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Connie Mack

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Connie Mack
Catcher/Manager/Owner
Batted: Right
Threw: Left
debut
September 11, 1886, for the Washington Nationals
Last appearance
August 29, 1896, for the Pittsburgh Pirates
Career statistics
Batting average.245
Hits659
Runs batted in265
Teams

As Player

As Manager

Career highlights and awards
  • 5× World Series champion (1910, 1911, 1913, 1929, 1930)
  • Managerial record: 3,731–3,948 (.486)
  • Most managerial wins, losses and games managed in major league history
  • Part-owner of Philadelphia Athletics 1901–1936, full owner 1936–1954
[[{{{hoflink}}}|Member of the {{{hoftype}}}]]
[[{{{hoflink}}}|Baseball Hall of Fame]]
Induction1937
Election methodVeterans Committee

Cornelius McGillicuddy, Sr. (December 22, 1862 – February 8, 1956), better known as Connie Mack, was an American professional baseball player, manager, and team owner. The longest-serving manager in Major League Baseball history, he holds records for wins (3,731), losses (3,948), and games managed (7,755), with his victory total being almost 1,000 more than any other manager. He managed the Philadelphia Athletics for the club's first 50 seasons of play before retiring at age 87 following the 1950 season, and was at least part-owner from 1901 to 1954. He was the first manager to win the World Series three times, and is the only manager to win consecutive Series on separate occasions (1910–11, 1929–30); his five Series titles remain the third most by any manager, and his nine American League pennants rank second in league history. However, constant financial struggles forced repeated rebuilding of the roster, and Mack's teams also finished in last place 17 times.

Mack was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937.

Personal life

He was born in East Brookfield, Massachusetts to Irish immigrants, Michael McGillicuddy and Mary McKillop. He did not have a middle name, but many accounts erroneously give him the middle name "Alexander"; this error probably arose because his son Cornelius McGillicuddy Jr. took Alexander as his confirmation name.[1]

In 1877, Mack left school at the age of fourteen after finishing the eighth grade. Partly this was because he needed to help support his large extended family, since his father, whose health had been ruined in the Civil War, was an alcoholic and no longer worked. Mack always regretted his lack of education and advised college players to finish their degrees before they began their baseball careers.[2]

On November 2, 1887, he married Margaret Hogan, whom the Spencer Leader described as having "a sunny and vivacious disposition." They had three children, Earle, Roy, and Marguerite. Margaret died in December 1892 after complications from her third childbirth.

He married a second time on October 27, 1910. His second wife was Catherine (or Katharine) Holahan (or Hoolahan); the census records disagree. (The wedding register reads "Catarina Hallahan".) The couple had four daughters and a son, Cornelius Jr.

A faithful Catholic his entire life, Mack was also a longtime member of the Knights of Columbus (Santa Maria Council 263 in Flourtown, Pennsylvania).[3]

From early on in life he was known as "Mack", as his father had been. However, he never formally changed his name. On the occasion of his second marriage, at age 48, he signed the wedding register "Cornelius McGillicuddy".[4] His nickname on the field was "Slats."

Playing career

Connie Mack 1887 baseball card

Beginning in 1886, Mack played 10 seasons in the National League and one in the Players League, for a total of 11 seasons in the Major Leagues, almost entirely as a catcher.

After serving as captain of the East Brookfield town team, he played on minor-league teams in the Connecticut cities of Meriden and Hartford before signing with the Washington, DC team of the National League (variously called the Statesmen, Nationals, or Senators) in 1886.[5] In the winter of 1889, he jumped to the Buffalo team of the new Players League, the Bisons, investing his entire life savings of five hundred dollars in shares of the club.[6] However, the Players League went out of business after only a year, and Mack lost his job and his whole investment. In December 1890 Mack signed a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League and remained with them for the rest of his career as a full-time player.[7]

As a player, Mack was "a light-hitting catcher, had a reputation as a smart player, but didn't do anything particularly well as a player."[8]

Mack was one of the first catchers to move up to play directly behind the plate, instead of back by the backstop. He developed strengths such as blocking the plate, or faking the sound of a foul tip (he was probably responsible for the 1891 rule change to make a batter not out if the catcher caught a foul tip with fewer than two strikes.[9]) He would also needle batters to distract them. According to Wilbert Robinson, "Mack never was mean....[but] if you had any soft spot, Connie would find it. He could do and say things that got more under your skin than the cuss words used by other catchers." Another skill was tipping bats to throw off a player's swing. He never denied such tricks.

