The Machine He Built

Branch Rickey spent eight years building the Brooklyn farm system. Which meant he also knew exactly where its seams were.

The bonus rule of 1954 was unforgiving. Sign a young player for more than $4,000 and you either carried him on your major league roster all season or left him exposed in the winter draft. Brooklyn signed a nineteen-year-old outfielder from Carolina, Puerto Rico, and sent him to Montreal anyway. He came to the plate 148 times in a 154-game season. Benched after three-hit games. Started against left-handers, then not.

Rickey, by then running a Pittsburgh club headed for 101 losses, sent Clyde Sukeforth to look at a Montreal pitcher named Joe Black. Sukeforth was the same scout Rickey had sent to find Jackie Robinson nine years earlier. He came back talking about the right fielder. On November 22, 1954, the Pirates used the first pick in the draft and paid $4,000 for Roberto Clemente.

Historians still argue about whether Montreal was really hiding him, since half the scouts in the International League knew his name. That argument misses the better story. Rickey's advantage was not a secret. It was memory. He had built the machine, so he knew what it did with players it could not find room for, and he knew which city it sent them to.