Tomorrow on this date, 102 years ago, Branch Rickey was announced as the Cardinals new team manager. In the context of Cardinals history, this isn’t necessarily a momentous date. The more momentous date was when he came over to the Cardinals from the St. Louis Browns, because the Browns owner hated Rickey. A new ownership group convinced Phil Ball to let Rickey out of his contract to come to the Cardinals as a team president and his role was essentially that of a general manager, although that wasn’t his title.
His contributions as a general manager are massive, in fact he was the first modern general manager in baseball history.