Greenwade was the primary scout on Jackie Robinson; he eagle-eyed the Kansas City Monarchs when Rickey sought to break baseballs color line. And Greenwade was the scout who in May 1949 signed Mantle out of Commerce High School in northeastern Oklahoma.

According to Jim Kreuz of the Society of American Baseball Research, Greenwade wrote The Sporting News in 1954 that he was the only scout who in 1948 and 1949 watched Mantle play for Baxter Spring, Kansas, in the Ban Johnson league, a summer amateur organization. Two days after Mantles high school graduation in May 1949, Greenwade signed Mantle to the Yankees for $1,500 and a salary of $140 a month.

Two years later, Mantle was in the Yankee outfield and headed for baseball immortality.

The same script could have happened, only with the Dodgers.

Greenwade was born in Willard, Missouri, near Springfield, and lived there most of his life. He played minor-league baseball all over, including Muskogee and Tulsa.

Greenwade went into minor-league managing, then in 1940 was hired to scout for the Dodgers. He scoured Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas for ballplayers, and Rickey made him the color-barrier secret agent who checked out Robinson and Cuban Silvio Garcia.

But in December 1945, after the Dodgers signed Robinson to a contract with the Montreal Royals of the International League, the Yankees offered Greenwade $11,000 a year, counting bonuses, a huge jump from his $3,600 Dodger salary. Rickey let him go.

With the Yankees, Greenwade did not move. He did not change regions. He did not change much of anything, except for which New York team he recruited. And recruiting is what it was, in those pre-draft days.

See the rest here:
What if Mickey Mantle signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers instead of New York Yankees? It's not far-fetched. - Oklahoman.com