Pittsburgh Pirates History: Tribute to Branch Rickey's Impact on the Game

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Today marks Branch Rickey's birthday, so I want to pay tribute by looking at his meteoric impact on the Pittsburgh Pirates and baseball as a whole

Today would have been Branch Rickey’s 141st birthday. The baseball revolutionist is the most influential humans to the sport. Many of the innovations in the sport can be traced back to Rickey’s initiative. Today, I want to pay tribute to Rickey and explain how he is the true creator of Moneyball.

Rickey was born on December 20, 1881, in Portsmouth, Ohio. Rickey lived with his parents, along with his brother and sister Frank and Orla. Rickey would attend both Ohio Wesleyan University and the University of Michigan and served in the United States Military in 1917 and 1918.

Rickey had already started his professional sports in 1902, as he was a member of the Shelby Blues of the Ohio League (the predecessor to the NFL). However, he would get his start in professional baseball in 1903, and by 1904, he had signed with the Cincinnati Reds.

Rickey’s career in Major League Baseball was short-lived, as he only appeared in 120 games from 1905 to 1914 (he did not play from ‘07-’13). He was what many would now consider a utility man. He saw time behind the plate, at first base, and in both corner outfield positions. But in 1913, he would take over a head-coach role for the St. Louis Browns/Cardinals and served in that position for the next ten seasons (except for when he was in the military).

At the same time as he was the manager for the Browns/Cardinals, he was also their general manager. Rickey would eventually move into just a General Manager role after 1925 and remained with St. Louis until 1942. After ‘42, he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers from ‘43-’50, where he made the legendary signing of Jackie Robinson and demolished baseball’s color barrier, and then joined the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1950 through 1955.

Rickey would go on to live until December 9, 1965, at the age of 83 years old. Two years later, the veteran’s committee elected Rickey into the Baseball Hall of Fame, going down as one of the most historic men in baseball ever, at the professional level and amateur level.

Why Rickey is the True Creator of Moneyball

Detractors and proponents of the idea greatly misunderstand the concept of Moneyball. It’s not about advanced statistics or on-base percentage but rather taking advantage of market inefficiencies and building the most efficient baseball team. When the 2002 Oakland Athletics and Brad Pitt in 2011 made the concept famous, on-base percentage and more telling stats just happened to be the things that were not being taken advantage of by teams at the time. To put it simply, Moneyball is about innovation, and Rickey embodied innovation.

Rickey is most known for signing Jackie Robinson and breaking the color barrier in America’s Past Time in an America that was still divided by Jim Crow laws. Many legendary baseball players like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Frank Thomas, Ken Griffey Jr., and Tony Gwynn, as well as stars of today like Andrew McCutchen, Mookie Betts, Tim Anderson, and Lorenzo Cain, have Rickey and Robinson to thank for being able to play Major League Baseball.

You could argue that this was an innovation of itself from Rickey. An entire league of extremely talented baseball players was held back by the racist views of the time. Rickey broke the social and political norms of baseball and the United States, signing Jackie. After Robinson joined the Dodgers in 1947, Cleveland would then sign Larry Doby, who was the first African American in the American League. Rickey’s former team, the St. Louis Browns, would then sign two African American players named Hank Thompson and Willard Brown the same year.

A massive innovation he introduced to baseball was the farm system. Rickey ran into the same issues faced by low-budget teams of today. Minor league players were auctioned off to the highest bidder, and the Browns/Cardinals were what you would consider a small market. In 1919, Rickey started to plan player development, and when Sam Breadon bought St. Louis, Rickey would have the financial resources to put his plan into motion.

Rickey would use his new-found resources to buy 18% of the Houston Buffalos of the Texas League. Then he would buy out Fort Smith of the Western Association. The Cardinals then would hold sponsor tryout camps to fill the rosters of the now-affiliated minor league teams. Before this, the minor leagues worked more like independent league teams, as players were not bound to a single team. Just six years after Rickey put his plan into full swing, the Cardinals would win the World Series, thanks to players like Ray Blades, Heinie Mueller, and Jim Bottomley, who were the first players Rickey had signed to develop back in 1920.

