Connie Mack

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Connie Mack (disambiguation) .

Connie Mack
Catcher / manager / team owner
Born: December 22nd, 1862, East Brookfield , United States
Died on: February 8, 1956 Philadelphia , United States
Suggested: Right	Threw: Left
Debut in Major League Baseball
September 11,  1886  at the  Washington Nationals
Last MLB assignment
With the  Pittsburgh Pirates August 29, 1896
MLB statistics (until end of career)
Batting average	, 245
Hits	659
RBI	265
Teams
As a player Washington Nationals (1886-1889) Buffalo bison (1890) Pittsburgh Pirates (1891-1896) As a manager Pittsburgh Pirates (1894-1896) Philadelphia Athletics (1901-1950)
Awards
5 × World Series winners ( 1910 , 1911 , 1913 , 1929 , 1930 ) Statistics as manager: 3,731–3,948 (48.6%) most games as a manager in MLB history Co-owner of the Philadelphia Athletics (1901-1936) Philadelphia Athletics Owner (1936–1954)
member of
Baseball Hall of Fame
Recorded	1937
Special selection	Veterans Committee

Connie Mack , actually Cornelius McGillicuddy, Sr. , (born December 22, 1862 in East Brookfield , Massachusetts , † February 8, 1956 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ) was an American baseball player , manager and team owner.

Mack holds the record for most games as a manager in Major League Baseball with 7755 appearances . At the same time he has the most defeats (3948) and victories (3731). In 1933 he also managed the selection of the American League for the first All-Star game in history.

Mack was the first manager ever to win the World Series three times and is still the only one to win two consecutive World Series twice. Overall, Mack was five times successful in the finals of the American professional baseball league.

Private life

Connie Mack was born in East Brookfield, Massachusetts . His parents Michael McGillicuddy and Mary McKillop were Irish immigrants. In 1877, Mack left school at the age of 14 in order to be able to earn money for the family. His father suffered from alcoholism , which developed after being injured in the Civil War .

The name Connie Mack was originally an abbreviation because the full name was too long to fit on the scorecard . The actual nickname became so prevalent that hardly anyone knew the real name McGillicuddy anymore. Up to the present day all descendants of Connie use the name Mack as a nickname, although the latter never officially changed his name.

On November 8, 1887, Mack married Margaret Hogan, with whom he had three children. His son Earl Mack also became a baseball player and played under his father in Philadelphia. After 1950 he took over the team from his father with his brother Roy Mack . His wife died in 1892 after complications in the birth of their daughter Marguerite.

Mack married a second time on October 27, 1910. With Catarina Hallahan he had four daughters and another son, Cornelius Jr. and Connie Mack II.

Connie Mack's grandson Connie Mack III and his great-grandson Connie Mack IV were Florida State Representatives in the US House of Representatives . His great-grandson is married to Mary Bono Mack , Sonny Bono's widow .

Career

As a player

From 1886 Mack played eleven years in the major leagues, ten of them in the National League and one in the Players' League. Mainly Mack was used in the position of catcher , but also played as first baseman and in right field .

From 1886 to 1889 Mack was active in the Washington Nationals in the National League. In his first season in 1886, Mack was used ten times and achieved a batting average of 36.1%, which would remain his high until the end of his career. Mack played regularly for the next three years. In 1888, he scored the first of only five home runs in his playing career.

For the 1890 season Mack moved to the Buffalo Bisons in the newly formed Players' League, where he played 123 games this season and finished last with his team. The league only existed for one year, so Mack moved back to the National League for the Pittsburgh Pirates the following year . There he played for the rest of his career as a player, but was already active as a player and manager alike. For this reason he played less and less and only made 14 appearances in the 1895 season. In his last season in 1896, Mack played 33 times.

Mack came to a total of 724 missions, of which 601 in the National League and 123 in the Players' League.

As a manager

Connie Mack (standing, 5th from left) with his team at the 1905 World Series

In the years 1894 to 1896 Connie Mack was active as a player and manager for three years and won 149 games with 134 losses (52.7%) for the Pirates. From 1897 he managed the minor league team Milwaukee Brewers for four years .

For the 1901 season, Mack began 50 years of managerial career with the Philadelphia Athletics , where he achieved 3582 wins and 3814 losses (48.4%) up to the age of 87. He and his team reached the World Series eight times , of which he was able to win five.

When choosing his players, Mack attached great importance to self-directed, self-disciplined and self-motivated players. In his eyes, Eddie Collins , who became a star in Philadelphia, was the ideal player type. The behavior in the private life of his players was also important to Mack. So he demanded from his players that they do not drink alcohol.

Athletics win rate under Connie Mack

In sporting terms, the 50 years were like a rollercoaster ride. In the early years, the Athletics won the American League twice (1902 and 1905). In 1902 this meant the optimum, as the American and National League did not hold a championship series due to a bitter dispute over supremacy in professional baseball. Three years later, the Athletics lost in the World Series with 1: 4 games against the New York Giants . The only victory secured the future Hall of Famer Chief Bender , the Mack debuted in 1903.

Mack led the team to a positive balance in the years that followed. The exception was the year 1908, in which it only reached 6th place with a negative balance.

The third victory in the American League registered the team then 1910. Especially on the position of the pitcher had Mack strong players. In addition to Chief Bender, Jack Coombs , who joined the team in 1906 , scored three wins in the 1910 World Series and thus had a large share in the first World Series title for Mack. The Athletics won the series 4-1 games against the Chicago Cubs . The Mack team included the later Hall of Famer Frank “Homerun” Baker , Eddie Plank and Eddie Collins.

