[SelzShoes]

General Manager Branch Rickey picked over his breakfast trying to imagine a worse situation for his Saint Louis Cardinals. Sam Breadon’s club had value, but little capital. The Browns were insisting if anyone moved from Saint Louis, it should be the Cardinals, because, after all, the Browns owned Sportsman’s Park. Breadon and Rickey hardly spoke as relations between the two men had deteriorated over the hiatus. Crosley refused to deal with Brooklyn because of GM Leland MacPhail. Leland MacPhail would not speak to Saint Louis because he, quiet rightfully, thought Rickey wanted the GM job in Brooklyn. The Yankees were still tied up in the Estate of Colonel Ruppert and Connie Mack, well, was Connie Mack—trying to make a living from a failed club in an unforgiving city.

The only way the situation could be worse is if there were only four of us and not six, Rickey pondered over his tea. Six could make a league, especially if the Yankees were one of the six. “Judas Priest, they’ll let it all fall apart for weak held principles.” As rewarding principles are for the next life, an attorney friend once told him, are sometimes are prohibitively expensive in this one. For one of the few times in his life, Rickey was inclined to agree.

The problem, as Rickey saw it, every one of the owners (with the exception of Mack) felt the longer they held on, the more likely it was for them to be invited back into the fold. The hue and cry around the country about the Yankees not being invited to join was telling. The pressure could become so great the NAL would have to take in the Yankees and at least one more. “Then we would be four, and be forced to fold.” He scribbled on his legal pad for a few moments. Realistically only Brooklyn, Cincinnati and the Cardinals had a chance of being invited in with the Yankees. He laughed quietly, all we have to do is find buyers for the Browns and A’s, and convince everyone else it is in our best interest to form our own league.

It could be done, with enough work and sweat, it could be done. But someone would have to make the first step in bringing about order. “If you wait for someone else to save you; someone else will save himself and leave you to die. I do not intend to die.”