"Farmer Weaver was a catcher-outfielder for Louisville. I tipped his bat several times when he had two strikes on him one year, and each time the umpire called him out. He got even, though. One time there were two strikes on him and he swung as the pitch was coming in. But he didn't swing at the ball. He swung right at my wrists. Sometimes I think I can still feel the pain. I'll tell you I didn't tip his bat again. No, sir, not until the last game of the season and Weaver was at bat for the last time. After he had two strikes, I tipped his bat again and got away with it."[10]

Managing career

Connie Mack in 1911

Mack's last three seasons in the National League were as a player-manager with the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1894 to 1896, with a 149–134 (.527) record. After the 1896 season, he retired as a full-time player and accepted a deal from Henry Killilea to act as manager and occasional backup catcher for the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers. He agreed to a salary of $3000 and 25% of the club.[11] He managed the Brewers for four seasons from 1897 to 1900, their best year coming in 1900, when they finished second. It was in Milwaukee that he first signed pitcher Rube Waddell, who would follow him to the big leagues.

In 1901, he became manager, treasurer, and part owner of the new American League's Philadelphia Athletics.[12] Mack managed the Athletics through the 1950 season, for a record of 3,582–3,814 (.484) when he retired at age 87. His 50-year tenure as Athletics manager is the most ever for a coach or manager with the same team in North American professional sports. He won nine pennants and appeared in eight World Series, winning five.

He was widely praised in the newspapers for his intelligent and innovative managing, which earned him the nickname "the Tall Tactician". He valued intelligence and "baseball smarts", always looking for educated players. (He traded away Shoeless Joe Jackson, despite his talent, because of his bad attitude and unintelligent play.[13]) "Better than any other manager, Mack understood and promoted intelligence as an element of excellence."[14] Mack wanted men who were self-directed, self-disciplined, and self-motivated; his ideal player was Eddie Collins.[15]

"Mack looked for seven things in a young player: physical ability, intelligence, courage, disposition, will power, general alertness, and personal habits."[16]

Mack also looked for players with quiet and disciplined personal lives, having seen many players destroy themselves and their teams through heavy drinking in his playing days. Mack himself never drank; before the 1910 World Series he asked all his players to "take the pledge" not to drink during the Series. When Topsy Hartsel told Mack he needed a drink the night before the final game, Mack told him to do what he thought best, but in these circumstances "If it was me I'd die before I took a drink."[17]

However, he was not a tyrant; he was an easygoing manager[18] and never imposed curfews or bed checks. He made the best of what he had; Rube Waddell was his best pitcher and biggest gate attraction, so Mack put up with his drinking and general unreliability for years, until it began to bring the team down and the other players asked Mack to get rid of him.[19]

Mack's strength as a manager was finding the best players, teaching them well, and letting them play. "He did not believe that baseball revolved around managerial strategy."[14] He was "one of the first managers to work on repositioning his fielders" during the game, often directing the outfielders to move left or right, play shallow or deep, by waving his scorecard from the bench.[16] After he became well-known for doing this, he often passed his instructions to the fielders by way of other players, and simply waved his scorecard as a feint.[20]

Baseball historian Bill James sums up Mack's managerial approach as follows: he favored a set lineup; did not generally use a platoon approach; preferred young players to veterans; preferred hitters with power who got on base a lot to high-batting-average players; did not often send in a pinch-hitter; did not often use his bench players; did not often employ the sacrifice bunt; believed in "big-inning" offense rather than small ball; and very rarely issued an intentional base on balls.[21]

Over the course of his career he had three pennant-winning teams. His original team, with players like Rube Waddell, Ossee Schreckengost, and Eddie Plank, won the pennant in 1902 and 1905, losing the 1905 World Series to the New York Giants. During that season, New York's manager John McGraw said that Mack had "a big white elephant on his hands" with the Athletics. Mack adopted a white elephant as the team's logo, which the Athletics still use today.

