Rickey and Robinson (7 page)

Breadon and Rickey were unlikely partners. Breadon, known as “Singing Sam,” was a boisterous, fun-loving man who loved to sing in barbershop quartets. The Bible-quoting, psalm-singing Rickey couldn’t have been more different, yet they functioned very well together. They were both hard workers, both creative, inventive, and energetic enterpreneurs. Breadon introduced the Sunday doubleheader; Rickey introduced “The Knothole Gang,” providing free tickets to Cardinal games for underprivileged youths, recognizing that today’s youngsters were the paying customers of the future.

To save money, Breadon moved his club into Sportsman’s Park as tenants of the Browns in 1920. The Cardinals finished in sixth place that year. It was a fairly nondescript team except for the glittering star at second base: Rogers Hornsby. The twenty-four-year-old Texan batted .370 and won the first of his seven batting titles. Charles Stoneham of the Giants offered the Cardinals $300,000 for Hornsby. It was a tempting offer, but Jones, Breadon, and Rickey turned it down.

The 1921 club had nine .300 hitters and finished the season in third place. Hornsby, grooving into his Hall of Fame batting form, finished the season with a .397 average. Stoneham, more anxious than ever to add the “Rajah” to his Giants, offered $250,000 plus four players for him. Breadon listened and then responded, “Hornsby is not for sale.”

The next year, the first important product of Rickey’s farm system reached the parent club. Sunny Jim Bottomley came to bat 151 times for the 1922 Cardinals and batted .325. The Cardinals, again led by Hornsby, who topped the magic .400 mark with a .401 average, wound up in a thirdplace tie with the Pirates, eight games behind the Giants, who had insured the pennant with the August purchase of pitcher Hugh McQuillan from the Braves for $100,000. McQuillan won six games down the stretch, and symbolized the history of late-season purchases that made the New Yorkers the powerhouse of the National League.

Rickey felt that the Cardinals’ chances to beat out the Giants would have been better were it not for the lateseason transaction. He complained to Commissioner Landis. The Judge ruled that no player purchases would be permitted after June 15 except for waiver deals. Rickey was pleased with the decision, which would limit some of the purchasing power of the rich teams like the Giants.

Breadon was delighted with the two straight third-place finishes, the developing farm system, Landis’s ruling, and the Cardinals’ home attendance of 536,343—then the highest in the club’s history. He offered Rickey a ten-year contract. “Farmer Rickey,” as he was then being called, refused and settled for a five-year pact, preferring not to tie himself down for quite so long a period.

The 1923 Cardinals dropped to fifth place, and the following year they finished sixth. Hornsby’s fabulous batting skills kept improving; in 1924 he set a modern record with a .424 average. His relationship with Rickey, however, deteriorated. Hornsby disliked Rickey’s cerebral approach. “This ain’t football,” the Rajah would moan. “We don’t need the professor’s blackboard in baseball.” Hornsby spoke vulgarly about Rickey behind his back. They were men cut from different cloth. They came to blows in the clubhouse at the Polo Grounds in New York City late in the 1923 season. Burt Shotton stepped between the moody Texan and an angry Rickey. In September of 1923, Rickey fined Hornsby $500 for missing four Cardinal games without permission.

Rickey’s family grew and prospered in St. Louis, and he became a well-known figure around town, with his neat bow tie and his omnipresent cigar. There were now five daughters and a son: Mary, Jane, Alice, Sue, Elizabeth, and Branch Jr. B. R., as Rickey was now being called, was earning a good salary, and also reaping a share of the team’s profits. Each player sale added to his earnings, for he received 10 percent of every player deal as long as the Cardinal corporation made a profit. Because of his love for his large family, Rickey was a strong believer in life insurance and invested the first $14,000 of his annual income in premiums. Rickey was also active in community and church life, devoting time to YMCA board work and to Grace Methodist Church, where he was a lay preacher.

Convivial, gregarious, and outgoing, Rickey kept up old friendships from Ohio Wesleyan and Michigan while he was forming new ones in St. Louis. The Rickeys entertained often. Branch enjoyed company and liked nothing more than to spend an evening swapping tales with old or new friends. Herman Shipps, his old friend from Ohio Wesleyan, visited the Rickey home frequently. “I sat at the table with the five girls, the son, Branch, and Mrs. Rickey,” Shipps recalls. “Branch would raise a question, take one side of it, and then say, ‘Now, do you agree?’ Some of the crowd surely wouldn’t. Then he would conduct a debate until everyone had said what he wanted to. He would summarize, and they would go on to another subject. When he played bridge, his partner had a hard time. He would raise the bid that she made beyond what he thought she could accomplish and then seemed to enjoy seeing her struggle with the problem. It was an interested and an interesting family.”

