Customer Reviews

Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
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While every major league team is required to retire Jackie Robinson's #42, the Lords of Baseball might also consider having every team display a pair of rimless glasses, an unlit cigar and a bow tie in memory of Branch Rickey. Until that happens, Lee Lowenfish's book stands as an excellent and precise memorial.

Robinson's contribution to baseball and American history is undeniable, but he was acting, to some extent, in his best self-interest. Rickey's self-interest, as normally defined, however, would have been to continue to bar the door to African American participation in the big leagues, while denying the door was even shut. This was the path of his fellow baseball decision-makers, for decades.

Rickey defined his self-interest in broader, even spiritual terms. He was several kinds of paradox: a muscular Christian, a country gentleman who lived and worked in the biggest cities, a tee-totaler who constantly supported and even loved rascals like Leo Durocher, Dizzy Dean and Pepper Martin.

Mr. Lowenfish, in addition to being a fine baseball maven and historian, is also a professorial-grade expert on American History. He combines these areas of expertise smoothly, giving depth and meaning to the various events and decisions in Rickey's life. He weaves details from inside baseball and culture into a deeply textured whole.

He also does not see the world in terms of cardboard heroes and villains, a particularly rare and useful point of view when it comes to this story, which has so much genuine and well documented heroism. Lowenfish reports on Happy Chandler, Lee Mac Phail, Ben Chapman, even that original baseball Satan, Walter O'Malley, by treating them as real people with complex motives, instead of mere evil-doers put in the world specifically for Robinson and Rickey to overcome.

Give Robinson, who walked through the door, all the credit in the world. But also credit he who opened the door. Lee Lowenfish does so in the way that Rickey himself would have most admired: by showing the human beings behind the myths.

If you consider yourself a baseball fan you need to read this book, because Branch Rickey was an integral part of the game's history. The book is 600 pages long, but the reading style flowed easily for me, and held my interest throughout the book. The legal profession's loss was baseball's gain as he devoted practically his entire life to serving the game while serving others at the same time. He spoke his mind and rubbed some people the wrong way, but this conservative Republican knew a wrong when he saw it, and opened up the game of baseball to the Negro race when other owners dared not disrupt the status quo. After a stint at coaching at the University of Michigan where he encountered who he deemed one of his two favorite players, George Sisler, he moved on to St. Louis to cover the lowly Browns where he worked under his favorite superior, Robert Hedges. From there it was to the Cardinals where he placed his stamp on the Redbirds successful teams of the mid-1930s Gashouse Gang, and early 1940's which were under the ownership of Sam Breadon. From there it was on to Brooklyn where he made history by signing Jackie Robinson along with others who would become stars of Roger Kahn's book "The Boys of Summer" during the 1950s. Following the 1950 season he left the Dodgers following a power struggle with "The Big O", Walter O'Malley. The Pittsburgh Pirates came calling, and once again Rickey built a cellar-dwelling franchise into a championship 1960 team with players such as Dick Groat and stealing an unprotected Roberto Clemente from the Dodgers' minor league system. Rickey's last stop was back in St. Louis when Cardinals' owner "Gussie" Busch hired Rickey as a consultant. This proved an unwise move on the part of both Busch and Rickey. Rickey clashed with Redbird general manager "Bing" Devine who was in the process of building a winner in St. Louis. Rickey wanted Stan Musial to retire, certainly an unpopular suggestion where The Man reigned supreme. Rickey died in November of 1965 while making a speech in Columbia, Missouri. I remember listening to it on St. Louis radio station KMOX. This book is filled with legendary baseball characters such as Larry MacPhail, Red Barber, Leo Durocher, "Pepper" Martin (Rickey's other favorite player), Clyde Sukeforth, Rogers Hornsby, Frankie Frisch, Connie Mack, and numerous others. Incidentally, I was disappointed to learn that Mack was the only owner who protested to Rickey personally regarding the signing of Robinson. Mack is quoted, "I used to have respect for Rickey. I don't have any more." Mack added that his Athletics would not play the Dodgers in Florida if Robinson came with them. Don't be intimidated by the length of the book. To adequately cover Rickey's life it needs to be a lengthy book. If you enjoy baseball history this book will be a breeze. Treat yourself! You will also enjoy Rickey's quotations which are still appropriate today.

