1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,000 This is Retro Sports Radio. Visit RetroSeasons.com for more sports history. 2 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:12,000 Today I'm privileged to have as my guest, Mr. Baseball, Branch Rickey. 3 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:20,000 50 or 100 years from now, my only claim to fame may well be the fact that I was the first Negro to play Major League Baseball. 4 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:23,000 This could never have happened had it not been for Branch Rickey. 5 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:30,000 I'll be talking to Mr. Rickey, the President of the New Continental League, right after this important message. 6 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:35,000 Well, Mr. Rickey, let's talk about the American League. 7 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:42,000 Washington wanted to move their ball club to one of your member teams, Minneapolis, St. Paul area. 8 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:45,000 Did the Major League put the whammy on that move? What happened? 9 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:47,000 We're in the neighborhood of Gossam. 10 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:53,000 I can tell you that my understanding is that Washington itself wanted to move. 11 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:57,000 I had a nice talk with Calvin Griffith, the owner and president of the Washington Club. 12 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:01,000 And Calvin Griffith has a hard road to hoe, and he wanted to move. 13 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,000 The American League would not let him move. 14 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:09,000 If the American League is going to give some of its players, the dregs, the outcasts, the fellows they don't want, to anybody, 15 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:12,000 they would certainly have some moral obligation to Calvin. 16 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:19,000 You talk, Mr. Rickey, as if the expansion of a ninth and tenth team in the league would only have three eighth-place ball clubs 17 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:21,000 rather than one like they have now. 18 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:25,000 They'd have Washington in eighth place, for example. I'd like to see them higher. 19 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:27,000 But suppose they were to finish eighth. 20 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:30,000 The next ones would not be a good ninth or tenth because they wouldn't have any players. 21 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:35,000 You can't get players for a ninth and tenth club in the present American League or the National League. 22 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:37,000 That's the silliness of it. That's the absurdity of it. 23 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:39,000 Well, where does that put the Continental League in? 24 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:41,000 It's what Del Webb said it was. Silly. 25 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:44,000 Silly. All right. Now, where does this put the Continental League? 26 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:49,000 They're looking for four teams if they expand two more. Now, you're looking for eight teams. 27 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:52,000 Yes, we don't get our players to contend with the American League. 28 00:01:52,000 --> 00:02:00,000 It's four years from now and more before we would expect to play the American and National League clubs in a World Series. 29 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:06,000 We are going to play on an equality of talent. We have an equal distribution of players. 30 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:08,000 We play one another during that period. 31 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:16,000 We will produce boys that may steal 60 bases, a 20-game winner in the pitching department, some kid may hit 400. 32 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:21,000 As a matter of fact, our recruitment comes chiefly, I hope, out of the free agency field. 33 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:23,000 And the American and National League know that. 34 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:28,000 And while in their heads, many of them favor us, in their hearts, they fear us. 35 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:33,000 Mr. Rick, if any plans for trying to have a uniformity of ballparks? 36 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:40,000 I think when I was in baseball, many people want to know, why wouldn't a new league, if it starts, try to make all the ball? 37 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:42,000 We are very definite in the extraction of our parks. 38 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:51,000 We are hoping that we'll approximate the same number of feet to the left field and the right field foul-line quarters. 39 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:53,000 I think this would certainly add considerably. 40 00:02:53,000 --> 00:03:02,000 It means more to your, as you well know, it would mean more to your records, to your statistics at the end of the year in judging players. 41 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:06,000 Mr. Ricky, another thing. With Little League flourishing all over the country, 42 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:12,000 don't you think the forming of the Continental League would give great hope to these youngsters who want to get in? 43 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:28,000 It percolates down. It is entirely possible, Jackie, that this game's future lies in the direction of a prevailing number of cities, all major league. 44 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:34,000 179 million people with 20 great cities, three times the population of the ones in the American League, they need it. 45 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:40,000 They ought to have it. They respond to it. And that's an invigorating and an inspiring thing. 46 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:44,000 And while it rehabilitates the minor leagues, it reaches clear on down. 47 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:50,000 Artistically, the high spot in baseball is the major leagues. 48 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:54,000 The amateurs, down to the little leagues, they must be inspired. 49 00:03:54,000 --> 00:04:03,000 And the more we play it, the more we find recreation, re-creation, recreational pursuits for the boyhood of America, 50 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:10,000 the more you attack the juvenile problem, the vacation period in the summertime. 51 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:15,000 This thing of nothing to do is the most damnable thing that can come into a boy's life. 52 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:22,000 They're not creative. You can have great symphonies written by people of leisure, people who are masters of their own time. 53 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:30,000 But you give leisure nothing to do, pure idleness, to people who have no creativeness, and most boys do not at their age. 54 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:32,000 It can be a tragic thing. 55 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:37,000 Well, Mr. Rickey, I just want to say that I think you know how I feel. 56 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:45,000 I sincerely want to say that I hope that God gives you many, many more years of successful effort here in this country of ours. 57 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:54,000 Sure, Robbie, your kind words must be somewhat extravagant because of our long and pleasant personal relationship. 58 00:04:54,000 --> 00:05:18,000 That just about does it for now, fans. See you soon.