As more of “Farmer Rickey’s produce” began to reach the majors, stories about the Cardinal general manager began to circulate around the league. It was reported that Rickey was sitting in the stands with his little black notebook watching several farmhands work out. “Who’s that pitcher?” he asked scout Bennie Borgmann.

“His name is Hafey, Mr. Rickey. He’s quite a pitching prospect.”

“From now on he’s an outfielder.” Chick Hafey spent eight years in the Cardinals’ outfield before being traded to Cincinnati. His career batting average was .317, and he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1971.

Herman Shipps was in Cincinnati one winter attending an alumni meeting and talking to high school students. “Branch had a large apartment in one of the hotels,” Shipps recalls, “and took me in to stay with him and we had a good time visiting for three or four days. I remember distinctly coming back one afternoon from work. Going into the room I heard somebody speaking very loudly. There was Branch with his shirt off, with one foot up on a chair, and one of the baseball players—it could have been Tommy Thevenow [the Cardinal shortstop]—was sitting there listening. Branch was telling him why he ought to sign his contract. After hearing that conversation for a short time, I realized why it was that baseball players said, ‘Never get into a hotel room with Branch Rickey if you don’t want to sign a contract!’”

Rickey peppered his conversation with his pet expressions: “It’s the history of this country that men are what they make themselves. Their education never stops.” “Look for the best in everybody, but don’t allow first impressions to sway you.” “Nine times out of ten a man fashions his own destiny. You get out of life what you put into it.” “Discipline should come from within and be self-imposed. It’s more effective that way.” “Evil is transient.” “It is not the honor that you take with you but the heritage you leave behind.” The moralistic expressions were not just words for Rickey; they were the bedrock of his philosophy of life; they were the windows through which he viewed the world.

In 1925, with the Cardinals in last place and attendance declining, Breadon discharged Rickey as manager over the Memorial Day weekend and replaced him with Hornsby. Rickey was angry over the loss of his job as manager to his bitter adversary, but Breadon told him, ‘What I’m doing for you is the greatest favor any man ever did for another. One day you’ll see that I’m right.”

The selection of Hornsby as manager may have been influenced by Breadon’s desire to keep up with the times. There were several player-managers in the major leagues. Rickey’s Michigan State protege, George Sisler, played :first base and managed the Browns. Outfielder Ty Cobb was the Tiger pilot. Bucky Harris played second base and managed the Senators. Shortstop Dave Bancroft was the skipper of the Braves. In Cleveland, outfielder Tris Speaker was the manager, and Eddie Collins was the second basemanmanager of the White Sox.

The main reason for Rickey’s demotion was that Breadon realized the Ohioan’s skills were better suited to the off-thefield duties of a baseball executive. As a manager, Rickey had certain clear failings. His cerebral approach to the game confused players. His demands on them, as he later admitted, “made them too tense, too eager.”

Hornsby took over. Rickey, hurt by the loss of the manager’s job, sold off his Cardinal stock, which was quickly snapped up by Hornsby. Jesse “Pop” Haines, then the thirtyone-year-old leader of the Cardinal pitching staff, remembers what it was like with the new manager: “Rogers was all baseball during the game. And if you gave all you had, he was happy. But if you didn’t, he’d give you hell. Rogers was a loner, though; even before he became manager he never palled around with the players.”

Playing and managing agreed with Hornsby. In 1925 he batted .403, drove in 143 runs, and hit thirty-nine homers, and his bold managing tactics moved the Cardinals into a fourth-place :finish, a game over .500 and eighteen games behind the league-leading Pirates. Breadon had found a winning combination : Rickey supplied the talent and Hornsby made it work.

The Breadon-Rickey-Hornsby combo lit up the city on the banks of the Mississippi in 1926. The “master trader” had added a few key players that season. Just before the trading deadline on June 14, Rickey shipped Heinie Mueller to the Giants in return for Billy Southworth. While Mueller went on to have a mediocre year for the New Yorkers and was relegated to part-time duty, Southworth batted .317 for the Redbirds and became a capable performer in right field. Grover Cleveland Alexander, picked up on waivers from the Cubs, was the other crucial addition. The grizzled veteran won nine games for the 1926 Cardinals, leading tliem to their first pennant. Rickey’s years of building had finally paid off. St. Louis celebrated with a monstrous ticker-tape parade.

