Branch Rickey
Branch Rickey
Wesley Branch Rickeywas an innovative Major League Baseballexecutive elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967. He was perhaps best known for breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier by signing African American player Jackie Robinson, for drafting the first Afro-Hispanic superstar, Roberto Clemente, for creating the framework for the modern minor league farm system, for encouraging the Major Leagues to add new teams through his involvement in the proposed Continental League, and for introducing the batting helmet...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth20 December 1881
CityPortsmouth, OH
CountryUnited States of America
I did not mind the public criticism. That sort of thing has not changed any program I thought was good.
Only in baseball can a team player be a pure individualist first and a team player second, within the rules and spirit of the game.
There was never a man in the game who could put mind and muscle together quicker and with better judgment than (Jackie) Robinson.
Fill in any figure you want for that boy (Mickey Mantle). Whatever the figure, it's a deal.
I find fault with my children because I like them and I want them to go places - uprightness and strength and courage and civil respect and anything that affects the probabilities of failure on the part of those that are closest to me, that concerns me - I find fault.
When (Rube) Waddell had control and some sleep, he was unbeatable.
Leisure is the handmaiden of the devil.
Baseball people are generally allergic to new ideas; it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms, and it is the hardest thing in the world to get Major League Baseball to change anything—even spikes on a new pair of shoes—but they will eventually...they are bound to.
Baseball is a game of inches.
Luck is a residue of design.
Leo Durocher is a man with an infinite capacity for making a bad thing worse.