BRANCH rICKEY:
Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman
by
Lee
Lowenfish
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 definitive
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 an
intriguing, richly detailed portrait of
a man whose life is itself a crucial
chapter in the history of American
business, sport, and society.
Lee Lowenfish, a
historian, journalist, broadcaster, and
jazz commentator, is the author of
The Imperfect Diamond: A History of
Baseball’s Labor Wars.
Pre-Publication Praise
for Branch
Rickey
“Just about everyone
knows that Branch Rickey played a major
role in modern baseball’s most important
development, the breaking of the color
line. Yet, even if you somehow put that
aside, ‘The Mahatma’ would still rank as
one of baseball’s most influential and
enduringly significant figures. It’s
that complete Branch Rickey, ‘Rickey in
Full,’ that Lee Lowenfish presents
here.”—Bob Costas
“[Lowenfish] captures all
the intrigue, personal animosities, and
political machinations loose in baseball
… and captures the intensity of the
times.”—Richard Crepeau, author of
Baseball:
America’s Diamond Mind
“Lee Lowenfish’s
meticulously researched book tells us
precisely why we care to remember Branch
Rickey, baseball’s conservative
revolutionary. Rickey himself would have
appreciated this colorful and measured
remembrance by one of the game’s wisest
historians.”—Ray Robinson, author of
Iron Horse: Lou
Gehrig in His Time
“Branch Rickey is
a very well-written, extremely detailed
and very interesting study of one of the
most influential baseball men in
American history. It also achieves a
level of objectivity that few
biographies ever reach….The book is a
first-rate piece of sport
history.”—James Edward Miller, author of
The Baseball
Business: Pursuing Pennants and Profits
in Baltimore
About the Author
Lee Lowenfish is a
historian, journalist, broadcaster, and
jazz commentator. Beginning in January
2007 (for the spring term) Lowenfish
will teach Sport History in the new
Master of Science in Sports Management
program at Columbia University. In June
2007, an essay on New York Giants owner
Horace Stoneham’s role in baseball
integration will appear in an anthology,
The Golden Age of New York City
Baseball 1947–1957 (to be released
in conjunction with exhibit of same name
at Museum of the City of New York).
Stoneham was a partner-rival of Branch
Rickey.
After the Florida Marlins
won the 2003 World Series over the
Yankees, the Baseball Hall of Fame in
Cooperstown named Lowenfish as a member
of its All-Fish team of baseball
people—along with such pitchers as Dizzy
and Steve Trout and Jay Hook, and others
named Haddock and Sturgeon.
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