Connie Mack

Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy managed major league baseball teams for 53 seasons, won 3,731 games, and lost 3,948. Both figures are records. He managed the Philadelphia Athletics for 50 of those seasons, from 1901 to 1950, the longest tenure with a single club in the history of professional baseball. He won nine American League pennants and five World Series titles. He built two separate dynasties from scratch, watched each one reach the top, and then sold both of them off, player by player, because he could not afford to keep them. He did all of this while wearing a business suit and high starched collar in the dugout, directing his fielders by waving a rolled-up scorecard, and insisting that every player call him "Mr. Mack."

East Brookfield

Mack was born in East Brookfield, Massachusetts, the son of Irish immigrants Michael and Mary McKillop McGillicuddy. He shortened his name for professional baseball because, as he later explained, "McGillicuddy" did not fit in a box score. He played 11 seasons in the major leagues as a catcher, splitting time among the Washington Nationals (1886-1889), the Buffalo Bisons of the Players' League (1890), and the Pittsburgh Pirates (1891-1896). He batted .244 over 724 games and was remembered less for his hitting than for his craftiness behind the plate. He moved close enough to the batter to tip bats on the swing and mimicked foul tips to steal strike calls from umpires.

He managed the Pirates for the last three of those seasons, compiling a 149-134 record before being fired in September 1896.

Fifty Years in Philadelphia

In 1901, Ban Johnson recruited Mack to manage the Philadelphia Athletics of the new American League. Mack bought a 25 percent ownership stake. Sporting goods manufacturer Ben Shibe held 50 percent, and two sportswriters held the remaining quarter. In 1912, the sportswriters sold their shares to Mack, making him and Shibe equal partners. After Shibe's death in 1922, Mack gradually became the majority owner.

He built his first great team around pitchers Rube Waddell, Eddie Plank, and Chief Bender, and infielders Eddie Collins, Jack Barry, Frank "Home Run" Baker, and Stuffy McInnis, a group the press called the "$100,000 Infield." The Athletics won pennants in 1902 (before the World Series existed), 1905, 1910, 1911, 1913, and 1914, taking the World Series in 1910, 1911, and 1913. In 1905, the Athletics lost the Series to the Giants, who shut them out in four of five games. Christy Mathewson threw three of those shutouts.

Then he tore it apart. After the Athletics were swept by the "Miracle" Boston Braves in the 1914 World Series, and with the upstart Federal League threatening to poach his stars with higher salaries, Mack sold Eddie Collins to the White Sox for $50,000 in December 1914. Home Run Baker sat out 1915 in a contract dispute, then was sold to the Yankees. Plank and Bender left for the Federal League. Barry went to the Red Sox. The Athletics fell from 99 wins in 1914 to 43 in 1915 and finished last in the American League for seven consecutive seasons.

The Second Dynasty

Mack rebuilt. By the late 1920s, he had assembled a team around catcher Mickey Cochrane, first baseman Jimmie Foxx, outfielder Al Simmons, and pitcher Lefty Grove. This group won three consecutive pennants from 1929 to 1931, took the World Series in 1929 and 1930, and lost in seven games to the Cardinals in 1931.

Then he tore it apart again. The Great Depression had devastated attendance and revenue in Philadelphia. In September 1932, he sold Simmons, Jimmy Dykes, and Mule Haas to the White Sox for $100,000. He sold Cochrane to the Tigers for $100,000. He shipped Grove, Max Bishop, and Rube Walberg to the Red Sox for $125,000. He sold Foxx in a deal that brought $150,000. The Athletics did not contend again for the rest of Mack's tenure.

The Tall Tactician

Mack stood six feet one or two inches tall (sources disagree on the exact measurement) and weighed 150 pounds. His teammates in Pittsburgh had called him "Slats." In Philadelphia, the press called him "The Tall Tactician" and "The Grand Old Man of Baseball." He never wore a uniform in the dugout. He sat on the bench in his suit, his hat on, his scorecard in hand, and positioned his fielders with a wave of that scorecard. He did not shout. Players who described him later almost always used the word "gentleman."

In his final decade, the Athletics were bad and Mack was old. The team finished last or next to last in eight of his final twelve seasons. He managed his last game on October 1, 1950, at age 87. He had been in professional baseball for 66 years.

Mack was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1937 by the Centennial Commission, alongside John McGraw, Ban Johnson, Morgan Bulkeley, and George Wright. His plaque calls him "Mr. Baseball." Shibe Park, built for the Athletics in 1909 and shared with the Phillies from 1938, was renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953. It was demolished in 1976.

He died in Philadelphia on February 8, 1956, at age 93. A bronze statue of Mack in his business suit, scorecard raised, stands outside Citizens Bank Park today. He managed Nap Lajoie, Tris Speaker, Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Grove, among many others. No manager has won more games or lost more games. The two records belong together.