University and coached football and baseball at his alma mater. He was known to be especially sympathetic to homesick young players. Recalling his own homesickness when he :first attended Wesleyan, he told them how he would go home for a day or two and return to school feeling much better.
Herman M. Shipps, a member of the class of ‘13 and later vice-president of Ohio Wesleyan, was a freshman when Rickey was the college’s football coach. He recalls another aspect of Rickey’s life:
“In those days there was a great deal of feeling in Ohio about Prohibition. In fact, you were either ‘wet’ or ‘dry.’ One evening Branch was walking up Sandusky Street after football practice with half the team gathered around him. At the corner of William Street and Sandusky a man standing on a baggage truck was making a speech to a considerable crowd. Branch said, ‘What’s that fellow doing?’ Someone said, ‘He’s making a “wet” speech.’ Branch said, ‘If you get a box over on this other corner, I’ll make a “dry” speech.’
“He got on a box and started to talk, and pretty soon he had the whole crowd come across the street to listen to him. It must have been a pretty good speech, because the AntiSaloon League heard about it and told him they would love him to make some ‘dry’ speeches in the small towns in Ohio, and they would pay him ten dollars and his expenses.
“The first place he went to was Chillicothe,” recalls Shipps. Rickey was told by three hotel managers that there were no vacancies. The hotels were dependent on their bars for much of their income. “Branch wasn’t quite sure what to do, so he started to walk down the street and met an old friend from Duck Run named Hunter. They stopped, shook hands, and Branch said, ‘What are you doing here?’
“‘I’m tending bar. What are you doing?’
“‘I came to make a “dry” speech,’ Branch said, ‘and I can’t find anyplace to stay. The hotels won’t let me in.’ “Hunter said, ‘That’s all right, come on down and stay with me.’
“So Branch stayed with the bartender and made a good ‘dry’ speech. After that experience he made quite a few such speeches in Ohio and became widely known as a public speaker.”
In the 1920s, Rickey was hired by the Reapath Lyceum Bureau in Columbus, Ohio, to speak in churches throughout the state. “Branch didn’t like to drive a car, so he and I made a deal,” Shipps recalled. “I would take him around to various small towns in Ohio where he was making speeches in the evening, and at dinnertime we would assemble the Ohio Wesleyan alumni who would come to have dinner together and to hear him talk about the university. Then we would all go to church and hear him talk about government. He was an ardent Republican, and at one time seriously considered running for senator in Missouri. I recall once we sat in front of my fire and talked for a couple of hours about whether he should stay in baseball or run. He finally decided, as it seemed he always did, in favor of baseball.”
But even baseball had to wait back in the spring of gog. Acute weight loss and a persistent cough were diagnosed as symptoms of tuberculosis. Rickey had to submit to a rest cure for six months at Saranac Lake, New York. The respite in the Adirondack Mountains worked. That fall, he enrolled in the University of Michigan Law School and served as baseball coach there. He completed the three-year course in two years, but the strain caused his health to break down again. Doctors suggested he go west, where the climate would be more beneficial. So the Rickeys headed out to Boise, Idaho, with two fraternity brothers and set up a law practice. It seemed as if he would spend his life as a western lawyer.
He had left with the understanding that if he wanted to return, he would be welcomed back. He wired the athletic director at the University of Michigan: “Am starving, will be back without delay.” He told his partners he
Herman M. Shipps, a member of the class of ‘13 and later vice-president of Ohio Wesleyan, was a freshman when Rickey was the college’s football coach. He recalls another aspect of Rickey’s life:
“In those days there was a great deal of feeling in Ohio about Prohibition. In fact, you were either ‘wet’ or ‘dry.’ One evening Branch was walking up Sandusky Street after football practice with half the team gathered around him. At the corner of William Street and Sandusky a man standing on a baggage truck was making a speech to a considerable crowd. Branch said, ‘What’s that fellow doing?’ Someone said, ‘He’s making a “wet” speech.’ Branch said, ‘If you get a box over on this other corner, I’ll make a “dry” speech.’
“He got on a box and started to talk, and pretty soon he had the whole crowd come across the street to listen to him. It must have been a pretty good speech, because the AntiSaloon League heard about it and told him they would love him to make some ‘dry’ speeches in the small towns in Ohio, and they would pay him ten dollars and his expenses.
“The first place he went to was Chillicothe,” recalls Shipps. Rickey was told by three hotel managers that there were no vacancies. The hotels were dependent on their bars for much of their income. “Branch wasn’t quite sure what to do, so he started to walk down the street and met an old friend from Duck Run named Hunter. They stopped, shook hands, and Branch said, ‘What are you doing here?’
“‘I’m tending bar. What are you doing?’
“‘I came to make a “dry” speech,’ Branch said, ‘and I can’t find anyplace to stay. The hotels won’t let me in.’ “Hunter said, ‘That’s all right, come on down and stay with me.’
“So Branch stayed with the bartender and made a good ‘dry’ speech. After that experience he made quite a few such speeches in Ohio and became widely known as a public speaker.”
In the 1920s, Rickey was hired by the Reapath Lyceum Bureau in Columbus, Ohio, to speak in churches throughout the state. “Branch didn’t like to drive a car, so he and I made a deal,” Shipps recalled. “I would take him around to various small towns in Ohio where he was making speeches in the evening, and at dinnertime we would assemble the Ohio Wesleyan alumni who would come to have dinner together and to hear him talk about the university. Then we would all go to church and hear him talk about government. He was an ardent Republican, and at one time seriously considered running for senator in Missouri. I recall once we sat in front of my fire and talked for a couple of hours about whether he should stay in baseball or run. He finally decided, as it seemed he always did, in favor of baseball.”
But even baseball had to wait back in the spring of gog. Acute weight loss and a persistent cough were diagnosed as symptoms of tuberculosis. Rickey had to submit to a rest cure for six months at Saranac Lake, New York. The respite in the Adirondack Mountains worked. That fall, he enrolled in the University of Michigan Law School and served as baseball coach there. He completed the three-year course in two years, but the strain caused his health to break down again. Doctors suggested he go west, where the climate would be more beneficial. So the Rickeys headed out to Boise, Idaho, with two fraternity brothers and set up a law practice. It seemed as if he would spend his life as a western lawyer.
He had left with the understanding that if he wanted to return, he would be welcomed back. He wired the athletic director at the University of Michigan: “Am starving, will be back without delay.” He told his partners he
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