As his first team aged, Mack acquired a core of young players to form his second great team, which featured Mack's famous "$100,000 infield" of Eddie Collins, Home Run Baker, Jack Barry and Stuffy McInnis. These Athletics, captained by catcher Ira Thomas, won the pennant in 1910, 1911, 1913, and 1914, beating the Cubs in the World Series in 1910 and beating the Giants in 1911 and 1913, and losing to the Boston Braves in 1914.

That team was dispersed due to financial problems, from which Mack did not recover until the twenties, when he built his third great team. The 1927 Athletics may have been the best second-place team in history, featuring several future Hall of Fame players including veterans Ty Cobb, Zack Wheat, and Eddie Collins as well as players in their prime such as Mickey Cochrane, Lefty Grove, Al Simmons, and rookie Jimmie Foxx. That team won the pennant in 1929, 1930, and 1931, beating the Chicago Cubs in the World Series in 1929 and beating the St. Louis Cardinals in 1930, and losing to the Cardinals in 1931.

That team was dispersed after 1932 when Mack ran into financial difficulty again. By 1934, the A's had fallen into the second division. Apart from three straight winning records from 1947 to 1949, he would never field another winning team.

By the time he recovered financially, he was "old and out of touch with the game, so his career ends with eighteen years of miserable baseball."[22] It was generally agreed that he stayed in the game too long, which hurt his legacy.[23]

Mack as owner

The American League's white knight, Charles Somers, provided the seed money to start the Athletics and several other American League teams. However, plans called for local interests to buy out Somers as soon as possible. To that end, Mack persuaded sporting goods manufacturer Ben Shibe, a minority owner of the rival Philadelphia Phillies, to buy a 50 percent stake in the team—an offer sweetened by Mack's promise that Shibe would have the exclusive right to make baseballs for the American League. In return, Mack was allowed to buy a 25 percent stake, and was named treasurer of the team. Two local sports writers, Frank Hough and Sam Jones, bought the remaining 25 percent, but their involvement was not mentioned in the incorporating papers; in fact, no agreement was put on paper until 1902. Mack and Shibe did business on a handshake.[12][24]

A 1910 Connie Mack baseball card

In 1913, Hough and Jones sold their 25 percent to Mack, making him a full partner in the club with Shibe; Mack actually borrowed the money for the purchase from Shibe.[25] Under their agreement, Mack had full control over baseball matters while Shibe handled the business side. When Shibe died in 1922, his sons Tom and John took over management of the business side, with Tom as team president and John as vice president. Tom died in 1936, and John died a month later, leaving Mack as sole owner.

Mack's great strength as an owner was his huge network of baseball friends, all of whom acted as scouts and "bird-dogs" for him, finding talented players and alerting Mack. "Mack was better at that game than anybody else in the world. People liked Mack, respected him, and trusted him....Mack answered every letter and listened patiently to every sales job, and...he got players for that reason."[26]

Mack saw baseball as a business, and recognized that economic necessity drove the game. He explained to his cousin, Art Dempsey, that "The best thing for a team financially is to be in the running and finish second. If you win, the players all expect raises." This was one reason he was constantly collecting players, signing almost anyone to a ten-day contract to assess his talent; he was looking ahead to future seasons when his veterans would either retire or hold out for bigger salaries than Mack could give them.

Unlike most baseball owners, Mack had almost no income apart from the A's, so he was often in financial difficulties. Money problems – the escalation of his best players' salaries (due both to their success and to competition from the new, well-financed Federal League), combined with a steep drop in attendance due to World War I — led to the gradual dispersal of his second championship team, the 1910–1914 team, who he sold, traded, or released over the years 1915–1917. The war hurt the team badly, leaving Mack without the resources to sign valuable players. His 1916 team, with a 36–117 record, is often considered the worst team in American League history, and its .235 winning percentage is still the lowest ever for a modern (post-1900) big-league team. All told, the A's finished last seven years in a row from 1915 to 1921, and would not have another winning team until 1926.

With the onset of the Great Depression, Mack struggled financially again, and was forced to sell the best players from his third great championship team, such as Lefty Grove and Jimmie Foxx, to stay in business. Although Mack had every intention of building a fourth great team, he was never able to do so, in part because he didn't (or couldn't, depending on the source) invest in developing a farm system.

After he retired as manager, he remained owner and president, though his sons Earle and Roy increasingly took over the running of the team. As he grew older he gradually became increasingly lost in the post-World War II business of baseball.

