Breadon moved from Manhattan to St. Louis at the turn of the 20th century. He prospered as the owner of auto dealerships and became a self-made millionaire. In 1917, he also became a minority investor – for $2,000 – in the Cardinals, then a struggling, second-division team chronically strapped for resources. But the club’s enterprising young president, Branch Rickey, discovered that the team could compete successfully against richer opponents by developing its playing talent on an assembly line of minor league teams, from Class D to Class AA, that it owned and controlled. This was the creation of the farm system, perfected by the Cardinals and - when the Redbirds came to dominate the NL - copied by the 15 other major league teams.
Rickey would manage the Cardinals from 1918-25, and Breadon, who had bought out most of his partners to become majority owner, succeeded him as club president in 1920. In the middle of 1925, Breadon moved Rickey into the front office as business manager – general manager in contemporary terms – and promoted star second baseman Rogers Hornsby to playing manager. (Rickey, who worked for Breadon until the end of 1942, enjoyed wide-ranging authority – but Breadon would always reserve the right to choose the team’s field manager.)
In 1926, the Redbirds won their first pennant and first world championship. Under Breadon, they again would rule the baseball world in 1931, 1934, 1942, 1944 and 1946, with NL pennants also earned in 1928, 1930 and 1943. They would feature such all-time great players as Jim Bottomley, Chick Hafey, Dizzy Dean, Pepper Martin, Frankie Frisch, Joe Medwick, Johnny Mize, Enos Slaughter, Marty Marion and Stan Musial. And, with their on-field success and the advent of radio, they would develop a fanatical regional following, their appeal extending beyond Missouri and throughout the lower Midwest, Arkansas, Louisiana, the Great Plains states and much of the Southwest.
In November 1947, Breadon sold the Cardinals to prominent St. Louisans Robert Hannegan and Fred Saigh for $3 million. He died 18 months later, from prostate cancer, at the age of 72.
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Last updated on Thursday December 20, 2007 at 15:23:25 PST (GMT -0800)
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