Pittsburgh Pirates (1894–1896) Mack's last three seasons in the National League were as a player-manager with the
Pittsburgh Pirates from 1894 to 1896, with a 149–134 (.527) record. Mack was fired on September 21, 1896, retiring as a full-time player.
Minor leagues Mack accepted a deal from
Henry Killilea to act as manager and occasional backup catcher for the minor league
Milwaukee Brewers (the modern-day
Baltimore Orioles). He agreed to a salary of $3,000 () and 25% of the club. He managed the Brewers for four seasons from 1897 to 1900, their best year coming in 1900, when they finished second, behind the
Chicago White Stockings. It was in Milwaukee that he first signed pitcher
Rube Waddell, who would follow him to the big leagues.
Philadelphia Athletics (1901–1950) On November 8 1900, Mack became manager of the new American League's then unnamed Philadelphia ballclub, which eventually became known as the
Athletics. Shortly after, he would be named treasurer and part owner of that said franchise. Mack managed the Athletics through the
1950 season, compiling a record of 3,582–3,814 (.484) when he retired at 87. Mack won nine pennants and appeared in eight
World Series, winning five. File:Connie Mack and John McGraw - DPLA - 33d9a803e17827e29c4cf877541ccc4b.jpg|alt=Connie Mack and John McGraw, [ca. 1913]. Michael T. "Nuf Ced" McGreevy Collection, Boston Public Library|left|thumb|Connie Mack and John McGraw, [ca. 1913]. Michael T. "Nuf Ced" McGreevy Collection, Boston Public Library Mack's 50-year tenure as Athletics manager is the most ever for a coach or manager with the same team in North American professional sports,
and has never been seriously threatened. A few college coaches had longer tenures:
John Gagliardi was a head football coach from 1949 to 2012, ending with 60 seasons at
Saint John's of Minnesota;
Eddie Robinson was head football coach at
Grambling State for 57 seasons, from 1941 (when it was known as the Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute) to 1997;
Herb Magee served as head men's basketball coach of the institution now known as
Jefferson for 54 years from 1967 to 2022 (the school canceled the 2020-21 season due to
COVID-19 concerns.
Joe Paterno, with 62 seasons as a college football coach for the
Penn State Nittany Lions also surpassed Mack, although Paterno was head coach in only 46 of those years. College football pioneer
Amos Alonzo Stagg also surpassed Mack in overall tenure, though not in tenure for a single employer; he was a head coach for 55 seasons in all (1892–1946), with the first 41 at
Chicago (1892–1932). Mack was widely praised in the newspapers for his intelligent and innovative managing, which earned him the nickname "the Tall Tactician". He valued intelligence and "baseball smarts," always looking for educated players. (He traded away
Shoeless Joe Jackson despite his talent because of his bad attitude and unintelligent play.) "Better than any other manager, Mack understood and promoted intelligence as an element of excellence." He wanted men who were self-directed, self-disciplined and self-motivated; his ideal player was
Eddie Collins. According to baseball historian
Bill James, Mack was well ahead of his time in having numerous college players on his teams. Several of his players went on to become well-respected college coaches.
Jack Coombs, the ace of Mack's 1910–11 champions, became the longtime coach at
Duke.
Andy Coakley, who won 20 games for Mack's 1905 pennant winners, coached for over 30 years at
Columbia, where he was the college coach for
Lou Gehrig.
