ABSTRACT
Branch Rickey was a business manager—a very successful business manager. He invented baseball's farm system and a number of innovative instructional techniques. But Branch Rickey is most remembered as the president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers who broke the color line in baseball. Branch Rickey was certainly analytical about baseball—about everything from teaching hitting to building pennant winners. In many ways, Branch Rickey was lucky. In St. Louis, Brooklyn, and Pittsburgh, Branch Rickey left behind talented teams—teams that he staffed and developed. Within a few years after he left, the Cardinals, the Dodgers, and the Pirates each won a World Series. But this luck was helpful only because Rickey discerned it and because he was able to capitalize on it. Every public manager would be proud to have Branch Rickey's record for accomplishing important public purposes. He left baseball—and the country—much better than he found it.
