The Grand Old Man of Baseball

The Grand Old Man of Baseball PDF

Author: Norman L. Macht

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2015-10-01

Total Pages: 671

ISBN-13: 0803237650

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In The Grand Old Man of Baseball, Norman L. Macht chronicles Connie Mack’s tumultuous final two decades in baseball. After Mack had built one of baseball’s greatest teams, the 1929–31 Philadelphia Athletics, the Depression that followed the stock market crash fundamentally reshaped Mack’s legacy as his team struggled on the field and at the gate. Among the challenges Mack faced: a sharp drop in attendance that forced him to sell his star players; the rise of the farm system, which he was slow to adopt; the opposition of other owners to night games, which he favored; the postwar integration of baseball, which he initially opposed; a split between the team’s heirs (Mack’s sons Roy and Earle on one side, their half brother Connie Jr. on the other) that tore apart the family and forced Mack to choose—unwisely—between them; and, finally, the disastrous 1951–54 seasons in which Roy and Earle ran the club to the brink of bankruptcy. By now aged and mentally infirm, Mack watched in bewilderment as the business he had built fell apart. Broke and in debt, Roy and Earle feuded over the sale of the team. In a never-before-revealed series of maneuvers, Roy double-crossed his father and brother and the team was sold and moved to Kansas City in 1954. In Macht’s third volume of his trilogy on Mack, he describes the physical, mental, and financial decline of Mack’s final years, which unfortunately became a classic American tragedy.

Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball

Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball PDF

Author: Norman L. Macht

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 743

ISBN-13: 0803209908

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Connie Mack was the Grand Old Man of baseball. This book, spanning first fifty-two years of Mack's life, covers his experiences as player, manager, and club owner. It tells how Mack, a school dropout at fourteen, created strategies for winning baseball and principles for managing men long before there were notions of defining such subjects.

My 66 Years in the Big Leagues

My 66 Years in the Big Leagues PDF

Author: Connie Mack

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0486471845

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A Founding Father of modern baseball, Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy started out as a catcher and moved on to become the consummate manager and part owner of the Philadelphia Athletics from 1901 to 1950. Better known as Connie Mack, he cut a dashing figure clad in a business suit and straw skimmer. With an even-tempered manner, "Mr. Mack" was regarded as a unique combination of coach and father figure by his players—who included such all-time greats as Ty Cobb, Lefty Grove, and Chief Bender. This engaging autobiography, written with his characteristic warmth and enthusiasm, reads like a history of baseball during the first half of the twentieth century. Enhanced by seventy photos, Mack walks us through his amazing life—and the highlights of his legendary career. He holds the records for most wins and losses by a manager, he won nine American League pennants, brought the A's to eight World Series and won five of them. Plus, there has never been another man who has managed one sports team for fifty years. Achieving the ultimate recognition, the "Grand Old Man of Baseball" was elected to the National Hall of Fame in 1937, and was the first person chosen for the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008.

Connie Mack's '29 Triumph

Connie Mack's '29 Triumph PDF

Author: William C. Kashatus

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2005-02-04

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 9780786421657

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It has been said that Connie Mack managed only two kinds of teams during his half-century in the City of Brother Love--unbeatable and lousy. His teams collected nine pennants and five World Series titles, balanced by 17 last place finishes. While Mack, an enterprising businessman, had a gift for discovering talented players and molding them into a team, by the time he was well into his sixties, Philadelphians suspected that the A's skipper had lost his ability. Mack went on to disprove all doubts, however, with a second championship dynasty in 1929 that vindicated the "Tall Tactician." This work chronicles the rise and fall of the 1929 Philadelphia Athletics and their six-year rivalry with the New York Yankees, 1927 to 1932. Based primarily on newspaper accounts, the book tells the story of the "Grand Old Man of Baseball"--and the 1929 A's team that is unfairly overlooked in favor of the 1927 Yankees as baseball's greatest all-around team. This history is packed with photographs, notes and statistical appendices, and includes a foreword by The Sporting News writer Dave Kindred.

The Philadelphia Athletics

The Philadelphia Athletics PDF

Author: William C. Kashatus

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9780738511337

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In October 1954, the Philadelphia Athletics relocated to Kansas City, putting an end to more than a half-century of American League baseball in the City of Brotherly Love. However, of all the professional sports teams ever to play in the city, Connie Mack's Athletics remain the most successful-and frustrating. Their five World Series titles and nine pennants were balanced with seventeen last-place finishes. Mack's 3,776 victories as a manager were only exceeded by the 4,025 defeats he suffered-still a record for most losses by a single manager. In The Philadelphia Athletics, author William C. Kashatus tells the story of Connie Mack's talented and comedic team. Eighteen Philadelphia Athletics are enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, including players as famous as Ty Cobb, Mickey Cochrane, Eddie Collins, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Grove and as colorful as Rube Waddell, Chief Bender, and Al Simmons. From the early days of the American League, when the Athletics were ridiculed as the "White Elephants," through the glory years and their final decade in Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Athletics tells the poignant story of a manager and team who were among the greatest of all time.

Connie Mack

Connie Mack PDF

Author: Norman L. Macht

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2012-04-01

Total Pages: 719

ISBN-13: 0803220391

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The Philadelphia Athletics dominated the first fourteen years of the American League, winning six pennants under the leadership of their founder and manager, Connie Mack. But beginning in 1915, where the second volume in Norman L. Macht's three-part biography picks up the story, Mack's teams fell from pennant winners to last place and stayed there for seven years. World War I robbed baseball of young players, and Mack's rebuilding efforts using youngsters of limited ability made his teams the objects of public ridicule. At the age of 59 and in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, Connie Mack remade the A's and rose again to the top, even surpassing his earlier success. Baseball biographer and historian Macht shows us the man and his time and the game of baseball in all the glory of the 1920s, and how Connie Mack built the 1929-31 champions--a team many consider baseball's greatest ever.--From publisher description.

Mickey and Willie

Mickey and Willie PDF

Author: Allen Barra

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 522

ISBN-13: 030771649X

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Acclaimed sportswriter Allen Barra exposes the uncanny parallels--and lifelong friendship--between two of the greatest baseball players ever to take the field. Culturally, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were light-years apart. Yet they were nearly the same age and almost the same size, and they came to New York at the same time. They possessed virtually the same talents and played the same position. They were both products of generations of baseball-playing families, for whom the game was the only escape from a lifetime of brutal manual labor. Both were nearly crushed by the weight of the outsized expectations placed on them, first by their families and later by America. Both lived secret lives far different from those their fans knew. What their fans also didn't know was that the two men shared a close personal friendship--and that each was the only man who could truly understand the other's experience.

Connie Mack

Connie Mack PDF

Author: Ted Davis

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 0595121128

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The life and times of Connie Mack, longtime baseball man. The early days of baseball, when it was America's Game. The players, Managers, and Executive's who helped shape the National Pastime. Foxx, Grove, Waddell, Landis, Ruth and others stroll across the pages. A must read for any baseball fan, young or old.