"Toward the end he was old and sick and saddened, a figure of forlorn dignity bewildered by the bickering around him as the baseball monument that he had built crumbled away."[27]

He finally sold the team to businessman Arnold Johnson, who moved the team to Kansas City, Missouri after the 1954 season.

Personality

Mack was a quiet, even-tempered, and gentlemanly man. He was generally addressed as "Mr. Mack." He always called his players by their given names. Chief Bender, for instance, was "Albert" to Mack. Perhaps due to his great longevity in the game, there grew up around him a kind of saintly image; his long-time friends objected to the image of him as "the bloodless saint so often painted, a sanctimonious old Puritan patting babies."[28] His friend Red Smith called him "tough and warm and wonderful, kind and stubborn and courtly and unreasonable and generous and calculating and naive and gentle and proud and humorous and demanding and unpredictable."[28]

Connie Mack, Time magazine, 1927

Beginning as far back as his first managing job in the nineteenth century, Mack drew criticism from the newspapers for not spending enough money. Some writers called him an outright miser, accusing him of getting rid of star players so he could "line his own pockets" with the money. However, his biographer Norman Macht strongly defends Mack on this question, contending that Mack's spending decisions were forced on him by his financial circumstances, and that nearly all the money he made went back to the team. Mack himself was upset by these allegations; when some writers accused him of deliberately losing the second game of the 1913 World Series in order to extend the series and make more money in ticket sales, he uncharacteristically wrote an angry letter to the Saturday Evening Post to deny it, saying "I consider playing for the gate receipts...nothing short of dishonest." With the Athletics leading the Series three games to one, several New York writers predicted that the Athletics would deliberately lose Game Five in New York so that Mack would not have to refund the $50,000 in ticket sales for Game Six in Philadelphia. After reading this, Mack told his players that if they won Game Five he would give them the team's entire share of the Game Five gate receipts – about $34,000. The Athletics did win, and Mack gave out the money as promised.[29]

Mack supported a large extended family and was generous to players in need, often finding jobs for former players. For instance, he kept Bender on the team payroll as a scout, minor league manager or coach from 1926 until Mack himself retired as owner-manager in 1950. Simmons was a coach for many years after his retirement as a player.

I shall never forget Connie Mack's gentleness and gentility.

Ty Cobb, New York Times [30]

Legacy

The Philadelphia stadium, originally called Shibe Park, was renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953. Starting in 1909, it was home to the Athletics, and starting 1938, it was also home to the Phillies, then from 1955 to 1970 was home to the Phillies alone, after the Athletics moved to Kansas City.

Mack's son Earle Mack played several games for the A's between 1910 and 1914, and also managed the team for parts of the 1937 and 1939 seasons when his father was too ill to do so. In more recent years, his descendants have taken to politics: Mack's grandson Connie Mack III was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida from 1983 to 1989 and the United States Senate from 1989 to 2001, and great-grandson Connie Mack IV was elected to the House from Florida's 14th Congressional District.

In addition to his Hall of Fame election in 1937, in 2008, Connie Mack was the first person inducted into the New York City-based Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame. He is mentioned in the poem "Lineup for Yesterday" by Ogden Nash:

Lineup for Yesterday

Q is for Don Quixote
Cornelius Mack;
Neither Yankees nor years
Can halt his attack.

 — Ogden Nash, Sport magazine (January 1949)[31]

