Baseball guru ("Guru" was, in fact, his nickname).
Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson, to play with the Brooklyn
Dodgers, thus breaking the segregated system of Major League Baseball.
The historic decision came partly from his Christian views on the Universal Brotherhood of Man,
but also from a desire to remove competition from the Negro Leagues. Rickey also created the minor leagues as a system of developing talent for one of the teams he managed, the St. Louis Cardinals.