BRAGAN'S NOT BASHFUL

"All I'm trying to do is win," is Milwaukee Manager Bobby Bragan's explanation of why he says so many things that shake so many people.

DATE SHOT: 1965

SUBJECT: Bobby Bragan

APPROXIMATE SIZE: 4"x10"

MARKS / STAMPING: Associated Press Wirephoto stamp. Caption is embedded in the obverse image as is typical with wire photos.

TYPE CLASSIFICATION: Type 3

COMMENTS / CONDITION: See scans for further details including condition.

Robert Randall Bragan (Nig) was born in 1917 in Birmingham, AL and died in 2010 in Fort Worth, TX. He played major league baseball from 1940 to 1948 as infielder and catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies and the Brooklyn Dodgers, and appeared in the 1947 World Series. He managed the Pittsburgh Pirates (1956-57), Cleveland Indians (1958) and Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves (1963-66), each time getting fired in the mid-season of his final campaign. But Bragan was highly respected as a minor league pilot, winning championships in 1948-49 at Fort Worth of the AA Texas League during a successful five-year run, and with the 1953 Hollywood Stars of the Open-Classification Pacific Coast League. A photograph of Bragan lying at the feet of an umpire who had ejected him, still arguing, was published in LIFE Magazine at the time. Bragan also was a major league coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Colt .45s. Bragan was a protégé of Branch Rickey, the Hall of Fame front office executive, who hired him as an unproven young manager at Fort Worth when both were with the Brooklyn Dodgers and then brought Bragan to Hollywood and the Pittsburgh organization, where Rickey was general manager from 1951-55. Bragan started the 1948 season with Brooklyn, but Rickey wanted to bring up Roy Campanella from the minors. Rickey offered Bragan the managerial job with the Fort Worth Cats and he took over in July of ’48, remaining with the Cats for five years. Ironically, Bragan had clashed with Rickey in 1947 over the Dodgers' breaking of the baseball color line after the major-league debut of Jackie Robinson. Bragan — the Dodgers' second-string catcher at the time — was one of a group of white players, largely from the American South, who signed a petition against Robinson's presence. He even asked Rickey to trade him. But Bragan quickly relented. "After just one road trip, I saw the quality of Jackie the man and the player," Bragan told mlb.com in 2005. "I told Mr. Rickey I had changed my mind and I was honored to be a teammate of Jackie Robinson." And as a manager, Bragan earned a reputation for fairness and "color-blindedness." When he was the skipper of the Dodgers' Spokane Indians PCL farm club in 1959, Bragan played an influential role in helping Maury Wills, a speedy shortstop whose baseball career had stalled until he learned to switch hit under Bragan. He also was an influential executive in minor league baseball. In 1969, Bragan, a Fort Worth resident, began a new career chapter when he became president of the Texas League. He was so successful, in 1975 he was elected president of the minor leagues' governing body, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues. On August 16, 2005, Bragan came out of retirement to manage the independent Central League Fort Worth Cats for one game, making him — at 87 years, nine months and 16 days old — the oldest manager in professional baseball annals (besting by one week Connie Mack, the manager and part owner of the Philadelphia Athletics). Always known as an innovator with a sense of humor — and a world-class umpire-baiter — Bragan was ejected in the third inning of his "comeback", thus also becoming the oldest person in any capacity to be ejected from a professional baseball game. Bragan enjoyed the rest of the Cats' 11-10 victory from a more comfortable vantage point. Bragan comes from a baseball family. Five of the six Bragan boys played baseball professionally. His late brother Jimmy was a minor league player and longtime coach and scout in major league baseball who himself was president of the AA Southern League during the 1980s, and the younger generations of the Bragan family have owned and operated numerous minor league teams.

Explanation of Type Classifications:

Type 1 = A 1st generation photograph, developed from the original negative, during the period (within two years of when the shot was taken).

Type 2 = A 1st generation photograph, developed from the original negative, during a later period (more than two years after the shot was taken).

Type 3 = A 2nd generation photograph, developed from a duplicate negative or wire transmission, during the period.

Type 4 = A 2nd generation photograph (or 3rd or later generation), developed from a duplicate negative or wire transmission, during a later period.

Original = A 1st generation photograph, developed from the original negative, which appears to be of the period but for which a print date cannot be determined for definitive Type classification. Essentially, a photo we feel is a Type 1, but which lacks certain elements necessary for definitive dating of the print.

For further information regarding "Type" classification of photographs, please refer to "A Portrait of Baseball Photography" by Fogel, Oser and Yee, and to PSA's website at http://www.psacard.com/Exhib/B-W-Photography/index.html.