Managerial record

Team Year Regular Season Postseason
Won Lost Win % Finish Won Lost Win % Result
Pittsburg Pirates 1894 12 10 .545 7th in NL – – –
Pittsburg Pirates 1895 71 61 .538 7th in NL – – –
Pittsburg Pirates 1896 66 63 .512 6th in NL – – –
PIT Total 149 134 .527 – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1901 74 62 .544 4th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1902 83 53 .610 1st in AL – – – AL Champions
Philadelphia Athletics 1903 75 60 .556 2nd in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1904 81 70 .536 5th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1905 92 56 .622 1st in AL 1 4 .200 Lost World Series
Philadelphia Athletics 1906 78 67 .538 4th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1907 88 57 .607 2nd in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1908 68 85 .444 6th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1909 95 58 .621 2nd in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1910 102 48 .680 1st in AL 4 1 .800 Won World Series
Philadelphia Athletics 1911 101 50 .669 1st in AL 4 2 .667 Won World Series
Philadelphia Athletics 1912 90 62 .592 3rd in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1913 96 57 .627 1st in AL 4 1 .800 Won World Series
Philadelphia Athletics 1914 99 53 .651 1st in AL 0 4 .000 Lost World Series
Philadelphia Athletics 1915 43 109 .283 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1916 36 117 .235 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1917 55 98 .359 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1918 52 76 .406 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1919 36 104 .257 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1920 48 106 .312 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1921 53 100 .346 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1922 65 89 .422 7th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1923 69 83 .454 6th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1924 71 81 .467 5th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1925 88 64 .579 2nd in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1926 83 67 .553 3rd in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1927 91 63 .591 2nd in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1928 98 55 .641 2nd in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1929 104 46 .693 1st in AL 4 1 .800 Won World Series
Philadelphia Athletics 1930 102 52 .662 1st in AL 4 2 .667 Won World Series
Philadelphia Athletics 1931 107 45 .704 1st in AL 3 4 .429 Lost World Series
Philadelphia Athletics 1932 94 60 .610 2nd in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1933 79 72 .523 3rd in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1934 68 82 .453 5th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1935 58 91 .389 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1936 53 100 .346 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1937 39 80 .328 7th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1938 53 99 .349 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1939 25 37 .403 7th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1940 54 100 .351 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1941 64 90 .416 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1942 55 99 .357 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1943 45 109 .318 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1944 72 82 .468 5th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1945 52 98 .347 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1946 49 105 .318 8th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1947 78 76 .506 5th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1948 84 70 .545 4th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1949 81 73 .526 5th in AL – – –
Philadelphia Athletics 1950 52 102 .338 8th in AL – – –
PHA Total 3,582 3,814 .484 24 19 .558
Totals 3,731 3,948 .486 24 19 .558 Won 5 World Series

See also

Home of Connie Mack on Clivenden Avenue in Northwest Philadelphia

References

  1. ^ Macht, Norman L. Connie Mack, University of Nebraska Press, 2007.
  2. ^ Mack, Connie. Connie Mack's Base Ball Book, Alfred Knopf, New York, 1950.
  3. ^ Singular, Stephen. By Their Works, Knights of Columbus, New Haven, 2005.
  4. ^ Macht, p. 494.
  5. ^ Macht, p. 44.
  6. ^ Macht, p. 72.
  7. ^ Macht, p.86.
  8. ^ James, Bill. The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers, Scribner, New York, 1997.
  9. ^ Macht, p. 56.
  10. ^ Mack, Connie. My 66 Years in Baseball, Universal House, Philadelphia, 1952.
  11. ^ Macht, p. 131.
  12. ^ a b Warrington, Bob. John Shibe – A Biographic Sketch. Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society. Retrieved 2009-01-22.
  13. ^ Macht, p. 475-77.
  14. ^ a b James, p.63.
  15. ^ Macht, p. 406-420.
  16. ^ a b James, p. 63.
  17. ^ Macht, p. 486.
  18. ^ James, p.60.
  19. ^ Macht, p. 392.
  20. ^ Macht, p. 398.
  21. ^ James, pp. 60–65.
  22. ^ James, p. 61.
  23. ^ Smith, Red. To Absent Friends, New American Library, New york, 1982.
  24. ^ Macht, p. 182
  25. ^ Macht, p. 567.
  26. ^ James, p. 62.
  27. ^ Smith, p.29.
  28. ^ a b Smith, p. 29.
  29. ^ Macht, pp. 586–602.
  30. ^ Woolf, S. J. (September 19, 1948). "Tyrus Cobb – Then and Now; Once the scrappiest, wiliest figure in baseball, 'The Georgia Peach' views the game as played today with mellow disdain". New York Times. p. SM17 (Magazine section).
  31. ^ "Baseball Almanac". Retrieved January 23, 2008.

Sources

  • Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball, by Norman L. Macht (University of Nebraska Press). Nominee for the 2007 CASEY Award (see The Casey Award; Roy Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf).

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Connie Mack (baseball).
Sporting positions
Preceded by Pittsburgh Pirates Managers
1894–1896 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
First Manager
 Philadelphia Athletics Manager
1901–1950 		Succeeded by

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