| abstract | - During his major league career, Bragan never skippered a game past his 49th birthday. 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 (in Cleveland, he lasted a total of only 67 games of his maiden season before his dismissal). His career record in the major leagues was below .500: 443-478 (.481). As Pittsburgh manager in 1957 he gained attention for a dispute with an umpire where he asked an umpire to share his orange drink. He was soon dismissed and replaced by Danny Murtaugh, who later won 2 World Championships with the Pittsburgh Pirates. 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 Pittsburgh, where Rickey was general manager from 1951-55. Bragan started the 1948 season with Brooklyn, but Rickey wanted to bring up future Hall of Famer 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." He began his seven-year (1940-44; 1947-48) major league playing career as a shortstop for the Philadelphia Phillies, but by 1943, his first season with Brooklyn, he had learned how to catch and was for the most part a backup receiver for the Dodgers for the remainder of his MLB playing days. A righthanded batter, Bragan hit .240 in 597 games, with 15 career home runs.
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