More than 75 years ago, Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey made history for the Brooklyn Dodgers by breaking baseball’s “color line.” But today’s Los Angeles Dodgers are making a different kind of history by honoring men who put on nuns’ habits in order to mock the Catholic Church. The devoutly Christian Robinson and Rickey must be spinning in their graves.
Branch Rickey must be turning over in his grave. One can only wonder what his spin rate might be. It’s probably so rapid that he will soon be propelled right out of his casket, thereby assuring that his exit velocity will defy all measurement.
Spin rate? Dodger hurler Don Newcombe would not have known what to make of such a term. Might it have had something to do with calculating the effectiveness of explaining that day’s outing to the press?
Exit velocity? Dodger slugger Duke Snider might be excused for thinking it must have something to do with how quickly a player could leave a post-game watering hole and still make bed check. And yet both of these tech driven yardsticks are now key performance measurements for major league pitchers and hitters.
Sometimes slowly and sometimes grudgingly, that staid old game of baseball does make changes. On the field or off the field, in one way or another, the game is always evolving in, oh, so many surprising ways.
One of the most significant changes, arguably the most significant change, took place seventy-six years ago this summer when what has been called baseball’s “great experiment” was finally underway. That, of course, would be the breaking of baseball’s “color line,” as it was called, when Jackie Robinson made his debut as a Brooklyn Dodger.
First a first baseman and soon a permanent fixture at second, Robinson was always a man of supreme courage, both on and off the field. But the fact that he was on the Dodger roster—and somewhere on a major league diamond—was also attributable to the courage and vision of the team’s general manager, Branch Rickey.
Known to his players—and not always affectionately—as “Mr. Rickey,” Wesley Branch Rickey took over as Dodger general manager near the onset of the American entry into World War II.
Wesley? Named for John Wesley, founding father of Methodism, Rickey was determined to do what he hadn’t been able to do during his long tenure with the St. Louis Cardinals, then the southern-most major league team.
Good Methodist that he was, Rickey wanted to right what syndicated columnist Westbrook Pegler called the “craziest wrong in America.” Both men were conservative Republicans who knew that it was well past time to de-segregate the national game.
Rickey moved slowly, but not grudgingly. He sent scouts around the country to look for just the right fellow. That meant a search not just for a great baseball player, but for someone of solid character and even temper. He also dispatched himself to lecture Dodger fans, white and black, throughout the borough about how he expected them to behave at Ebbets Field. Lastly, he stroked and re-stroked the considerable ego of Dodger owner, the Irish Catholic Walter O’Malley.
Once there was agreement that Robinson was the man, Rickey then wanted to lecture—and interrogate—him. The major concern of the Dodger boss was Robinson’s temper. No matter what happened, on or off the field, Robinson was repeatedly told to take everything thrown at him, literally and figuratively, without ever fighting back. Rickey had to make sure that he had the right man; otherwise integrating the game might be stalled by many more decades.
Having heard Rickey pontificate in his book-strewn office, Robinson subsequently did his best to follow Rickey’s orders. He soon proved to be a great ballplayer as well. And the rest is history, including a first-ever Dodgers World Series win in 1955.
Among the many volumes staring back at Robinson during their historic meeting was Italian author Giovanni Papini’s The Life of Christ. Rickey was a serious Christian, who was no less serious about winning baseball games and making money. More than that, he saw nothing contradictory about pursuing all three simultaneously.
In all likelihood, Branch Rickey was pleased to learn that Jackie Robinson was not just a serious Christian as well, but that he was not under contract with the Negro League Kansas City Monarchs. He just played and was paid “day by day.” That was music to Rickey’s ears, since he would not be obligated to pay anything to the owner of the Monarchs for Robinson’s services. And he didn’t.
Together, Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey went on to make history with and for the Brooklyn Dodgers (although Rickey would be forced out of Brooklyn by O’Malley following the 1950 season). Originally named for the “trolley dodgers” on the streets of Brooklyn, today’s Los Angeles Dodgers are making a different kind of history, while trying to dodge verbal brickbats being hurled at them from many quarters and directions.
At issue is neither the team’s won-loss record nor any sort of player signing, whether controversial or historic or both. It’s nothing so ordinary as anything as ordinary as any of that.
The issue being dodged at the moment concerns something called “pride night” at Dodger Stadium. Were he alive, Mr. Rickey would surely understand and approve. It must mean eagle scouts and their families at the ball game. Or maybe recent college graduates or the recognition of some other accomplishment of more than minor note.
Told that this pride night had nothing to do with anything like any of that, Mr. Rickey would not understand, but he might not object. After all, more seats in the stands means more money in the bank. And what could possibly be wrong with—or even troublesome about—that?
Then told that among the featured prideful were nuns Rickey must have been completely relieved—until learning what the Sister of Perpetual Indulgence were really all about. Who dreamed this one up? What careful planning and thoughtful preparation had gone into this decision?
The team is going to honor men who put on nuns’ habits in order to mock the Catholic Church? Is this the right way and the right group to advance a cause? Whose good idea was this? The incoming fire was immediate.
The Dodgers attempt to dodge the rhetorical bullets heading their way included a decision to dis-invite the “nuns.” At least that was their strategy until they had to dodge the next incoming round, which led them to re-invite the same “nuns.” Then came the ultimate dodge in the form of a non-apology apology, or should that be a nun-apology apology—to all concerned.
Given all of that, Wesley Branch Rickey must be spinning wildly in his grave. His Dodgers have managed to make history by offending Catholics specifically and Christians generally, while at the same time doing nothing to improve the product on the field and everything to cut into that ever important and never-to-be-ignored bottom line. It’s a perfect storm that could only be avoided by a rain out.
Author John C. “Chuck” Chalberg has long performed a one-man show as Branch Rickey. He is also the author of Rickey and Robinson: The Preacher, the Payer and America’s Game.
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The featured image (detail) is a lobby card promoting the motion picture, “The Jackie Robinson Story”. (Actor Minor Watson as Dodgers president Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson as himself, circa 1950). This file is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.