Branch Rickey

Branch Rickey, born Wesley Branch Rickey in 1881 at Lucasville in the United States, was an American baseball player, manager and executive who died in Columbia, Missouri, in 1965. He played for the St. Louis Browns and the New York Highlanders between 1905 and 1907, then studied law at the University of Michigan before returning to the Browns in 1914 as an executive. He managed the St. Louis Cardinals from 1919, built the farm system of minor league clubs that developed young players, and later ran the Brooklyn Dodgers, where he signed Jackie Robinson and helped break baseball's color barrier in 1947. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967 as an executive.