Lee Lowenfish has written a fabulously researched book that is an entry point into the history of baseball since the start of the 20th century. Yes, I knew that Branch Rickey ran the Dodgers and hired Jackie Robinson, breaking the color barrier in major league baseball. I didn't know, however, that he started his career in St. Louis and as I read this easy to like book, I began sending copies to people I thought would be interested.

I'm 65 (born in 1943) and started listening to New York baseball games in the car with my Dad starting in about 1948. As we drove, we'd hear the Yankees and the Giants and the Dodgers. Did I know that I was listening to history as Jackie Robinson ran the bases?

Many of my friends are 20 years older than I am. I thought that this book would bring back wonderful memories for them and I was right.

Imagine, to date I've sent 18 books as gifts to people from New York, St. Louis, Los Angeles. Everyone has been reading and loving Lowenfish's book.........each for a different reason.

SO BUY THE BOOK ALREADY.

This book took me months to finish, not because it was dull, which it is not, but because it is dense, a 750 page tome and written memoriam to Branch Rickey, the man known in baseball as "The Ferocious Gentleman," "The Mahatma," or (less flatteringly), "El Cheapo." How does an author manage to write a 750 page biography about a general manager? Lee Lowenfish has written an exhaustive, painstakingly researched, very readable biography of Mr. Wesley Branch Rickey, a biography which also happens to be an exhaustive, painstakingly researched, and very readable history of baseball (down to the box scores of individual games) in the early-to-mid Twentieth Century, the period of Rickey's lifetime.

Rickey is well-known as the man who worked to integrate Major League Baseball with the signing of another Ferocious Gentleman, Jackie Robinson. Jackie's appearance in the everyday world of professional baseball, and his wholehearted embrace by the fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers was an augury of vast change in the American landscape. A line can be drawn directly from Jackie Robinson to President Barack Obama.

Branch Rickey is a point on that line. Born into a religious (but hardly joyless) Methodist household with strict Sabbatarian views, the Midwestern-born Rickey was a dynamo who excelled in school, coached and played high school and college football, worked to support his family, attended law school, taught Bible classes, and had a short but impressive career in the Major Leagues as a catcher, all at once.

Rickey's personal ethical views were rock steady--he did not drink, rarely swore, worked tirelessly, was strictly monogamous, and never involved himself with Sunday baseball---but he was a believer in American diversity, who befriended Jews, Catholics, African-Americans, and hard-living, ethically flexible reprobates like Rogers Hornsby, Leo Durocher and Dizzy Dean, uncritically.

Rickey seemed to have a touch with marginal teams, turning them from money-losing and dispirited agglomerations of men in uniform into powerhouses of talent and business success. His work with the St. Louis Cardinals, who went from worst to first and became known as the roughnecking "Gashouse Gang" was legendary, as was his work with the Brooklyn Dodgers, who transmogrified from the laughingstock "Daffiness Boys" to the beloved "Boys of Summer." Rickey almost singlehandedly created the farm system, and he instituted scientific techniques in spring training that allowed ballplayers to develop and hone their natural talents, making the game far more interesting and precise.

Rickey's story of how he came to racial awareness has the ring of contrivance, but it is undoubtedly true, though enhanced as a good raconteur's tales always are. One of Rickey's star black college players was denied accommodations in South Bend, Indiana---"It's my skin, Mr. Rickey! If I could only tear it off!"---and this pathos awoke Rickey to the great injustice of color prejudice. Whatever the actual moment held, Rickey was to remember the incident, and it changed him, then our nation, and then the world.

