December 9, 1965, 60 years ago: Branch Rickey, baseball's greatest executive ever, dies at age 84. A mediocre catcher in the major leagues from 1905 to 1914, he wasn't much of a field manager, either, from 1913 to 1925. But he served as general manager of the St. Louis Browns from 1913 to 1919, then of the St. Louis Cardinals until 1942, then of the Brooklyn Dodgers until 1950, and finally of the Pittsburgh Pirates until 1955.
As those teams' GMs, he did the following:
* He practically (if not completely) invented the farm system, revolutionizing baseball.
* He brought Grover Cleveland Alexander to the Cardinals, setting up the most dramatic moment of the 1926 World Series.
* He traded Rogers Hornsby for Frankie Frisch, one future Hall-of-Famer for another.
* He built the team known as "The Gashouse Gang," the 1934 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals.
* He built the team led by Stan Musial that would dominate the National League in the World War II years.
* He built on the success of his Brooklyn predecessor Larry MacPhail, and built the team that became known as "The Boys of Summer."
* He revolutionized baseball a 2nd time, by racially integrating the Dodgers by signing Jackie Robinson.
* And he rebuilt the Pirates by signing Roberto Clemente and Bill Mazeroski, though he was no longer there by the time they won a World Series.
The teams he built won 16 Pennants and 8 World Series, the 1st in 1926 and the last in 1960.
He was what country singer Kris Kristofferson would have called "a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction." He was a devout Methodist who would not work on Sundays, and thus would not even go to the ballpark on Sundays, letting a coach manage for him while he was the manager. Yet he would still accept the gate receipts from Sunday, the most lucrative day of the week.
It was said that he had money and he had players, and he didn't like to see them mix. He would be forced out of the Dodgers by Walter O'Malley. The two men had these things in common: They were cheap, they loved cigars, and they were Republicans. That was it: On important matters -- human dignity, racial sensitivity, and the Borough of Brooklyn -- they were incredibly different men.
On November 13, 1965, he was making his acceptance speech for his induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in Columbia, when he suffered a stroke. He never regained consciousness, and died on December 9, at the age of 84.
He was posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967, 5 years after Robinson was elected. Oddly, while Rickey's plaque at the Hall in Cooperstown, New York mentions his signing of Robinson, Robinson's original plaque made no mention of the fact that he was the 1st black player in modern baseball. A new plaque, cast in 2008, mentions it.
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Frank Robinson, no relation to Jackie, was rising through the Cincinnati Reds' minor-league system during Rickey's final days as GM of the Pirates. Rickey was so desperate to improve the team, he offered the Reds $1 million -- about $10.3 million in today's money -- for a man who had yet to reach the majors. Gabe Paul was the GM of the Reds, in his 1st major league job, and told Rickey, "I wouldn't give you Frank Robinson for your entire team."
Paul was fired after the 1960 season, and his replacement, Bill DeWitt Sr., father of the man who now owns the Cardinals, was hired, and got the credit for the Reds' 1961 National League Pennant, a year in which Robinson was named the NL's Most Valuable Player. Robinson continued to be one of the best players in baseball over the next 4 seasons.
But on December 9, 1965, DeWitt traded Robinson to the Baltimore Orioles for Milt Pappas, Jack Baldschun and Dick Simpson. Baldschun and Simpson were throw-ins, designed to make the trade a 3-for-1, so it didn't look like the Reds were trading Robinson even-up for a single pitcher.
This looked like a bad trade rather quickly, as, in the very next season, 1966, Robinson led the Orioles to their 1st American League Pennant and their 1st World Championship, winning the Triple Crown and the Most Valuable Player award for himself, thus becoming the 1st man to win the MVP in both Leagues. (He remained the only one until Shohei Ohtani in 2024. Six pitchers have won the Cy Young Award in both Leagues: Gaylord Perry, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Roy Halladay and Max Scherzer.)
As for the Reds, they wouldn't win another Pennant until 1970, and another World Series until 1975. To make matters worse, when the Reds did win the Pennant in 1970, who beat them in the World Series? Robinson and the Orioles, although Brooks Robinson (no relation, of course) was a bigger reason than Frank on that occasion.
So why did they trade Robinson? Because he was "an old 30." Or maybe it was "not a young 30." The wording varies, depending on who tells the story.
Pappas was making $32,500, Baldschun $24,000, and Simpson $8,000; total, $64,500. Robinson, all by himself? $57,000. Robinson wanted $64,000 for 1966, and DeWitt decided he couldn't throw that kind of money around for just 1 player.
Orioles owner Jerry Hoffberger gave Frank his $64,000. He made it $100,000 after the Triple Crown/MVP/World Series season. The most he ever made? $160,000 in 1973 and '74. He actually took a pay cut in '75, to $105,000, even though he was both playing and managing. (He was the 1st black manager in Major League Baseball. By 1971, that was predictable; in 1965, it wasn't.)
