Baseball's Needed Change Essay

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RUNNING HEADING: BASEBALL’S NEEDED CHANGE 1

Baseball’s Needed Change

Nandi I. Murfik

The University of Memphis

BASEBALL’S NEEDED CHANGE 2
Baseball’s Needed Change
Branch Rickey was often referred to as “The Deacon or Mahatma” of baseball, he was born in Ohio December 20th, 1881 and expired on December 9th, 1965. He was known to be very articulate and was politically and socially conservative. Rickey was a former baseball player who landed several different managing positions for the St. Louis Browns and Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, and the legendary Brooklyn Dodgers of …show more content…

A farm system is composed of several teams affiliated with a single Major League Baseball team. The teams of the farm system are apportioned into divisions of “Rookie” to “Triple A.” The expectation of the farm system is to allow baseball clubs to train their talent and to control the destination of that talent, by either trading valuable prospects for skilled Major League players from other teams or by moving players from the farm team up through the ranks into the Major League. A perfect example of how a farm team operates and controls its talent revisits the period when Jackie Robinson played for the farm team the Montreal Royals who were affiliated with the Brooklyn Dodgers in which he was later traded to play as the first black player of the 20th century. This exchange was the beginning of breaking down baseball’s color …show more content…

On April 15th, 1947 Robinson makes his debuts with the Brooklyn Dodgers starting at first base on Ebbets Field. Sporting News named Robinson as Rookie-Of-The-Year in 1947. Jackie Robinson led the National League in stolen bases and led the Dodgers in homers. Seemingly overnight the Brooklyn Dodgers became black America’s team consequently the attendance at Ebbets Field began to increase. Robinson played about ten seasons with the Dodgers franchise from 1947-1956 (baseballrefernce.com). Mr. Robinson perished in 1972 at the age of 53. His jersey number 42 is the only number to be retired across the entire baseball league in April of 1997, the 50th anniversary of his first game with the Brooklyn

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