"In 1939 I led the league in hitting with .349. Naturally after a year like that you look forward to talking contract. But when I sat down with Rickey, he said, "Well, your home run production stayed pretty much the same." No mention of my batting average. So the next year I hit 43 home runs, which is still the Cardinal club record, and led the league in runs batted in. But my average went down. When I went in to talk contract this time, he said, "Well, your batting average wasn't so good. Would you be willing to take a cut?" I led the league in runs batted in, and he wanted to know if I'd take a cut!"

“Branch Rickey made me a better man.”

“Baseball people are generally allergic to new ideas; it took years to persuade them to put numbers on uniforms, and it is the hardest thing in the world to get Major League Baseball to change anything—even spikes on a new pair of shoes—but they will eventually...they are bound to.”

“Mr. Rickey almost signed me for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but I decided I didn't want to be a bonus baby.”

“....Humankind, -- that all men anthropological come from the same source, with the same potentials, must have a potential equality in chance and opportunity and that is so right, I think, that posterity will look back upon what we are doing today in our domestic issues here. They will look back upon it, I think, with incredulity and they'll wonder what the issue was all about. I really think so. It's solved in baseball. It'll be solved educationally. It'll be solved everywhere in the course of time.”

“Rickey had all the money and all the players and never let the two get together.”

“Folks, this here young man deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Not only because he pitched twos, but because he got two bonuses from Branch Rickey.”