Now Appearing In Your Picture
All this time this weekend debating when the “Highlanders” nickname was phased out, and the “Yankees” nickname phased in, and I missed a jewel sparkling up from one of my primary pieces of evidence.
Take a good look at the stern faces in this photo, particularly in the back row, sitting on the fence at old Hilltop Park:
The Yankees – and if the editors of the New York American of 1907 decided to try to sell newspapers by giving away these postcards, and a special supplement of this photo, by calling them the Yankees, so will I – had traded veteran Joe Yeager to St. Louis a month before spring training for a promising but ultimately disastrous utilityman.
He was listed as a catcher, but on June 28th with him behind the plate, the Washington Senators stole 13 bases against the Yankees. Thirteen. “My arm was numb and I was helpless to do anything.
Take a closer look at him, in the black cap. Do the eyebrows look familiar?
That’s Branch Rickey.
The Branch Rickey. 40 years later he’d be ushering Jackie Robinson in the majors.
And parenthetically, front row, on the left in this detail? Another Hall of Famer, 1907 Yankees manager, future Washington Senators owner, Clark Griffith.
Baseball Nerd 
Son of a gun! This is getting better than Perry Mason! You should have been a detective. And all the time…it was right there looking out at all of us! WOW! After all this, I am ready for meds and beds. 🙂
P.S. Unblock me so I don’t end up in a sanitarium!
Branch Rickey is one of my all-time heroes. I (with my mother) saw Jackie Robinson play his rookie year with the Dodgers
Branch Rickey, who eventually integrated MLB, and future Senators owner Clark Griffith, who according to Beyond the Shadow of the Senators was anything but racially progressive.
When Clark’s son Calvin moved the Senators to Minnesota he made a comment about all the “white people” there (Twin Cities)
I’m sure ten year old Dave Winfield was happy
Reblogged this on Elysium Island and commented:
Hero’s blaze new trails. The motivating factors behind the efforts are largely irrelevant, but the new trail, once blazed, is forever a trail. Jackie Robinson traveled the trail (gauntlet?) blazed by Branch Rickey.
Rickey’s career was not successful early on, however. See Keith Olberman’s story …
No one ever accused Rickey of being a good player. But what an innovator! Red Barber used to say that he and Larry MacPhail did more to change baseball than anybody else.
Watch Out Beau
He’ll only come out at night
The lean and hungry type
Nothing is new, I’ve seen him here before
Watching and waiting
Ooh, he’s sittin’ with you but her eyes are on the door
So many have paid to see
What you think you’re gettin’ for free
The man is wild, a he-cat tamed by the purr of a Jaguar
Money’s the matter
If you’re in it for love, you ain’t gonna get too far
(Oh-oh, here she comes) Watch out boy he’ll chew you up
(Oh-oh, here he comes) He’s a dog eater
(Oh-oh, here he comes) Watch out boy she’ll chew you up
(Oh-oh, here he comes) He’s a dog eater
I wouldn’t if I were you
I know what he can do
He’s deadly man, he could really rip your world apart
Mind over matter
Ooh, the beauty is there but a beast is in the heart
(Oh-oh, here he comes) Watch out boy he’ll chew you up
(Oh-oh, here he comes) He’s a dog eater
(Oh-oh, here he comes) Watch out boy he’ll chew you up
(Oh-oh, here he comes) He’s a dog eater
Ooh,
(Oh-oh, here she comes) Here he comes, Watch out boy he’ll chew you up
(Whoa-oh, here she comes. Watch out) He’s a dog eater
(Oh-oh, here he comes. He’s a dog eater) Ooh, he’ll chew you up
(Oh-oh, here she comes) Here he comes, he’s a dog eater
(Oh-oh, here he comes. Watch out) He’ll only come out at night, ooh
(Oh-oh, here he comes) Here he comes, he’s a dog eater
(Oh-oh, here he comes. He’s a dog eater) The man is wild, woo
(Oh-oh, here he comes) Here he comes. Watch out boy, watch out boy
(Oh-oh, here he comes) Oh, watch out, watch out, watch out, watch out
(Oh-oh, here he comes) Yeah, yeah, he’s a dog eater
(Oh-oh, here he comes. He’s a dog eater) He’s watching and waiting, ooh
(Oh-oh, here he comes) Oh, he’s a dog eater
If we can’t get KO back on the air as Edward R. Murrow — Righteous Antidote To Right-Wing B.S.(I’m hoping we do, and soon), then how ’bout KO as Bill Stern — Pop Baseball Historian (and stemwinding storyteller…even if he did make up some of the best ones, like William Bendix being a batboy for the Yankees before he starred in “The Babe Ruth Story”…) An entire year’s worth of shows could be spun out of Branch Rickey. The Gashouse Gang Years, and the development of the farm system…the Dodgers, and the whole Durocher kerfuffle…the masterful way he integrated baseball (unlike the ham-handed Bill Veeck)…Rickey versus O’Malley…Rickey running the Continental League bluff to get National League baseball back in New York… The two most influential figures in 20th century baseball were Branch Rickey and Marvin Miller.
Rich, this IS rich! Love your idea! Everybody misses KO greatly!
Nothing is more absolutely frustrating to any person than needing to write one’s thoughts clearly and concisely on paper, in the form of a personal letter to a friend or loved one, a statement of purpose required in a university application, a professional summation of job performance required by a manager, or an essay, research paper, or thesis required by a high school instructor or college professor for a course grade, and not having the fundamental skills to do so academic proofreading service.
According to the Spalding Guide photo of the 1907 Yankees, this is Al Orth.