Rickey was far from perfect. He tended at times to be sanctimonious and hortatory, he did not handle losing very well, and he was chintzy with his teams to an extreme, all of which made him unpopular with some. He was obstinate on occasion, a not-altogether bad quality which he used to his advantage in bucking the tide to such magnificent effect.

Considering that Rickey earned $95,000.00 in 1928(!), he certainly knew how to value his own effort. He is the only baseball executive ever to garner a percentage of all trades made to and from his teams.

Ironically, he hated and was hated by his Dodgers business partner, Walter O'Malley, who, like him, was a stocky raconteur, smoked big cigars, wore round rimless glasses on his broad face, and was "El Cheapo II." In photos the two men are hard to distinguish. Rickey however, had an inherent Love Of The Game and a respect for the fans and players that the avaricious, unsentimental and ultimately disgusting Big Oom lacked. Had Rickey retained control of the Brooklyn Dodgers they would still BE the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Branch Rickey was that rara avis, a baseball intellectual, who demanded that his men think, act and work together for the benefit of themselves, their teammates, their fans, their communities, their country, and the world. The life of this courteous, temperate, bespectacled Ferocious Gentleman has had an impact which still reverberates in our collective consciousness today.

I read this book on the recommendation of other Amazon.com reviewers since I have long been a fan of Branch Rickey. I just finished the book this morning.

About halfway through the book, it became clear that this book is not a biography, in that there is no deep exploration of the personality or history of Rickey. It's a 3rd person telling of the history of baseball teams Rickey presided over, looked at through a Rickey-ian lens. We read about the 1926 St. Louis Cardinals who finally won the World Series, and how Pete Alexander came on in relief, and how Rogers Hornsby missed his mother's funeral to play, and how much of this was the fruit of Rickey's farm system, and many of the key stats of the players. Other teams, seemingly year by year, are discussed comparably.

We don't learn about Rickey's kids or grandkids or even his wife. The book glosses over the FCA. No family or friends were apparently interviewed. The book depends on the picture of Rickey's character that it had already painted as being adequate for the reader to infer what Rickey was thinking and feeling without offering the fun anecdotes that turn a book from a piece of journalism into a true biography.

Now, to be sure, the ethic of a conservative, devoutly Christian, hardworking gentleman is made clear. I learned a bit more about the inside dealings of the Jackie Robinson signing and Dodger politics. That aside, I don't feel dramatically closer to the character of Branch Rickey the man than I did 600 pages ago.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Lowenfish account, because of my active interest in baseball history. The author is to be credited with in-depth research in a very informative and interesting book about an important life. I rate it five-star in spite of a writing style that is sometimes labored. Simply, the information overcomes any stylistic faults.

Author Lee Lowenfish gives Branch Rickey, one of the most influential men in baseball, his due in this 600-page biography. Rickey ran major league baseball teams for 40 years and was responsible for developing the minor league farm system, on-site tryout camps, signing Jackie Robinson and many other developments.

After a brief playing career, Rickey got his front office start with the St. Louis Browns in 1913. He made his biggest impact with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Rickey devoted himself to scouting and developing players. The 1926 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals were an excellent example of his unmistakable imprint. Rickey's farm system was directly responsible for 15 of the 25 players on the roster.

Lowenfish sheds light on some of the personalities Rickey had to deal with during his career and trades he made. It's interesting to read about Frankie Frisch, Dizzy Dean, Rogers Hornsby, George Sisler, Leo Durocher and others. Lowenfish gives a year-by-year description of Rickey's career and, at times, it becomes tedious, particularly when the year was fairly uneventful.

Lowenfish writes, "Rickey never left anyone feeling neutral about him." And, the various feuds he had throughout his career are upon the most interesting parts of the book. Rickey, "a man of faith and principle" feuded with Sam Breadon, Rogers Hornsby, Larry MacPhail, Walter O'Malley, who ousted him from Brooklyn, and several others.

