THE MAHATMA BOWS OUT
Rickey's Career Ends On A Sad Note
"The sad part about the retirement of Branch Rickey as boss man of the Pittsburgh Pirates is that the Mahatma ended his brilliant baseball career on a note of failure. He wouldn't have failed on this occasion if he had had more time to get his long-range plans into operation. But time is a commodity that no one can sell to understandably impatient fans. He was estranging the customers and making the stockholders go for broke.
So Rickey has been carefully shunted away from the controls and into an 'advisory capacity'- whatever that is. The new general manager is a comparative stranger to so an exalted a post- Joe L. Brown, the son of Joe E. Brown of Hollywood fame. And he'll take over with certain advantages that were beyond the reach of the aging Mahatma.
Rickey was a visionary with a mind so imaginative and so keen that he could dream up the wildest dreams. And he explained those ideas- more or less- with thunderous flights of rhetoric. Make no mistake about him. Rickey ranks with William Jennings Bryan as one of the greatest orators this nation has produced.
The one Pirate official who supported the Mahatma to the end was John Galbreath, principal stockholder and president of the club. The other directors kept getting more and more disenchanted with Rickey's extravagances and his unfulfilled promises. They tell the story- maybe apocryphal- of the meeting at which Branch soared off into the wild, blue yonder with a glowing account of his stewardship. Bing Crosby, a director, arose and headed for the door.
'Where are you going?' someone asked.
'I'm going out to hire a string quartet,' airily answered Der Bingle, 'to accompany Branch in his song and dance act.'
To Rickey went the blame for ripping the Pirate team apart when he first took over in order to rebuild from the ground up. In the course of that operation he traded away Ralph Kiner, darling of the gallery gods. The fans never forgave him for it. Nor could they forgive him for bringing in a batch of beardless wonders who had only youth as a recommendation.
There were signs last season the Rickey program was beginning to bring results but the Mahatma had outworn his welcome too much for him to profit by it. He had run out of time. But the 37-year-old Brown will get a reprieve for the simple reason that the fans are willing to wait to see how clean the new broom sweeps.
One uncontrollable item that put the Mahatma over the barrel was the way the Army latched onto his teenagers. There even was a time when something like 400 Pirate fledglings were in Service.
'It's the biblical story of the widow's mite,' sonorously proclaimed Branch. 'They are taking from my poverty.'
But Dick Groat and the O'Brien twins returned to Pittsburgh last season, restoring some solidity and class to the team. Pirate pitching, oddly enough, was of 'championship caliber'- quoting the always quotable Rickey. Thus far, however, the sinking of almost three million dollars in Buccaneer 'futures' has not paid off.
Contrary to his widespread reputation as 'El Cheapo,' the Mahatma is an extravagant man. He built the St. Louis Cardinals from nothing by instituting the farm system, but he became too extravagant for canny Sam Breadon and left to join the Dodgers. There he not only brought the Negro into baseball but cornered the post-war talent market. Again he grew too expensive. Now Pittsburgh has discovered the same thing.
Failure was such a complete stranger to Branch, and his anxiety to conquer his latest challenge was so acute that he even sank $200,000 of his money into the Pirates. There were also stretches when he worked without salary. When it came to work he never spared himself, even at the age of 74. Coldly calculating though he was, he often had an air of unreality about him.
There was the time, for instance, when he was hopscotching all over the map by private plane as a time saver. The pilot informed Branch that the field ahead was closed in by fog. He couldn't land at his destination but would have to go elsewhere.
'By Judas Priest!' exploded Rickey. 'I must keep that appointment.' He thought a moment and spoke up brightly. 'Try to land anyway. I'll take the responsibility.' He'd take the responsibility? It might have been funny except that the intense Mahatma was so deadly serious.
Branch leaves on the unhappy note of failure, a dismal finale for one of the great baseball figures of this generation. But young Brown may be able to build on the foundations the Mahatma left behind. Then it won't be such a failure after all."
-Arthur Daley, The New York Times (Baseball Digest, November 1955)
THIS FIGURES
"A few years ago when Branch Rickey was trying to peddle Danny O'Connell to the Braves for $200,000 cash plus players, he attacked the problem in a rather unusual manner.
Rickey first offered the Braves $250,000 CASH for Pitcher Gene Conley and later offered $150,000 CASH for Outfielder Hank Aaron. Rickey realized at that particular moment the Pirates didn't have a quarter in the bank (figuratively speaking) but he had a motive.
He wanted to establish big prices in the minds of the Braves, who had tremendous receipts and profits in Milwaukee.
Rickey wanted the Braves to see that he was offering $250,000 for Conley, who had yet to prove he was a major league pitcher, and $150,000 for Aaron, who was then in Class A.
So- when the Braves got interested in O'Connell, Rickey had them talking figures. His own."
-Les Biederman, Pittsburgh Press (Baseball Digest, January 1956)
BRANCH'S WRONG BOW
"Ralph Kiner says he was amused at Branch Rickey's statement in his life story, 'Only a few years ago I gave Ralph Kiner a Pittsburgh contract calling for $90,000 and I was glad to do it.'
Kiner's comment: 'The first two years Mr. Rickey was in Pittsburgh I was playing under a two-year contract for $90,000 signed with John Galbreath, not Branch Rickey. The first time I negotiated with Mr. Rickey (1953) he cut me 22 per cent and then traded me less than two months after the season started.' "
-Les Biederman, Pittsburgh Press (Baseball Digest, January 1956)
"They were recalling a spring when Branch Rickey, then general manager of the Cardinals, was having some difficulty signing Marty Marion to a contract.
'You go along with me,' said Rickey, 'and I'll take care of you.'
'You just give me what I want and I'll take care of myself,' replied Marion."
-John C. Hoffman, Chicago Sun-Times (Baseball Digest, May 1956)
HE PLAYED WRITE FIELD
"Among his other accomplishments, Branch Rickey also contributed to the University of Michigan's dominance of Western Conference baseball over the years. He recalls how he started as a baseball boss- at Michigan in 1910.
'I was in law school in Michigan. A baseball coach was being sought. So for about seven weeks I wrote a couple letters a day to Phil Bartelme (then athletic director) suggesting myself.
'One day he called me in and picked up a stack of envelopes, tied in a bundle. 'That's enough of this,' he told me. 'You stop writing letters and start coaching.' ' "
-Harry Stapler, Detroit News (Baseball Digest, August 1956)
No comments:
Post a Comment