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See Branch Rickey's Don Drysdale Scouting Report

Legendary Baseball Executive Urged Cash-Strapped Pirates To Sign Unproven Drysdale

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- Sometimes, when viewing historical documents you have to take into account the era from which they came. In 1954, for example, an elderly man could get away with writing in a baseball scouting report that a young pitcher "shows good breeding."

Especially if the scout in question is none other than Branch Rickey, the team owner who brought Jackie Robinson to the majors. A decade after bringing Robinson up to break the major league color barrier, Rickey was working for the Pittsburgh Pirates when he came across a young pitcher named Don Drysdale.

Drysdale, of course, became a Hall-of-Fame pitcher known for his blazing fastball and as a serious intimidator. Here is a scanned copy of Rickey's initial scouting report with a handwritten note at the bottom lamenting that Drysdale had already been signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers, courtesy of the Library of Congress Web site.

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