Parallel universes and Branch Rickey

January 6, 2012

 

Just a thought.

I’m listening to the audio version of George Vecsey’s Stan Musial: An American Life, narrated by Scott Brick. It brought something to mind.

As every American — baseball fan or not — may know, Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play in the major Leagues (at least in the modern game). He was signed by Branch Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Rickey had also been GM of the St. Louis Cardinals, which pulled many fans from the South. I’m just at the part in Musial where the team may or may not have threatened to strike against the Dodgers, refusing to play on the same field as a black man. So here’s the “what if.”

Vecsey writes that Rickey’s was motivated in signing Robinson by a combination of business savvy and social justice. But would he have made such a bold move had he remained the Cardinals’ GM?

Play It Again: Baseball Experts on What Might Have Been (edited by Jim Bresnahan, McFarland, 2006) addresses this scenario. In an example of how one thing leads to another, the question is posited, what if Dizzy Dean had not suffered a broken toe in 1937. Dean Sullivan, author of the “Innings, A Documentary History of Baseball” series, suggest that had the Hall of Fame pitcher stayed healthy, the Cardinals might have won a few pennants, which in turn would have put Rickey in good stead with his bosses and kept him in St. Louis, where he probably would not have pressed to sign a black player.

Don’t ya just love speculatin’?

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