Dick Siebert, longtime coach at
Minnesota, played for Mack from 1938 to 1945. James believed that Mack's influence on the game, as great as it was, would have been even greater had the college game been more popular during the 1920s and 1930s, when Mack was at his peak. According to James, Mack looked for seven things in his players—"physical ability, intelligence, courage, disposition, will power, general alertness and personal habits." • I will always play the game to the best of my ability. • I will always play to win, but if I lose, I will not look for an excuse to detract from my opponent's victory. • I will never take an unfair advantage in order to win. • I will always abide by the rules of the game—on the diamond as well as in my daily life. • I will always conduct myself as a true sportsman—on and off the playing field. • I will always strive for the good of the entire team rather than for my own glory. • I will never gloat in victory or pity myself in defeat. • I will do my utmost to keep myself clean—physically, mentally, and morally. • I will always judge a teammate or an opponent as an individual and never on the basis of race or religion. He also looked for players with quiet and disciplined personal lives, having seen many players in his playing days destroy themselves and their teams through heavy drinking. Mack himself
never drank; before the 1910 World Series he asked all his players to "take the pledge" not to drink during the Series. When
Topsy Hartsel told Mack he needed a drink the night before the final game, Mack told him to do what he thought best, but in these circumstances "if it was me, I'd die before I took a drink." In any event, his managerial style was not tyrannical but easygoing. He never imposed curfews or bed checks, and made the best of what he had. Rube Waddell was the best pitcher and biggest gate attraction of Mack's first decade as the A's manager, so he put up with his drinking and general unreliability for years, until it began to bring the team down and the other players asked Mack to get rid of Waddell. Unlike most other baseball managers, Mack chose to wear a business suit and overcoat in the dugout rather than a team uniform. Mack's strength as a manager was finding the best players, teaching them well and letting them play. "He did not believe that baseball revolved around managerial strategy." James summed up Mack's managerial approach as follows: he favored a set lineup, did not generally
platoon hitters; preferred young players to veterans and power hitters to those with high batting averages; did not often pinch-hit, use his bench players or
sacrifice much (even so, the A's led the league in sacrifice bunts in 1909, 1911 and 1914); believed in "big-inning" offense rather than small ball; and very rarely issued an
intentional walk. Over the course of his career, he had nine pennant-winning teams spanning three peak periods or "dynasties." His original team, with players such as Rube Waddell,
Ossee Schrecongost, and
Eddie Plank, won the pennant in 1902 (when there was no World Series) and 1905. They lost the 1905 World Series to the
New York Giants (four games to one, all shutouts, with
Christy Mathewson hurling three shutouts for a record 27 scoreless innings in one World Series). During that season, Giants manager
John McGraw said that Mack had "a big
white elephant on his hands" with the Athletics. Mack defiantly adopted the white elephant as the team's logo, which the Athletics still use today. As that first team aged, Mack acquired a core of young players to form his second great team, which featured Mack's famous "$100,000 infield" of Eddie Collins,
Home Run Baker,
Jack Barry and
Stuffy McInnis. These Athletics, captained by catcher
Ira Thomas, won the pennant in 1910, 1911, 1913 and 1914, beating the Cubs in the World Series in 1910 and the Giants in 1911 and 1913, but losing in 1914 in four straight games to the "Miracle"
Boston Braves, who had come from last place in late July to win the National League pennant by games over the Giants. That team was dispersed due to financial problems, from which Mack did not recover until the 20s, when he built his third great team. The 1927 Athletics featured several future
Hall of Fame players including veterans
Ty Cobb,
Zack Wheat and
Eddie Collins as well as young stars like
Mickey Cochrane,
Lefty Grove,
Al Simmons and rookie
Jimmie Foxx. That team won the pennant in 1929, 1930 and 1931, beating the
Chicago Cubs in the 1929 World Series (when they came from 8–0 behind in Game 4, plating a Series record ten runs in the seventh inning and winning the game, 10–8, and then from two runs down in the bottom of the ninth in Game 5 for a walk-off Series win) and easily defeating the
St. Louis Cardinals in 1930. The following year, St. Louis beat the A's in seven games led by
Pepper Martin. That team was dispersed after 1932 when Mack ran into financial difficulty again. By 1934, the A's had fallen into the
second division. Although Mack intended to rebuild for a third time, he would never win another pennant. The Athletics' record from 1935 to 1946 was dismal, finishing in the basement of the AL every year except a 5th-place finish in 1944. World War II brought further hardship due to personnel shortages. In 1938, Mack in his middle seventies successfully battled a blood infection caused when a batted ball injured one of his shinbones. He stopped for treatment at the Medical and Surgical Hospital in