On October 10, a damp and dank Sunday, the Cards faced the Yankees, managed by Miller Huggins, in the seventh game of the World Series. Alexander had defeated the Yankees 10-2 the day before, scattering eight hits. He spent Saturday night celebrating. Hornsby, whose batting average had dropped to .317 that year, and who was so immersed in the business of baseball that he did not even go to his mother’s funeral after she died on the eve of the Series, was intent on victory. In the seventh inning of that final game, with the bases loaded and two out, Hornsby called in Alexander to relieve. Hung over but clear-eyed, “old Pete” struck out Tony Lazzeri to end the inning, and then held the Yanks scoreless in the eighth and ninth to preserve the 3-2 lead and clinch the World Championship. ‘’Pete was a silent drinker, and he’d probably had a little more than he should have,” recalled Haines, ‘’but I’ll tell you, he was dead sober when he faced Lazzeri.” It was a classic case of Rickey’s recruiting a former star for one more round of glory. The championship was the first for the city of St. Louis since 1888.

After eleven full and productive seasons with the Cardinals, with six straight batting titles behind him and the distinction of having piloted the team to its first World Series victory, Hornsby could have run for mayor of St. Louis and won. Instead, incredibly, he was traded to the New York Giants for second baseman Frankie Frisch and pitcher Jimmy Ring.

The fans were outraged. Black crepe was hung around Breadon’s home in mourning for the loss of Hornsby. It was the first of the many blockbuster trades that would become part of the Branch Rickey mystique. Fans in St. Louis that 1927 season had a lot of trouble forgetting the Rajah, but Frisch, nicknamed the “Fordham Flash,” took much of the heat off Rickey and Breadon, batting .337 and stealing fortyeight bases. The Cardinals finished in second place behind the Pirates. Alexander won twenty-one games, and Rabbit Maranville, another great player now past his prime but still effective, was plucked from the Rochester roster to fill a weak spot at shortstop.

Pop Haines had perhaps his best year in baseball in 1927, winning twenty-four games and leading the league in complete games with twenty-five. He recalled what it was like dealing with the Breadon-Rickey tandem that winter:

“Oh, was Breadon mean with a dollar! We all tried to deal with Rickey, and he was no Santa Claus, but Sam was murder. The year was over and I went over to St. Louis to see Rickey. Well, Rickey was out, so Sam cornered me and said, ‘I suppose you’re here to talk contract.’ I replied, ‘I’m here to see Mr. Rickey, Mr. Breadon.’

“‘Oh, well,’ said Sam, ‘seeing as you’re here, we might as well talk contract. You had a pretty good year, and I’m going to give you a five-hundred-dollar raise.’

“I like to fell through the floor. I said, ‘Good day, Mr. Breadon,’ and I went back to Phillipsburgh [Ohio]. A few days later I heard from Mr. Rickey, and I did get a bit more than a five-hundred-dollar raise.”

Wheeling and dealing, patching and pruning, Rickey traded for catcher Jimmy Wilson, installed Maranville as the regular shortstop, and added Ernie Orsatti to the roster. The 1928 Cardinals, led by Bill McKechnie, who had replaced Hornsby’s successor Bob O’Farrell as manager, won the pennant, but lost the World Series to New York. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig clubbed seven home runs to lead the Yankees to a four-game sweep.

The 1929 Cardinals finished in fourth place, as the pitching staff slumped badly. Alexander won just nine games; Haines posted a 5.71 ERA and only thirteen wins. Rickey decided that the top priority for the farm system, now valued at a million dollars, would be pitching help.

Some of the players that showed up at a Cardinal tryout camp at Shawnee, Oklahoma, in the spring of 930 arrived without a penny in their pockets. Some had not had a meal for the past day or two. Most of them came from Oklahoma and Texas, determined to be signed by the Cardinal organization. Rickey sat in the stands observing, chewing on his cigar, and making occasional notes in his black book. With a network of cronies in small towns, coaches on college campuses, and franchises throughout the minor leagues, there wasn’t a town in America where Rickey did not have some connection. Rickey had gotten used to traveling from big-city stadiums to his regularly scheduled rural tryout camps with just a small briefcase containing his papers, a towel, and a clean white shirt. When he reached a new location, the soiled shirt he had worn and the towel were sent out to the nearest laundry while, like a busy Broadway producer, he hurried about auditioning players for his cast.