Branch Rickey : baseball's ferocious gentleman
"He was not much of a player and not much more of a manager, but by the time Branch Rickey (1881-1965) finished with baseball, he had revolutionized the sport - not just once but three times. In this biography of Rickey - the man sportswriters dubbed "The Brain," "The Mahatma," and, on occasion, "El Cheapo"--Lee Lowenfish tells the full and colorful story of a life that forever changed the face of America's game." "As the mastermind behind the Saint Louis Cardinals from 1917 to 1942, Rickey created the farm system, which allowed small-market clubs to compete with the rich and powerful. Under his direction in the 1940s, the Brooklyn Dodgers became truly the first "America's team." By signing Jackie Robinson and other black players, he single-handedly thrust baseball into the forefront of the civil rights movement. Lowenfish evokes the peculiarly American complex of God, family, and baseball that informed Rickey's actions and his accomplishments. His book offers a portrait of a man whose life is itself a crucial chapter in the history of American business, sport, and society."--Jacket
Print Book, English, ©2007
University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, ©2007
Biography
xv, 683 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780803211032, 0803211031
71552176
List of illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
Prologue
The making of a baseball brain, 1899-1918
Diamond in the rough
From catcher to coach
Branch Rickey and the St. Louis Browns
"War overshadows everything"
The St. Louis prime of Branch Rickey, 1919-1942
Necessity is the mother of invention
Years of contention and frustration
That championship season
The near-dynastic years and a place in who's who
Another championship season and then decline
Prelude to the Gashouse Gang
The triumph of the Gashouse Gang
Years of frustration
More years of loss, and farewells to Dizzy Dean and Charley Barrett
Going out on top
The birth of the Mahatma, 1943-1950
A branch grows in Brooklyn
The secret path to the "young man from the West"
An historic meeting in Brooklyn
Prelude to a pennant
When all hell almost broke loose
When most of Heaven rejoiced
A year of disappointment, odd choices, and an adieu to Leo
A branch bends in Brooklyn
A branch is chopped in Brooklyn
"My greatest thrill in baseball hasn't happened yet," 1951-1965
A branch doesn't grow fast enough in Pittsburgh
Mr. Rickey prepares to do the continental
The continental dance card goes blank
Meet me in St. Louis, final chorus
Notes
Bibliography
Index