Branch Rickey

For '42,' actor had to please Jackie Robinson's No. 1 fan

2013-01-12 15:00:00

When Chadwick Boseman was cast as Jackie Robinson in the race-themed baseball drama "42," he was immediately confronted by someone with personal knowledge of the renowned ballplayer: the late athlete's widow, Rachel Robinson. "The first thing she said...

Dodgers' Vin Scully to be honored at annual scouts dinner

2013-01-11 13:00:00

I suppose you could get tired of honoring Vin Scully, but doubt it will ever happen. Scully, who was voted into the broadcaster’s wing of the Hall of Fame back in 1982, is scheduled to be given yet another honor Saturday night at the annual...

Gays in sports: On the field -- and in the closet

2013-01-13 00:00:00

When I was 7 years old, my friends and I would play football in my backyard for hours, often with my mother watching through the kitchen window. One of the games we played was called "smear the queer." At the time I didn't know what "queer" meant. I...

Texas A&M's speed bottles up a slow Tide

2012-11-10 20:22:00

Everyone wondered what a team like Oregon would do if it met Alabama on a field that could also serve as a laboratory beaker. Would Oregon's up-tempo offense fizzle when mixed with Alabama's bone-crushing defense, or explode like Mentos combined with...

'42' star: Jackie Robinson pic shows we're 'evolving as a race'

2012-06-12 21:38:42

Did Babe Ruth play a role in the origin of the MLB trade deadline?

2011-07-27 16:33:34

Book review: 'Branch Rickey' by Jimmy Breslin

2011-04-03 00:00:00

Branch Rickey Jimmy Breslin Viking/Penguin Lives: 148 pp., $19.95 "I had a problem for a writer," Jimmy Breslin tells us in the prologue to "Branch Rickey," his impressionistic portrait of baseball's great emancipator, the man responsible for...

Baseball books in play

2011-03-06 00:00:00

Ah, the sounds of spring. The crack of the bat, the smack of the ball hitting the catcher's mitt, the ka-ching of cash registers totaling up sales of books on baseball out this season. Just as ESPN seems to lean toward the American League East for...

Duke Snider dies at 84; Dodger Hall of Famer

2011-02-28 00:00:00

Duke Snider, one of the Brooklyn Dodgers' "Boys of Summer" and among a celebrated trio of New York center fielders in the 1950s, died Sunday. He was 84. Snider died at Valle Vista Convalescent Hospital in Escondido, the Dodgers announced. No cause was...

Sports Legend Revealed: Was Grover Cleveland Alexander drunk when he struck out Tony Lazzeri in Game 7 of the 1926 World Series?

2010-12-28 16:33:05

Sports Legend Revealed: A series of fortuitous events turned Harry Heilmann, an 18-year-old bookkeeper, into a baseball Hall of Famer

2011-01-11 16:33:12

The unbearable whiteness of the Oscars: The sequel

2011-01-27 16:32:37

Jackie Robinson signs a new contract with Dodgers under the watchful eye of Branch Rickey in 1950.

2013-01-31 01:38:36

Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) makes history with the Brooklyn Dodgers, with some help from exec Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford). What's new: Boseman's pretty unknown for a role this big, so hopefully his performance will be a touchdown. (Sorry, can't bring myself to say "knock it out of the park.

2012-12-27 14:30:00

This play by Ed Schmidt imagines a meeting between baseball great Jackie Robinson, actor Paul Robeson, boxer Joe Louis, entertainer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey in 1947.

2012-02-02 13:20:38