In a career that spanned multiple generations and multiple revolutionary changes in baseball, Branch Rickey was always looking to innovate.
A conservative and religious man who notably refused to participate in Sunday ball games as a player and a manager, Rickey was anything but traditional in the way he approached baseball as an executive. He invented the modern farm system and the batting helmet, was an advocate for expansion into new markets and most notably broke the color barrier when he brought Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