It's interesting that Rickey, who deservingly earned the nickname "El Cheapo," never underestimated his own worth, and he made sure he was well paid. His take home pay in 1928 was an astounding $95,000. Although his salary was cut to $32,000 in 1932 due to the Depression, Rickey was always handsomely paid for his services.

At age 69, the indefatigable Rickey signed a five-year contract with the woeful Pittsburgh Pirates in 1950. Rickey, however, suffered through a troubled reign and produced no magic before his contract expired in 1955. His final years were spent as the first president of the Continental League, a proposed third major league which failed.

This is a book all serious baseball fans should read.

An excellent biography of Branch Rickey and his accomplishments during the first 65 years of the 20th century.
It is a fascinating story of his life,life in America,a history of baseball and the social mores of the era.
Fascinating reporting on the recruitment and emergence of Jackie Robinson.

Well wrritten but with an east coast coloquialness. Example: referring to Musial as "a local hero"! Other errata:
Page 31 Robert Lee Hedges moved his....."Milwaukee minor league franchise to St. Louis in 1902" should read Major League. The Brewers and the Browns were both American League teams. The American League is considered to have been a Major League even prior to the National Agreement.

Page 100 Austin McHenry "....a .261 BA, 32 HR and 29 RBI...." Should say "runs" instead of "HR". (McHenry hit only one HR that year).

Page 382 Odom should be Odoms

Page 430 "obviously, though, there had been talk among the most anti-black Cardinals about some kind of rebellious action"..... This was a lie started by disgruntled New York Harold Tribune sportswriter named Rud Rennie. There is no truth to the notion of any 'racial tensions' among the Cardinals. The only teams that threatened to strike were the Yankees, the Giants and the Phillies. Rennie started the rumor out of anger after being snubbed for an interview with Stan Musial. Lowenfish does not site any references and the idea of "anti-black" Cardinals has been refuted and denied by Cardinal players. References: The Spirit of St. Louis: A History of the St. Louis Cardinals (1882-present) and St. Louis Browns (1902-1953) by Peter Golenbach. Various interviews with Musial and Slaughter.

Page 540 "sixteen Major League franchises in eleven cities" should say "ten cities" (Chicago 2, St. Louis 2, New York 3, Philadelphia 2, Boston 2, Detroit, Cleveland, Washington DC, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh).

Page 541 refers to the "first three shift of Major League franchises" are actually the third, fourth and fifth. The first two shifts occurred over fifty years prior: The Brewers moved from Milwaukee after the 1901 season to become the St. Louis Browns, and the Orioles moved to New York after the 1902 season and changed their name to the Highlanders.

Page 583 refers to Ken Blackburn as Rickey's secretary, but page 586 refers to Blackburn as Rickey's chauffeur. Was he both?

Let me touch on that last first.

Branch Rickey may have used the term "ferocious gentlemen" about various people he appreciated. It certainly was NOT used regularly of others about him, definitely not to the point where it became a moniker.

But, Lowenfish tags Rickey with it, and uses it of him about every 10-15 pages. It's grating, it's off-putting, and does nothing to move the story line forward. Nor does it do anything for me in a good sense of establishing Lowenfish as a special author.

There's a few small errors of fact in the book. Most notably, the 1948 Chicago Tribune headline was "Dewey DEFEATS Truman" and not "Dewey BEATS Truman."

Other than that, while not leaden, the style of the book is not crisp, either.

As far as content, the book could either have been written a bit tighter and be 50 pages shorter, or else have been longer and more jam-packed. Rickey's Brooklyn years and especially his relationship with Walter O'Malley come immediately to mind. What first set them off against one another? Did Rickey have any quotable comments about O'Malley? Ditto for O'Malley about Rickey.

In other words, this book isn't bad as a Rickey bio -- if you can get past Lowenfish's writing tics. But, there's surely a more compelling -- and better written -- book available.