Branch Rickey Quotes

United States, Baseball Player
December 20, 1881 – December, 9, 1965.

Wesley Branch Rickey was an American baseball player and sports executive. He was perhaps best known for breaking Major League Baseball's color barriers by signing black player Jackie Robinson, as well as for creating the framework for the modern minor league farm system, for encouraging the Major Leagues to add new teams through his involvement in the proposed Continental League, and for introducing the batting helmet. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967, two years after his death.

Leisure is the handmaiden of the devil.

Branch Rickey
- Devil
Baseball is a game of inches.

Branch Rickey
- Game
- Baseball

Trade a player a year too early rather than a year too late.

Branch Rickey
- Player
Problems are the price you pay for progress.

Branch Rickey
- Progress
If things don't come easy, there is no premium on effort. There should be joy in the chase, zest in the pursuit.

Branch Rickey
- Joy
- Effort
I find fault with my children because I like them and I want them to go places - uprightness and strength and courage and civil respect and anything that affects the probabilities of failure on the part of those that are closest to me, that concerns me - I find fault.

Branch Rickey
- Children
- Respect
- Failure
A full mind is an empty bat.

Branch Rickey
- Mind
All I had was natural ability.

Branch Rickey

Never surrender opportunity for security.

Branch Rickey
- Opportunity
A great ballplayer is a player who will take a chance.

Branch Rickey
- Great
- Player
Baseball people, and that includes myself, are slow to change and accept new ideas. I remember that it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms.

Branch Rickey
- People
- Remember
- Baseball
Baseball people are generally allergic to new ideas; it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms, and it is the hardest thing in the world to get Major League Baseball to change anything-even spikes on a new pair of shoes-but they will eventually...they are bound to.

Branch Rickey
- People
- World
- Baseball
Cobb lived off the field as though he wished to live forever. He lived on the field as though it was his last day.

Branch Rickey
- Live
- Forever
The greatest untapped reservoir of raw material in the history of our game is the black race.

Branch Rickey
- History
- Game
- Black

Ethnic prejudice has no place in sports, and baseball must recognize that truth if it is to maintain stature as a national game.

Branch Rickey
- Truth
- Game
- Sports
I don't care if I was a ditch-digger at a dollar a day, I'd want to do my job better than the fellow next to me. I'd want to be the best at whatever I do.

Branch Rickey
- Job
Thinking about the devil is worse than seeing the devil.

Branch Rickey
- Thinking
- Devil
Only in baseball can a team player be a pure individualist first and a team player second, within the rules and spirit of the game.

Branch Rickey
- Game
- Team
- Player
It is not the honor that you take with you, but the heritage you leave behind.

Branch Rickey
- Honor
The man with the ball is responsible for what happens to the ball.

Branch Rickey

How to use your leisure time is the biggest problem of a ballplayer.

Branch Rickey
- Time
Luck is the residue of design.

Branch Rickey
- Design
- Luck
Thou shalt not steal. I mean defensively. On offense, indeed thou shall steal and thou must.

Branch Rickey