If it hadn't been Branch Rickey, it would have been somebody. Maybe Bill Veeck.

The other half of baseball's morality play is Branch Rickey, that without Branch Rickey baseball would not have integrated.  As with Jackie Robinson, somebody would have done it.

Branch Rickey 1912 cropped from
1913 Michigan baseball team portrait
first published in the 1913 Michiganensian
p. 230 via Wikimedia Commons

Branch Rickey was general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers 1943-1950.  Rickey signed Robinson August 8, 1945 and Robinson played his first Dodger game April 15, 1947.  The rest as they say is sort of history.

Bill Veeck became owner of the Cleveland Indians in 1946.  July 5, 1947 Larry Doby played for Cleveland becoming the first black player in the American League three months after Robinson had broken the color line.

As early as 1942 Veeck had been interested in buying the Philadelphia Phillies.  You can read elsewhere about whether or not Veeck would have integrated the Phillies before Rickey did so with the Dodgers.

Don Newcombe on Jackie Robinson: "If he hadn't been first, some other guy would have been."  Thursday, June 5, 2014

What if Leo Durocher had managed Jackie Robinson in 1947?  Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Tags: Don Newcombe, Leo Durocher