Book Review: Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman

Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman

Lee Lowenfish

University of Nebraska Press

683 pp. incl. notes, bibliography and index

It is possible to write a 683 page biograhy of a baseball executive and leave the reader wanting more? Lee Lowenfish convinces me that it can be done.

Lowenfish's biography of baseball executive Branch Rickey is a very well written, exhaustive examination of Rickey's life and times. Covering Rickey from his time as a stern school teacher through his death in 1965, Lowenstein's history follows Rickey on a year by year basis. Accordingly, the book also serves as a history of the National League, which Rickey was a vital part of from when he joined the St. Louis Cardinals in 1919 to his tenure as a Cardinals' consultant in the early 1960s.

Lowenfish does not only discuss Rickey's baseball activities, but his political (Republican) activities and community work as well. In doing so, he shows how Rickey led a vigorous, deeply principled life that was spent in service to family, church, community and baseball. Rickey's philosophy is also discussed at length, and Lowenfish shows how it helped guide him in some of his most important decisions. By taking the time to read and contemplate Rickey's own words, and take them seriously rather than as mere rationalization, Lowenfish is able to paint a vivid picture of a man who was both generous and tight-fisted, fiercely competitive, but who refused to work on Sundays.

As amazing as it is, there are still questions that Lowenfish doesn't fully answer. Was Rickey really tight fisted or does he come off looking worse than other parsimonious executives due to his own financial success? There's a great history PhD thesis to be written in settling the question of whether Rickey was really the "tightwad" he was portrayed or whether he appeared that way because his lack of financial charity at contract time seemed to contrast with the Christian principles he espoused on Sunday.

My own sense is that Rickey was probably even tighter with the dollar than other executives generally, but I think part of this was due to Rickey's sense of morality. It wasn't, after all, his own money he was paying players (as it was, for example, Connie Mack's). If he paid a player more than he needed to retain his services, Rickey was failing in his duty to the team's owners. Such would have been seen as a failure of duty by the devout Calvinist. We may disagree, but Rickey was being true to his convictions - not contradicting them.

Another unresolved question is how to measure Rickey's contributions to the Dodgers and Pirates championships. Rickey was with both teams for several years, but left before they won the World Series. I would have liked to have seen Lowenfish assess to what degree they were the residue of Rickey's earlier activities before he left. I would have also liked to have had a better idea of what Rickey contributed (if anything) to the Cardinals' 1964 World Championship. In his book on the 1964 season, David Halberstam portarys Rickey as an over the hill medler. It would be interesting to hearing Lowenfish's take.

(Note: Lowenfish DOES answer the question on Rickey and Pittsburgh in an interview, which can be accessed at the link below):

in the long view of history (which is the hat as a historian I am proud to wear), his work in Pittsburgh established the nucleus of the 1960 World Series champion. He and his scouts plucked relief ace Roy Face from the Dodger farm system in 1952, the same year he signed shortstop Dick Groat out of Duke. His scouts signed Bill Mazeroski and Bob Skinner, and of course, most famously, they plucked Roberto Clemente out of the Dodger system after 1954.

These are fairly minor quibbles, though. This is an extraordinarily fine book about an extraordinary man, and a must read for all serious lovers of baseball history.

Rating: **** (worth buying new)

Purchasing information: Available from the publisher directly or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

For an interview with Lowenfish, see this AmericanHeritage.com interview.