Leo O'Mealia Branch Rickey Growing Skills

Bursting with baseball symbolism. This piece shows Branch Rickey growing the different skills needed for a winning baseball team, as if he were a farmer. For those that don't know, each baseball team has affiliate minor league teams, also known as FARM CLUBS, where the new and younger players develop their skills. Another clever tie is that Branch Rickey was well known for "cultivating" (see what I did there...that's a farming term) the farm clubs. In fact, it was so successful that other teams started adopting the process for which Rickey was so successful. Having been SO successful with the St. Louis Cardinals, the Brooklyn Dodgers brought him over to recreate his success there. This great piece is clearly from Rickey's time with the Brooklyn Dodgers (1942-1950). *UPDATE: My thanks to poster supreme Marcus Wei for helping narrow down the time frame*

ABOUT LEO O'Mealia
Leo O'Mealia (1884–1960) was a sports cartoonist for the Rochester Herald, the Rochester Times, The Globe and the New York Daily News. Leo's work is featured in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. In most of his drawings he added a little friendly frisky lion which became his trademark. He was the creator of a popular syndicated comic strip called Wedlock. Between 1930 and 1931, he did 816 illustrations for 9 Sherlock Holmes short stories (from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes) written by Arthur Conan Doyle. In some of these illustrations he signed as "Leo". Leo created the cover art for Action Comics (issues 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), Adventure Comics (41) and and for Detective Comics (issues 20 and 21). And weirdly, he is credited for cover art on Superman #1. But here's what's weird (taken from DCFandom.com site): "The cover for this issue comes from the first panel of Action Comics #10. The panel was photostatted and cut out by Leo O'Mealia, who then drew the ornate frame around it."