While Moneyball isn’t about on-base percentage, the stat has its roots planted in Branch Rickey’s history. Rickey, alongside Allan Roth, were the creators of the statistic. Allan Roth had worked as a salesman and writer for the National Hockey League as he used his knowledge of hockey statistics in articles for the NHL. Roth had previously written letters to the Dodgers’ president at the time, Larry MacPhail, with little to no success, which is when he turned his attention to hockey.

However, in 1947, Roth had convinced Rickey of the importance of statistics and was hired for a $5,000 salary (equivalent to about $66,800 today). Rickey hired Roth to record statistics for the Montreal Royals, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ minor league team. Rickey was receptive to Roth’s ideas of on-base percentage and situational statistics (such as splits vs. LHP/RHP and RBI percentage). In 1948, Roth pointed out to Rickey how well Robinson performed when he came to the plate with runners in scoring position but only received 301 plate appearances with men on base. The Dodgers then moved Robinson down in the order from the two-hole to the clean-up spot, and he recorded 398 plate appearances with men on and helped the Dodgers score 30 more runs from ‘47 to ‘48.

Sandy Koufax also has Roth to thank for his success. In 1961, Roth noted to Koufax that the lefty was more effective against righties than lefties. Koufax, with this knowledge, changed his curveball grip to be more effective against same-handed hitting. Koufax lowered his ERA the next season by nearly a whole run from 3.52 to 2.54. After ‘61, Koufax became much more receptive to Roth’s work, going so far as to state to Allan’s son Michael “I learned more about this game from your dad than I ever learned playing it.” Coincidentally, ‘62 was the first of five straight seasons where Koufax would lead the league in ERA and post a sub-2.00 ERA three times. The Dodgers also ranked 1st or 2nd in the NL in 14 of Roth’s 18 seasons with the Dodgers and won three World Series rings.

Although Branch Rickey didn’t invent Spring Training, he was the man who completely revolutionized pre-season. After buying a military base in Vero, Florida, in 1948, he would run players through innovative exercises, sliding training in sand pits, batting cages, and pitch machines. It was also a way for Rickey and his coaches to perform player evaluations. Many of baseball’s standard equipment became popular here, like batting helmets and the aforementioned pitch machines and batting cages.

Branch Rickey’s Impact on the Pittsburgh Pirates

Branch Rickey only spent five seasons in the Pittsburgh Pirates franchise, but his impact on the franchise as a whole is massive. For one, the most legendary player in the Pirates’ history and arguably the sport’s history is responsible for his major league career because of Rickey.

In 1954, Rickey went into the Rule 5 Draft and selected a young Puerto Rican outfielder from his former team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. That player was Roberto Clemente. You know the rest of the story from there. Clemente would go on to have an astounding Hall Of Fame career, reaching the 3000 hit club, going to the All-star game 15 times, taking home two World Series rings, an MVP award, and 15 Gold Gloves until his untimely death at just 38 years old while delivering supplies to Nicaragua, which a massive earthquake had recently hit.

Aside from Clemente, Rickey had signed a handful of players that would eventually go on to be key players in the Pirates’ 1960 World Series winning team. Those included infielders Dick Groat, Dick Stuart, Bill Mazeroski, and pitchers Roy Face and Bob Friend.

The 1953 Pirates were also the first team to adopt batting helmets permanently. As we talked about earlier, this was an innovation that Rickey was already using in Spring Training during his time with the Dodgers. The helmets at this time were fairly primitive, being described as ‘fiberglass miner helmets.’ Rickey had owned stock in the company that sold the helmets but mandated players to wear the helmets, both when taking the field and stepping to the plate. Rickey’s mandate has saved many players from potentially life-altering head injuries throughout baseball, especially today, considering how hard pitchers throw.

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Overall, Rickey was baseball’s most influential person. From the advancement of minor league systems, the innovations of equipment that isn’t given a second thought today, and advanced statistics, as well as the color barrier, everything in modern-day baseball almost has some Branch Rickey tied to it. Rickey may have long since passed away, but his contributions to the game he made have changed the way we play it and for the better.

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