Connie Mack Quotes

The highlight of my baseball career came in Philadelphia's Connie Mack Stadium when I saw a fan fall out of the upper deck. When he got up and walked away, the crowd booed.

In East Bangor, Pennsylvania (population 800), there’s a little diner named for the trolley that used to take people to the once-bustling steel town of Bethlehem. The proprietors have adorned the walls with photographs of other local things that are no more. There’s one of the East Bangor band, a group of about twenty men and boys, in uniform, in front of a bandstand draped with bunting. There’s also one of the Kaysers, a local baseball club, on the day of an exhibition ballgame against the Philadelphia Athletics. These were Connie Mack’s A’s, which team in those early 1930s featured Hall of Famers Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Cochrane, and Lefty Grove. How did a village of under a thousand people manage to have its own band? How did a cluster of slate-belt villages field a regular baseball club, apparently good enough to stay on the same field for nine innings with the Philadelphia Athletics? What

There was nothing average about Mack’s subsequent managerial career, though. During his final three years in Pittsburgh, Mack served as a player-manager. After a four-year hiatus from the game, he returned in 1901 to manage the brand-new Philadelphia Athletics, a charter member of the American League. The man from East Brookfield, Massachusetts, would guide the A’s for their first fifty—yes, fifty—years. Connie Mack spent a total of sixty-one years in Major League Baseball, finally retiring at the age of eighty-eight.

Now, I have to tell you, this reminds me of a story. Actually, it’s an old baseball story. You see, one day, old Lucifer down there from his headquarters called St. Peter in Heaven, said they wanted to challenge him to a baseball game. And St. Peter said, “Sure, let’s play. But to be fair, I have to tell you all the great ones are up here. We’ve got Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Satchel Paige, Roberto Clemente. We’ve got all the best players, and our manager is the legendary Connie Mack. You won’t have a chance.” Well, old Lucifer says, “That doesn’t matter, we’ll win anyway.” And St. Peter says, “How do you expect to do that?” “Well,” he says, “simple, we’ve got all the umpires.” Luncheon for Representative Connie Mack Miami, Florida June 29, 1988

Of course, they say you can't steal first.  Detroit's Germany Schaefer did though. That zany character used to do his own announcing:  "Ladies and gentlemen!" he'd call out.  "Herman 'Germany' Schaefer now coming to bat for the Dee-troit Tagers.  That was the way he pronounced 'Tigers.'  Well, he was on first this day and Davy Jones on third in the ninth inning when they try to pull a double steal.  Nig Clarke, the catcher doesn't throw the ball, so on the next pitch Germany runs back to first.  He yells that he is gonna steal second again, and this time Nig tries to throw him out and Davy steals home with the winning run.  Craziest damned play you'll ever see.  They changed the rules after that.  Once you reach second, you can't run back and steal first.

There is a persistent theory, held by those who prate most steadily about "the American way of life" that the average American is a rugged individualist to whom the whole conception of "leadership" is something foreign and distasteful—and this theory would certainly seem to be in accord with our national tradition of lawlessness and disrespect for authority. But it is not entirely consistent with the facts. We Americans are inveterate hero worshipers, to a far greater extent than are the British and the French. We like to personalize our loyalties, our causes. In our political or business or labor organizations, we are comforted by the knowledge that at the top is a Big Boss whom we are free to revere or to hate and upon whom we can depend for quick decisions when the going gets tough. The same is true of our Boy Scout troops and our criminal gangs. It is most conspicuously true of our passion for competitive sport. We are trained from childhood to look to the coach for authority in emergencies. The masterminding coach who can send in substitutes with instructions whenever he feels like it—or even send in an entirely new team—is a purely American phenomenon. In British football the team must play through the game with the same eleven men with which it started and with no orders from the sidelines; if a man is injured and forced to leave the field the team goes on playing with only ten men. In British sport, there are no Knute Rocknes or Connie Macks, whereas in American sport the mastermind is considered as an essential in the relentless pursuit of superiority.

U.S. Senate, Connie Mack, once complained to us: We never have more than two and a half uninterrupted minutes for anything on Capitol Hill. There’s no time to stop and think or to have anything approaching an intellectual conversation.… We have to spend two thirds of our time doing public relations, campaigning or raising campaign funds. I’m on this committee, that task force, the other working group, and who knows what else. Do you think I can possibly know enough to make intelligent decisions about all the different things I’m supposed to know about? It’s impossible. There’s no time. So my staff makes more and more decisions.

Old baseball photos hold a special fascination too.  One of them showing the roof top stands on 20th Street is on display in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  If you get to Cooperstown, take a good look at it. Our house is near the middle of the block.  The one with the lamppost in front, two doors down from the enclosed porch.  Two little kids (Gerry and I) are perched on the steps in front of it.  I like to think that Dad is up there on the roof.  Look for a tall lean guy standing alongside the stands, counting the house.

A Japanese high schooler struck out Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Fox back to back. He rejected an offer from manager Connie Mack, and then went on to pitch three no-hitters in the Japanese league before being killed in World War II.