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Connie Mack (1862В–1956) was the Grand Old Man of baseball and one of the game’s first true celebrities. This book, spanning the first fifty-two years of Mack’s life, through 1914, covers his experiences as player, manager, and club owner and will stand as the definitive biography of baseball’s most legendary and beloved figure.В
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Norman L. Macht chronicles Mack’s little-known beginnings. He 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. And he details how Mack, a key figure in the launching of the American League in 1901, won six of the league’s first fourteen pennants while serving as manager, treasurer, general manager, traveling secretary, and public relations and scouting director (all at the same time) for the Philadelphia Athletics.
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This book brings to life the unruly origins of baseball as a sport and a business. It also provides the first complete and accurate picture of a character who was larger than life and yet little known: the tricky, rule-bending catcher; the peppery field leader and fan favorite; the hot-tempered young manager. Illustrated with family photographs never before published, it affords unique insight into a colorful personality who helped shape baseball as we know it today.
(20071126)
E-Book Content
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n o r m a n l. m a c h t
With a foreword by Connie Mack iii
univers i t y of n e br as ka pre s s
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l i n co l n a n d l on d on
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© 2007 by Norman L. Macht. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America ∞ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Macht, Norman L. (Norman Lee), 1929– Connie Mack and the early years of baseball / Norman L. Macht; with a foreword by Connie Mack III. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8032-3263-1 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Mack, Connie, 1862–1956. 2. Baseball players—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia —Biography. 3. Philadelphia Athletics (Baseball team)—History. 4. Baseball— United States—History. I. Title. gv865.m215m33 2007 796.357092—dc22 [B] 2006102532 Set in Minion. Designed by A. Shahan.
To L. Robert “Bob” Davids founder of sabr, the Society for American Baseball Research
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Foreword Preface Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Growing up in East Brookfield 2. The Young Catcher 3. A Rookie in Meriden 4. The Bones Battery 5. From Hartford to Washington 6. Life in the Big Leagues 7. Mr. and Mrs. Connie Mack 8. Jumping with the Brotherhood 9. The Players’ League 10. Uncertainties of Life and Baseball 11. Connie Mack, Manager 12. The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Mack 13. Fired 14. Milwaukee 15. Working the System 16. Learning How to Handle Men 17. Marching behind Ban Johnson 18. Launching the New American League 19. The City of Brotherly Love and “Uncle Ben” Shibe 20. Columbia Park and the “Athaletics” 21. Raiding the National League 22. The Bullfrogs 23. The Uniqueness of Napoleon Lajoie 24. Winning the Battle of Philadelphia
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