Ironically, Rickey was billed as the president of the Continental Baseball League.

Moments after being identified one of the panelist asked, “Mr. Rickey, how about that third league?”

“As inevitable as tomorrow morning,” Rickey replied.

Placed in context of place, time and events surrounding the game, the comment raised the hair on the arm of then commissioner Ford C. Frick. Five cities, including New York, Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Houston and Toronto, had already committed to the new league.

Two years earlier, shortly after Thansgiving, New York City mayor Robert Wagner hired lawyer William A. Shea to chair a committee organized to bring professional baseball back to New York. Shea was determined to make it happen, for the mayor facing reelection and a city suffering a broken heart from the loss of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants to California.

Shea immediately pleaded with league officials to expand, but quickly concluded ”… that I am silly enough to think that the National League owed New York something. Here we supported two teams for all those years. Well, the National League didn’t feel that way. They couldn’t have cared less.”

Shea moved on to Plan B, asking club owners to switch leagues. Cincinnati and Pittsburgh listened, but it was Philadelphia owner Bob Carpenter who opened Shea’s eyes — and heart — to what he was asking.

“I began to realize one thing,” Shea said years later. “This fellow is just like me. He doesn’t want to move. Philadelphia is his town and he is going to stay there. He’s not going to pick up and leave the place just for money … When I’m talking to him, I begin to see that I am placing myself in the position of asking him to do the very thing I would never do. Pull out of your own town. That cured me. From then on, I stopped bothering other teams.”

Shea would not accept “no” for an answer, so he began creating a league of his own. As Michael Shapiro wrote in his book Bottom of the Ninth, “The game was in a position to use the growing power … America’s booming cities were clamoring for teams of their own. Baseball had a vision for the future and a plan to make it happen. The blueprint was devised by perhaps the most respected—and in some circles, revered—figure in the game, Branch Rickey. It had a name, the Continental League.”

The league, the concept was, of course, the brainchild of Rickey. There would be eight teams in seven cities that had never had ball clubs of their own. Rickey explained the Continental League would be a third major league, not a major league rival. Rickey and Shea made it clear the league was not an effort to force major league baseball into expansion.

On September 13, 1959 Branch Rickey appeared on What’s My Line?

Two months before his national television appearance on What’s My Line?, Rickey, Shea and the Continental League officially announced its formation in five cities. The club owners agreed to pay $50,000 to the league and committed to a capital investment of $2.5 million, not including stadium costs.

The news created a lot of excitement, especially in New York. As Rickey’s “inevitable” comment lingered and snowballed through the first half of 1960, the new league was collapsing on the inside. Rickey was concerned the new team owners were not in it to build a successful professional league. The owners were businessmen, not baseball men. Without integrety at heart, the league was destined to fail.

But, before the league could ever schedule a game or throw a single pitch, major league owners, sensing expansion was inevitable, met with the new league in Chicago and agreed to expand if the Continental League would disband.

Rickey, Shea and Continental League officials excused themselves to discuss the offer. Once behind closed they shouted and cheered the death of the league. Meanwhile, Shea honored the request made by Mayor Wagner three years earlier.

In April 1962, New York welcomed the Mets and National League baseball back to the city.

***

Timeline:

November 1957: New York mayor announces the organization of a four-man committee, chaired by lawyer William A. Shea, designed to bring National League baseball back to New York.

November 1958: William A. Shea officially announces the formation of the Continental Baseball, a name suggested by Colorado senator Edwin C. Johnson suggested the name.

July 27, 1959: At a Biltmore Hotel press conference William A. Shea announces the formation of the new Continental League (or formally the Continental League of Professional Baseball Clubs) with teams in Denver (Bob Howsam), Houston (Craig F. Cullinan, Jr.), Minneapolis-St. Paul (Wheelock Whitney Jr.), New York (Dwight F. Davis, Jr.), and Toronto (Jack Kent Cooke).

August 2, 1960: The Continental League formally disbanded.