San Antonio,
Texas, where he was in passage on a train. In addition, as Mack entered his 80s, his once-keen mind began fading rapidly. Mack would make strange decisions (which his coaches and players usually overruled), make inexplicable outbursts, and call for players from decades earlier to pinch-hit. He spent most games asleep in the dugout, leaving his coaches to run the team most of the time. According to outfielder
Sam Chapman, "He could remember the old-timers, but he had a hard time remembering the names of the current players." Shortstop
Eddie Joost said "He wasn't senile, but there were lapses." Despite growing speculation he would step down, Mack brushed it all off and stated simply that he would keep managing as long as he was physically able to do so. According to Bill James, by the time Mack recovered again financially, he was "old and out of touch with the game, so his career ends with eighteen years of miserable baseball." It was generally agreed that he stayed in the game too long, hurting his legacy. He was unable to handle the post-World War II changes in baseball, including the growing commercialization of the game. His business style was no longer viable in post-World War II America due to various factors, including the increased expense of running a team. For instance, he never installed a telephone line between the bullpen and dugout. Despite the circumstances, the octogenarian Mack led the team to three winning seasons in 1947–1949 (including a fourth-place finish in 1948). With the A's unexpected resurgence in 1947–1949, there was hope that 1950—Mack's 50th anniversary as the A's manager—would bring a pennant at last. However, the A's never recovered from a dreadful May in which they only won five games. By May 26, the A's were 11–21, 12 games out of first, and it was obvious the season was a lost cause. On that date, his sons
Earle,
Roy and Connie, Jr. persuaded their father to promote
Jimmy Dykes, who had been a coach since 1949, to assistant manager for the remainder of the season. Dykes became the team's main operator in the dugout, and would take over the managerial reins in his own right in 1951. At the same time, Cochrane was named general manager—thus stripping Connie, Sr. of his remaining authority. At the time of his retirement, Mack stated: I'm not quitting because I'm getting old, I'm quitting because I think people want me to."
Managerial record Owner The American League's white knight,
Charles Somers, provided the seed money to start the Athletics and several other American League teams. However, plans called for local interests to buy out Somers as soon as possible. To that end, Mack persuaded sporting goods manufacturer
Ben Shibe, a minority owner of the rival
Philadelphia Phillies, to buy a 50 percent stake in the team—an offer sweetened by Mack's promise that Shibe would have the exclusive right to make baseballs for the American League. In return, Mack was allowed to buy a 25 percent stake, and was named secretary and treasurer of the team. Two local sports writers, Frank Hough and Sam Jones, bought the remaining 25 percent, but their involvement was not mentioned in the incorporating papers; in fact, no agreement was put on paper until 1902. Mack and Shibe did business on a handshake. In 1913, Hough and Jones sold their 25 percent to Mack, making him a full partner in the club with Shibe; Mack actually borrowed the money for the purchase from Shibe. Under their agreement, Mack had full control over baseball matters while Shibe handled the business side. However, Mack had enjoyed more or less a free hand over the baseball side since the team's inception. When Shibe died in 1922, his sons
Tom and
John took over management of the business side, with Tom as team president and John as vice president. Tom died in 1936, and John resigned shortly thereafter, leaving Mack to take over the presidency. John Shibe died in 1937, and Mack bought 141 shares from his estate, enough to make him majority owner of the A's. However, he had been operating head of the franchise since Ben Shibe's death. Such an arrangement is no longer possible in current times, as major-league rules do not allow a coach or manager to own
any financial interest in a club. Mack's great strength as owner was his network of baseball friends, all of whom acted as scouts and "bird-dogs" for him, finding talented players and alerting Mack; "Mack was better at that game than anybody else in the world. People liked Mack, respected him, and trusted him. ... Mack answered every letter and listened patiently to every sales job, and ... he got players for that reason." Mack saw baseball as a business, and recognized that economic necessity drove the game. He explained to his cousin, Art Dempsey, that "The best thing for a team financially is to be in the running and finish second. If you win, the players all expect raises." This was one reason he was constantly collecting players, signing almost anyone to a ten-day contract to assess his talent; he was looking ahead to future seasons when his veterans would either retire or hold out for bigger salaries than Mack could give them. Unlike most baseball owners, Mack had almost no income apart from the A's. Even when he collected rent from the Phillies, he was often in financial difficulties. Money problems—the escalation of his best players' salaries (due both to their success and to competition from a new, well-financed third major league of the
