces the signing of Robinson

1950-1955                   General manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates

1958-1960                   Pursues his plan for a third major league

1962-1964                   Returns to St. Louis and work as a Cardinal consultant

December 9, 1965    Dies in Columbia, Missouri

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