Rickey, Branch, 1881–1965, American baseball executive, b. Stockdale, Ohio. As manager or executive, he was with the St. Louis Browns (1913–15), the St. Louis Cardinals (1917–42), the Brooklyn Dodgers (1943–50), and the Pittsburgh Pirates (1950–59). He was the first to institute the minor league farm system (1919) and integrated the major leagues by signing (1945) Jackie Robinson to a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
See biographies by M. Polner (1982) and J. Breslin (2011); H. Frommer, Rickey and Robinson (1982).
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