Branch Rickey, MLB: Swindlers, Not Saviors Of Black Baseball

Like much of American History, MLB’s integration story has always been presented as an overwhelming success. We all know how it went. For more than half a century, the now-infamous “unwritten rules” of baseball forbade major league ball clubs from employing Black players. Then, with the wisdom of Branch Rickey and the courage of INF Jackie Robinson, the history of America and our national pastime changed forever. It was no longer a story of oppression, but a story of equality; a story of America. Yet, if you don’t roll by like an army of steamrollers — and you actually look in-depth at the integration of baseball — you’ll find that its story is not one of overwhelming success. Instead, it is a story of piracy, greed and supremacy.

Although the impressive history of the Negro Leagues goes back to 1920, the story of integration began to play out at the onset of World War II. Prior to, and throughout the war, the Negro Leagues were booming in business and in talent. The Newark Eagles, who were not even the most successful club in the league, grossed over $61,000 in the 1941 season — currently equivalent to over a million dollars. Even more bonkers is that the 1976 World Series-winning New York Yankees reported a net income of $230,000. Based on inflation, this is less than the reported earnings of the 1941 Eagles. In 1942, the summer after America entered the war, the Negro Leagues reported an attendance of over 3 million fans. By 1945, as the war was coming to a close, attendance continued to be solid — as evidenced by the attendance of 101,818 fans in nine weeknight Negro League games at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park. In comparison, Philadelphia’s two major league clubs drew just 773,020 fans combined for the entire season. Despite Jim Crow, despite segregation, despite the back-breaking weight of over 300 years of oppression, Black Americans had created a league that rivaled MLB in talent, earnings and attendance. 

However, even with the shimmering success of the Negro Leagues throughout the war era, one small signature had owners begin to fear that “The future of Negro Baseball was in question.” The signature in question — that of Robinson. Negro League owners were in a frenzy to ensure that some compensation be made to the Negro Leagues for the signing of Robinson, but it never came. The precedent had been set, and the onslaught of predatorial signings of Negro League players followed. 

The Negro Leagues were in a precarious situation. If they fought the signing of Jackie Robinson, they would appear to be hypocritical to the desegregation of professional baseball. If they didn’t fight it, they were ensuring the destruction of their own wealth and business. Acknowledging the daunting situation they were in, the leagues held a meeting to discuss how they would stop “Organized white baseball from raiding organized Negro Baseball.”

In this meeting they decided their best route forward was to work toward admission into the major leagues. They adopted uniform contracts and the same constitution as white, organized baseball in order to appease leaders of the major leagues. Then-MLB commissioner Happy Chandler even expressed that if the Negro Leagues become more well-organized, they could apply to be a part of a system of organized baseball that placed the Black major and minor leagues under the commissioner’s jurisdiction, alongside the white major and minor leagues.

Over the next couple of seasons, the Negro Leagues worked tirelessly to become better organized and prove themselves to be a valuable extension to white organized baseball. However, despite their off-field efforts, the financial gains the league had made in the previous six years had all but evaporated in the 1947 season — the year Robinson broke into the bigs. 

On top of the disheartening on-field results of the Negro League’s 1947 season, MLB continued to cut oxygen to any ashes that could provide a glimmer of hope for the Negro Leagues. In a letter written in response to the application of the Negro Leagues into organized baseball, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues stated, “The committee was of the opinion that it would be impossible to do anything with these applications at this time.” Additionally, charges were pushed by Negro League owners against major league ball clubs for pursuing their players. However, the person they were presenting these charges to happened to be Chandler himself. Unsurprisingly, he found no basis for their arguments and established that Branch Rickey and other owners were more than welcome to prey on Negro League ball clubs without giving money in exchange for players.

Despite all of the moves white organized baseball had taken to benefit themselves at the expense of the Negro Leagues, John Johnson, the president of the National Negro Leagues, held his tongue because he understood his voice could jeopardize the opportunities of players within the Negro Leagues. Finally, on February 23, 1948, he spoke out. In his statement, he outlined the brutal two-year period of broken promises by organized baseball. He cited the promises of Larry MacPhail, the owner of the Yankees, who submitted a written statement in September 1945 that stated he would support admitting the Negro Leagues to organized baseball “If and when the Negro Leagues put their house in order — establish themselves on a sound and ethical operations basis — and conform to the standards of organized baseball.” 

Sadly, the Negro Leagues did exactly what was asked of them. But while organized baseball told them to get their house in order, they took away all of their appliances, gutted their infrastructure and left them with mere scraps. Then, MLB had the gall to use the Negro League’s failures as evidence that they were unworthy.

“At this point, it hardly mattered who the real villain was,” SABR writer Doron Goldman wrote. “MacPhail for suggesting a false pathway to major-league recognition in September 1945; Chandler for reinforcing that possibility in a meeting with the [Negro National League] and [Negro American League] presidents on January 17, 1946; National League attorney Louis Carroll for suggesting that there was still some purpose to continuing to apply for recognition when he met with NNL officials on September 26, 1946; or Branch Rickey for setting the precedent for denying that the Negro Leagues were sufficiently organized to deserve compensation when he signed Jackie Robinson on October 23, 1945.”

The problem was not Rickey. We can never know what was in his heart. Robinson spoke openly and excessively about how much he respected and loved Rickey, and we can’t strip that from him. Rickey also did what no other owner was willing to do at that time, and he deserves credit for that. However, Rickey still had faults like all of us. It just so happens that his faults were fatal to the Negro Leagues. He believed in the potential of Black individuals, but he did not believe in the potential of the Black community. That is why he called the Negro Leagues a racket, despite all the evidence to the contrary. This sort of racism was accepted at the time and still is decades later. It causes — and casts a veil over — the systemic problems of our society.

Finally, what is clear from Goldman’s statement is that it wasn’t one person working to take advantage of the Negro Leagues; it was an entire organization that was doing all of this in the name of equality and opportunity for African Americans. This is why it is so easy to paint this picture so brightly. There is not one scapegoat or villain. Instead, it is a whole system that works quietly to promote one society over another. This systematic racism is not just representative of organized baseball, but it is also emblematic of centuries of American history.