Chihuahuas Chatter presented by Budweiser Select Features Pacific Coast League President Branch Rickey
Pacific Coast League (PCL) President Branch Rickey has had to navigate PCL through the ever changing landscape that is the COVID-19 pandemic; He will appear on Chihuahuas Chatter presented by Budweiser Select on Thursday, July 30 at 4 p.m. MDT, hosted by the voice of the Chihuahuas Tim Hagerty. “Even
Pacific Coast League (PCL) President Branch Rickey has had to navigate PCL through the ever changing landscape that is the COVID-19 pandemic; He will appear on Chihuahuas Chatter presented by Budweiser Select on Thursday, July 30 at 4 p.m. MDT, hosted by the voice of the Chihuahuas Tim Hagerty.
“Even in the absence of games it’s been hectic,” said Rickey in his pre-taped interview. “The thing we do so well is handle the routine. As the routine has been entirely disrupted, the search for how to try and reestablish the normalcy has been reaching out into chaos to grab things to pull out to try to find out how we’re going to restabilize ourselves.”
Branch Rickey has been the President of the PCL since 1998 after spending seven years as President of the American Association, another Triple-A level league.
Rickey has a long family history of baseball. Most notably, his grandfather, Branch Rickey Sr. is known for being the Brooklyn Dodgers executive who signed Jackie Robinson in 1947 – known now as breaking the color barrier, a historic event in both baseball and American history.
“Hard to capture [what he was like in person],” says Rickey when speaking about his grandfather. “Everything that was my grandfather he was much larger than life, an inspiration and certainly invigorating to be around.”
Both his father and grandfather were lifelong Major League Baseball executives, including with the Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers, and Pittsburgh Pirates.
Rickey himself aimed to do the same. At just 17 years of age, days after graduating high school, he was asked by the Pirates to, and subsequently became, the General Manager of the Rookie-Level affiliate of the Pirates in Kingsport, Tennessee. He did this for three years in-between attending Ohio Wesleyan University where he majored in Philosophy.
“It was a wonderful entry into minor league baseball. I treasure it deeply.”
Throughout his career, he worked for both the Pirates and Cincinnati Reds, including serving as Farm Director and a scout for both at various times.
How he got his start was working in the Pittsburgh front office as a summer job while in high school, predating his first job as a minor league general manager.
“I was an office boy where I’d go to the ballpark in Pittsburgh where my first routine of the day was picking up the mail from the post office, sorting it and delivering it to the various departments. I’d go to the White Castle and pickup coffee [for everyone in the office]. There’d be some days where I would be the catcher for a rehabbing pitcher. Just various sorted routines as an office boy.”
But at the end of the day, he still enjoys Triple-A baseball the most.
“I have relished every role I’ve been in baseball. I don’t think there’s a single routine that I would change. Certainly the involvement as a league President on the Triple-A level is the one I’ve come to relish the most.”
In his interview, Rickey also talks more about dealing with COVID-19 and minor league baseball, his family relationship with baseball history and Jackie Robinson, the twists and turns of his own career, and much more. You can catch Branch Rickey on Chihuahuas Chatter presented by Budweiser Select on Thursday, July 30 at 4 p.m. MDT, hosted by the voice of the Chihuahuas Tim Hagerty.
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