A Man Named Branch: A Great-Grandniece Remembers Branch Rickey

In 1947, filled with courage, skill and determination, Jackie Robinson changed history by becoming the first African American player in the major leagues. But how did this happen? Who thought of this idea for great social change?

The answer comes from a man named Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers — and from 1951–1955, of the Pittsburgh Pirates — and a man of great conviction. I am his great-grandniece and grew up with tales of the Robinsons and baseball’s “Great Experiment,” a courageous and necessary venture that shaped not only their lives, but history as well.

The Robinson-Rickey partnership and “Uncle Branch” stories also shaped who I am. It’s why I wanted to bring his story to a younger generation. It’s why I wrote A Man Named Branch: The True Story of Baseball’s Great Experiment, a narrative biography that explains how a farm boy from Duck Run, Ohio kept ideas “brewing in his brain,” which led to baseball’s integration, eventually helping to pave the way for the civil rights movement.

Jackie Robinson once said about Branch Rickey, “The thing about him was that he was always doing something for someone else. I know, because he did so much for me.” In turn, Martin Luther King, Jr., explained, “You will never know how easy it was for me because of Jackie Robinson.” Courageous actions lead to more courageous actions. The determination to stand up for others is passed down from generation to generation. The conviction to stand against bullies is contagious.

One of Branch’s first encounters with bullies was as a 17-year-old teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. Students spat in his face and raised their fists. But Branch didn’t back down. He won over the bullies, got the class under control, and the entire town voted to retain him.

Years later, as a coach at Ohio Wesleyan University in the early 1900s, Branch stood up to a hotel manager who wouldn’t allow the team’s first baseman, Charles “Tommy” Thomas, to lodge with the rest of the team while traveling for games. Branch was determined. He raised his voice, not his fists. Eventually, a hotel worker brought a cot to Branch’s room for Tommy. That night, while Branch and his team’s captain planned their game strategy, Tommy sat off by himself, rubbing his hands and muttering, “Black skin, black skin. If I could only make ’em white.” It was a scene that stayed with Branch for the rest of his life, one that started ideas brewing in his brain and eventually changed baseball history.

These are just a few of the stories that I heard repeatedly as I was growing up. Some of them also were captured in the movie 42, staring Chadwick Boseman and Harrison Ford, a movie that I was able to watch with my aging mother. As the film began, we both were caught up in Jackie Robinson’s story. Then the camera zoomed in on a cigar-smoking, slightly rumpled gentleman with bushy eyebrows. My mother leaned over and whispered excitedly, “He sounds just like Uncle Branch. He really does.” While most of the largely senior audience saw Harrison Ford in that theatre, my mother and I saw family.

While drafting A Man Named Branch, I craved the familiar stories as only my mother could tell them. Bound together by the power of story and family, we spent hours on the phone. I listened as she reminisced about a man who wrote her letters, taught her his favorite poems, treated her to New York and Pittsburgh outings, and took her to ballgames where, as a girl and later as a young adult, she met such celebrities as sportscaster Red Barber, manager Leo Durocher, comedian Jack Benny, and even a Pirates player or two. During our phone conversations, she laughed at her great-uncle’s notoriously bad driving and admired his abiding faith. In between, I added my few, brief recollections: family birthday parties where, at 3 or 4, I leaned against his shoulder a few years before his death.

There are other family photos of birthday parties, as well as college photos at Ohio Wesleyan and snapshots with Pirates players, Branch with his wife and family, Orla Rickey (Branch’s older brother) and my mother, and Branch with his younger brother, Frank, at the Rickey home in Fox Chapel, outside of Pittsburgh.

After my mother’s death, I spent weeks sorting through photographs while preparing A Man Named Branch for publication. I also came across memorabilia from my time serving as visiting author for the Little League World Series in Williamsport and twice presenting at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

At Cooperstown, I had the great honor in 1997 of meeting Rachel Robinson. One of the few women attending, I was there with my husband and our 3-month-old daughter to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jackie’s signing. I will never forget speaking with Rachel Robinson. Although my great-granduncle was controversial at times, Rachel Robinson’s response was immediate and overwhelmingly enthusiastic. “Oh!” she leaned over to me and exclaimed, “Oh, Mr. Rickey, that wonderful man!” And that’s also why I want to pass on to a younger audience the kindness, courage, and conviction of my great-granduncle, Branch Rickey.