In 1911, Mack repeated the triumph with almost the same team. In the 1911 World Series , he defeated the New York Giants, against whom he was still defeated in 1905, with 4-2 wins. From this series comes the nickname of the third baseman Frank "Homerun" Baker, who scored two game-winning home runs, one of them against star pitcher Rube Marquard.

After a rather mediocre year 1912 followed in the 1913 World Series the third triumph for Philadelphia under Connie Mack. For the third time in 8 years, the Athletics met the New York Giants. The players who faced each other were almost the same as in 1911. Chief Bender secured two wins for the Athletics in the 4-1 success in the series. Eddie Plank won one of two duels and Frank "Homerun" Baker lived up to his name with a homerun in Game 1. In 1914 they reached the World Series again, but lost 4-0 to the Boston Braves after a sweep .

Difficult times began for Mack in 1915. He wanted and had to fundamentally rebuild and rejuvenate his team for financial reasons, which in 1915 meant that his team could only win 28% of all games. In 1916, which was to be the worst season in Mack's career, this value was even undercut with only 23.5% games won. It was preceded by Mack giving up a large part of his star players. In late 1914 he transferred Eddie Collins to the Chicago White Sox . Frank "Homerun" Baker was released and came under contract with the New York Yankees in 1916 , Eddie Plank was given to the St. Louis Terriers and Herb Pennock went to the Boston Red Sox .

Program for Game 5 of the 1931 World Series

The rebuilding went slowly. Up until 1921, Mack had to be content with the last place in the regular season every time . The continuous expansion then bore its first fruits in the mid-1920s. With a balanced mix of senior players like Ty Cobb , Zack Wheat and Eddie Collins returning to the team, as well as players at their career height like Mickey Cochrane , Lefty Grove and Al Simmons , the team made it to No. 2 in the American in 1927 and 1928 League. Even the very young Jimmie Foxx gradually got more responsibility from Mack and developed into an outstanding player.

In 1929, Mack finally won his fourth World Series with his newly formed team. They beat the Chicago Cubs 4-1 games. Jimmie Foxx was able to contribute two home runs and the balance of the bullpen was shown by the fact that the four wins were achieved by four different pitchers. These were Howard Ehmke , George Earnshaw , Eddie Rommel and Rube Walberg , with Lefty Grove able to book two saves .

Like almost 20 years before, Mack managed to repeat this triumph again. In the 1930 World Series , he defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 4-2 in six games with an almost identical team . Through this success, Mack and his team caught the Boston Red Sox in the list of franchises with the most World Series wins (5 each). This lasted until 1936 when the New York Yankees overtook both teams and finally overtook them in 1937.

After it reached second place in the American League again in 1932, the team under Mack crashed again in the following years. In 1935 and 1936, when Mack was already 73 years old, the Athletics landed at the bottom of the table. Once again, financial problems were the main reason why many regular players left the club. In 1948, at the age of 85, Mack managed to lead his team to fourth place in the regular season. But there were no major successes.

After the 1950 season, Mack ended his career as a manager after 7755 games.

As a team owner

After its founding in 1901, the financial support of the Athletics was guaranteed by Charles Somers. Somers, who is considered the "white knight" of the American League, also supported other teams in this way, such as the St. Louis Browns or the Chicago White Sox. Somers was to be paid off as soon as possible, and so 25% of the team went to Connie Mack. The other 75% was split between the sporting goods manufacturer Ben Shibe (50%) and the two local sports journalists Frank Hough and Sam Jones (25%).

In 1913, Hough and Jones sold their shares in Mack, who, like Ben Shibe, now held half of the ownership rights. To do this, Mack borrowed the necessary capital from Shibe. When Shibe died in 1922, his two sons took over the shares. After the death of the two (1936 and 1937) Connie Mack became the sole owner of the Philadelphia Athletics.

In the years 1915 to 1917 Mack got into major financial difficulties for the first time and had to part with almost all regular players. One of the reasons for this was that the newly founded Federal League paid much higher salaries than the American League teams could handle.

Almost the same thing happened to Mack with his second championship team. As a result of the Great Depression , his financial situation became increasingly critical and he once again parted with the best players in his squad.

After Mack ended his managerial career, he remained the owner of the team for four years. He ceded part of the shares to his sons Earl and Roy. Marked by age and illness, Mack finally sold all shares in 1954 to the industrialist Arnold Johnson, who left Philadelphia with the franchise in the fall of the same year and moved to Kansas City . With this in mind, the team was renamed Kansas City Athletics.

literature

• Norman L. Macht "Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball" (University of Nebraska Press), 2007 (English)

Web links

Commons : Connie Mack  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Player information and statistics Baseball Reference (English)
• Connie Mack in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Connie Mack in the Hall of Fame (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Statistics Manager at baseball-reference.com (English)
2. ↑ MLB's First All Star Game on booksonbaseball.com (English)
3. ↑ Mack, Connie. Connie Mack's Base Ball Book , Alfred Knopf, New York, 1950.
4. ^ "The Baseball Encyclopedia," MacMillan Publishing Company, 1990
5. ↑ World Series 1905 on baseball-almanac.com (English)
6. ↑ World Series 1910 on mlb.com (English)
7. ↑ World Series 1911 on baseball-reference.com (English)
8. ↑ World Series 1913 on baseball-almanac.com (English)
9. ↑ World Series 1929 on baseball-almanac.com (English)
10. ↑ World Series 1930 on baseball-almanach.com (English)
11. ↑ List of all World Series on baseball-reference.com (English)