Joe L. Brown replaces Branch Rickey, who stepped down as the Pirates’ general manager. During the five-year tenure of ‘Mahatma’, Pittsburgh endured three 100-loss seasons, but his contributions will help lead the team to a World Championship in 1960.
June 1, 1955 In a tryout with the Pirates, a Koufax fastball broke the thumb of his catcher, and Pirate G.M. Branch Rickey (forced out of Brooklyn by Walter O’Malley four years earlier) said Koufax had the greatest arm he had ever seen. By the time the Pirates made their offer, however, Sandy had already…
At Forbes Field, the Pirates become the first team to use protective headgear, a precursor to the batting helmet, that protects the players’ temples. Branch Rickey’s innovation, worn both at the plate and in the field in the Bucs’ twin bill split with Boston, is a plastic hat with a foam layer attached to the hat band.
1951 – Ouch!! Willie Mays’s oft-recalled bare-handed grab of left-handed Rocky Nelson’s screaming opposite field line drive takes place in Forbes Field in the 1st inning of a 5 – 4 Giant loss to Pittsburgh. Mays runs to the left-center corner of the bullpen (also known as Greenberg Gardens, or Kiner’s Corner), about 410 feet from the plate. At the last minute, the wind gets a hold of Nelson’s slicing shot and starts pushing it back towards right. Mays looks up and locates the ball but too late to adjust. As he will recall on June 3, 1957, after robbing Roberto Clemente on a shot to almost the same spot, “I couldn’t get my glove around. So I just stuck my bare hand up and the ball stuck.”
“That was the finest catch I have ever seen, and the finest I ever expect to see” – Pirates GM Branch Rickey, commenting on a catch made by Willie Mays at Forbes Field. At cavernous Forbes Field, Giants’ outfielder Willie Mays, unable to reach across his body to make a catch with his glove of Rocky Nelson’s sinking 457-foot blast to deep center, sticks out his bare right hand and grabs the ball on a full gallop to make the incredible final out of the inning. Venerable Branch Rickey, Pittsburgh’s general manager, sends a note to the New York dugout during the game to tell the 20 year-old rookie, “That was the finest catch I have ever seen, and the finest I ever expect to see.”
1950 – Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Roy Hamey resigns and is replaced by Branch Rickey.
Branch Rickey signs a five-year deal with the Pirates to be the club’s executive vice president and general manager. The ‘Mahatma’s’ magic doesn’t seem to work, as the Bucs will compile a 269-501 record (.349) during his tenure in Pittsburgh.
Walter O’Malley succeeds Branch Rickey as president of the Dodgers. O’Malley, who had offered to buy Rickey’s share of the club to become majority owner, is forced to pay more money when ‘the Mahatma’, in a final act of defiance about being told to leave the organization, offers his share of the team to a friend for a million dollars, a deal the new president believes, but can’t prove, to be as “fraudulent as a four-dollar bill.”
Brooklyn does not renew Branch Rickey’s contract as president of the Dodgers. The ‘Mahatma’ will join the Pirates as the team’s executive vice president and general manager, with his son, Branch Jr., assuming the post of Pittsburgh’s vice president and farm system director.
Ernie Harwell, filling in for Red Barber, who is recovering from a bleeding ulcer, calls his first major league game as the Dodgers beat the Cubs at Ebbets Field, 5-4. To obtain the future Hall of Fame broadcaster, Brooklyn general manager Branch Rickey trades minor league catcher Cliff Daper to the Atlanta Crackers.
Enjoy our free trial and start listening to games, interviews and shows! Ruth, Mantle, Aaron, and Seaver!