Branch Rickey is most famous for helping break Major League Baseball’s color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson to a minor league contract while he was general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945, but he was also partly responsible for bringing fellow future Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente to the Pirates.
Rickey was working as the general manager for the Pirates, who were coming off their third consecutive 100-loss season, in 1954, when the Pirates used the first pick in the annual rookie draft to select Clemente. (The Dodgers had signed Clemente earlier in the year, but he was left unprotected in the draft because Brooklyn hadn’t kept him on its major league roster all season.