The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-03-06
By HARRY CRIMSON ~ Shorts Editor. NEA Service.


 An unique friendship was a spur inals. Branch Hickey, whose ge- tiOn the largest and most pOwer- ful in, baseball, and Charles Fran cis Barrett, dean and foremost of matched partners in a great ad- venture.
 Hickey and Barrett first met in 1904, while the former, fresh from Ohio Wesleyan university, was do- ing a good job of talking the owner of the Dallas Texas League club into keeping him on the payroll. Barrett was an outfielder with Houston whose weakness was chas- ing curve balls to first base.
 From the start their relationship was as unusual as it has been close. They had only one thing iE common as players-a deep desire to crash the majors. Otherwise their thoughts were as far apart as Jim Farley and Huey Long.
 Hickey, the college man, was an idealist and a baseball theor- ist. He was willing to burn the. candle in order to complete a law course. He grasped that his fu- ture as a combatant was indefinite, and at best insecure. He was a teetotaler who refused to play on Sunday and who detested profan- ity.
 Equally Unlike To-day
 Barrett found it necessary to quit school at the age of IA and go to work as a messenger boy in St Louis.
 Charley had no newfangled ideas about baseball. He knew that the main one was to get on and thea around the bases. A remarkable base runner, his biggest handicap was that he could not steal first base.
 Barrett was far from a total ab- stainer, had no qualms about Sun day activities, and thouoghly en- joyed his association with players of the old school.
 Hickey and Barrett are equally unlike to-day. While Hickey ad- mits that some of the exalted mo- tions he took into the game have had to be considerably mbodified, he still Is the man of four degrees, the university trustee, and public speaker. His older associates call him B. R.; the younger ones MT Hickey. z i.
 The genial Barrett's many friends and acquaintances, the vast majority of them years his junior, call him Charley. Mir Barrett, some how, just doesn't fit.
 Barrett's fault at bat prevented him from realizing his major league ambition as player. He entered the big show via the back door, so to- speak, when Colonel Robert Lee Hedges, owner of the St Louis Browns, recognized his talent for&picking up unpublished ivory in 1909.
 Thus it was that his old sidekick was first to greet Hickey when B. R. returned to baseball as business manager of the Browns in 1912. The tie between them has been more tightly knotted with each succeeding year. Sends for Old Friend
 Barrett switched to the Detroit Tigers just long enough to uncover Bing Miller shortly before Hickey organized the group that pur, chased the Cardinals in 1917. The first man B. R. sought to assist him in his new undertaking was his intimate of the Texas League days, and the ivory expert obtained permission from Frank J. Navin to renew his old relationship.
 Barrett helped Hickey sell Card inal stock at $25 share, and bought what he could himself.
 With the. club heavily In debt, Hickey leased small office in t!.e Railway Exchange building in S. Louis. He managed to produce a desk and a couple of chairs. Bar rett dug down into his own pocket and bought ink and pen points, Hickey took rugs from his home while Mrs Hickey was away from the city, so that the office might, have some aspect of prosperity.
 "One day I came to the office and Branch was on his hands and knees, rolling up the rugs" re- calls Barrett,
 {, !" Whats the matter, Branche:' K> asked him.
 "'Hurry, Charley he replied, Mrs Hickey telegraphe that she's coming home to-day. We've got to get those rugs out to the house right away, or she'll find out about it.'"
 Barrett Foxy FOragcr
 Hickey appreciated the worth of Barrett, who had uncovered such stars as Jeff Tesreau, George Eos ter, Arthur Fletcher, Bill Killefer, Hank Severeid, Muddy Ruel and Charley Grimm.
 Barrett's contributions to the St Louis Nationals include Jim Bot A1,x.alnx. lIln.. roln dar IInisain AR..ni