The Reds needed pitching, and Pappas was a very good pitcher. He was then 26 years old, and had already won 110 games in the major leagues, against just 74 losses. In 1965, for an Oriole team that finished a distant 2nd to the Minnesota Twins, he went 13-9, with a 2.60 ERA -- an ERA+ of 133, so he wasn't just taking advantage of a pitching-friendly period in baseball history. His WHIP was a nifty 1.102.
He had made the All-Star Team for the 2nd time in 4 seasons. He'd won 16 games in '63 and did it again in '64, and had just won 13 in '65. That's 45 wins over the preceding 3 seasons. Not great, but very good. And he was reliable: He'd never had a significant injury.
His career record turned out to be 209-164 -- by 1 win in the National League, he missed winning at least 100 games in each League. Ten pitchers have done that: Cy Young, Al Orth, Jim Bunning, Ferguson Jenkins, Gaylord Perry, Nolan Ryan, Dennis Martinez, Kevin Brown, Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez. (As of the end of the 2025 season, Max Scherzer is 7 AL wins away from turning the trick.)
So why did they trade Robinson? Because he was "an old 30." Or maybe it was "not a young 30." The wording varies, depending on who tells the story.
Pappas was making $32,500, Baldschun $24,000, and Simpson $8,000; total, $64,500. Robinson, all by himself? $57,000. Robinson wanted $64,000 for 1966, and DeWitt decided he couldn't throw that kind of money around for just 1 player.
Orioles owner Jerry Hoffberger gave Frank his $64,000. He made it $100,000 after the Triple Crown/MVP/World Series season. The most he ever made? $160,000 in 1973 and '74. He actually took a pay cut in '75, to $105,000, even though he was both playing and managing. (He was the 1st black manager in Major League Baseball. By 1971, that was predictable; in 1965, it wasn't.)
The Reds needed pitching, and Pappas was a very good pitcher. He was then 26 years old, and had already won 110 games in the major leagues, against just 74 losses. In 1965, for an Oriole team that finished a distant 2nd to the Minnesota Twins, he went 13-9, with a 2.60 ERA -- an ERA+ of 133, so he wasn't just taking advantage of a pitching-friendly period in baseball history. His WHIP was a nifty 1.102.
He had made the All-Star Team for the 2nd time in 4 seasons. He'd won 16 games in '63 and did it again in '64, and had just won 13 in '65. That's 45 wins over the preceding 3 seasons. Not great, but very good. And he was reliable: He'd never had a significant injury.
Does this sound like a failed pitcher to you? Hardly. The problem wasn't that the Reds acquired him, it was that they let him go too soon. He had a down year in 1966, just 12-11, 4.29. But, even then, he won just 1 fewer game than he did the season before. In 1967, he went 16-13, 3.35. Much better. And then, in 1968, they traded him to the Atlanta Braves, in a 3-for-3 deal.
The names that mattered in that trade turned out to be Pappas and Clay Carroll. Carroll did turn out to be a key cog in the Big Red Machine bullpen of the 1970s. Then again, you wouldn't trade Frank Robinson and Milt Pappas for Clay Carroll, would you?
In 1970, between the Braves and the Chicago Cubs, Pappas went 12-10, 3.34. If he'd been available for the Reds against the Orioles during the 1970 World Series, it might have been a very different story.
*
December 9, 1965 was a Thursday. This was also the day that A Charlie Brown Christmas premiered. Charles Schulz had been drawing the comic strip Peanuts since 1950, and CBS was ready to take a gamble on a holiday TV special about Charlie Brown, his dog Snoopy, and the other kids in the strip. (It was around this time that such a program began to be called a "special." Previously, it would have been a "spectacular.")
I have a theory, and, as far as I can tell, there is nothing in the images or the script of the special that disproves it. Charlie Brown is depressed during the Christmas season, and everyone else has thrown themselves into the superficial and commercial sides of it, for the same reason: The special takes place in December 1963, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and they want to forget.
Charlie Brown (voiced here by Peter Robbins) wasn't the 1st fictional character to wonder what Christmas was all about, nor the last. Nor was he the first, nor the last, to get his Christmas hopes laughed at.
But, as his best friend Linus Van Pelt (voiced by Chris Shea) points out (after quoting The Gospel According to Luke, Chapter 2, Verses 8 through 14, to remind us of "what Christmas is all about"), like the scrawny little tree that he'd found, ol' Chuck just needed a little love.
The special was a great success, and it remains the most popular Peanuts TV special, maybe the most popular Christmas TV special. And, today, when someone describes a Christmas tree as "a Charlie Brown tree," we still know exactly what that means. It's not about the quality of the tree, it's about the hearts of the people decorating it.
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