Federal League in 1914–1915), combined with a steep drop in attendance due to
World War I—led to the gradual dispersal of his second championship team, the
1910–
1914 team, whom he sold, traded, or released over the years 1915–1917. The war hurt the team badly, leaving Mack without the resources to sign valuable players. His
1916 team, with a 36–117 record, is often considered the worst team in American League history, and its .235 winning percentage is still the lowest ever for a modern-era (since 1900) major league team. The team's 117 losses set a modern-era record and at the time were the second most losses behind the
Cleveland Spiders' 130 in 1899. As of 2024 that record has been topped only three times, all by teams that played 162-game schedules, not 154 like the Athletics: the
1962 New York Mets (120 losses in their inaugural season), the
2003 Detroit Tigers (119 losses), and the
2024 Chicago White Sox (121 losses). All told, the A's finished dead last in the AL seven consecutive seasons (1915 to
1921), and would not reach .500 again until 1925. The rebuilt team won back-to-back championships in 1929–1930 over the Cubs and Cardinals, and then lost a rematch with the latter in 1931. As it turned out, these were the last postseason appearances for the A's not only in Philadelphia, but for another four decades. Unlike with the breakup of his second great team, the A's did not tumble out of contention right away. They remained fairly competitive for most of the first half of the 1930s. However, after 1933, they would only tally four more winning seasons during their stay in Philadelphia—which would be the franchise's only winning seasons for 35 years. and Mack, Opening Day, April 13, 1926, Griffith Stadium, D.C.; Senators won in the 9th, 1–0 With the 1929 onset of the
Great Depression, Mack struggled financially again, and was forced to sell the best players from his second great championship team, such as
Lefty Grove and
Jimmie Foxx, to stay in business. Although Mack wanted to rebuild again and win more championships, he was never able to do so owing to a lack of funds. Even before then, he either did not (or could not) invest in a farm system. Mack celebrated his 70th birthday in 1932, and many began wondering if his best days were behind him. Even as bad as the A's got during the next two decades, he stubbornly retained full control over baseball matters long after most teams had hired a general manager. This continued even after he became majority owner, despite calls both inside and outside Philadelphia to step down. In the early 1940s, Mack gave a minority stake in the team to his three sons, Roy, Earle, and Connie, Jr. Although Roy and Earle had never gotten along with Connie, Jr., who was more than 20 years younger than them, Connie, Sr. intended to have all three of them inherit the team after his death or retirement. This strategy backfired when Roy and Earle refused to consider Connie, Jr.'s demands to end the team's bargain-basement way of doing business. One of the few things on which they agreed was that it was time for their father to step down. Connie, Jr. was only able to force through other minor improvements to the team and the rapidly crumbling Shibe Park through an alliance with the Shibe heirs. When it became apparent that his older brothers were not willing to go further, Connie, Jr. and the Shibes decided to sell the team. However, Roy and Earle countered by buying out their younger brother, persuading their father to support them. In order to pull off the deal, however, they mortgaged the team to the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company (now part of
CIGNA). Yearly payments of $200,000 drained the team of badly needed capital, and ended any realistic chance of the A's winning again under the Macks' stewardship. The 1954 A's attracted only 304,000 people, nowhere near enough to break even. The other owners, as well as league president
Will Harridge, wanted the Athletics sold off to a new owner. The Yankees in particular lobbied for it to be
Chicago businessman
Arnold Johnson (1906–1960), who had recently bought both
Yankee Stadium as well as
Blues Stadium in
Kansas City, home to the Yankees' top Triple AAA farm team in the second
American Association. Roy and Earle Mack did not want to move the team, but pressure from the Yankees and blowback from several bad business decisions finally moved their hand and they agreed to the sale. A final attempt to sell the A's to Philadelphia car dealer John Crisconi briefly gained Mack's support, but collapsed at the eleventh hour—reportedly due to behind-the-scenes intrigue by the Yankees. When that deal collapsed, a bitter Mack wrote a letter blasting his fellow owners for sinking the Crisconi deal. However, he admitted that he did not have nearly enough money to run the A's in 1955, and conceded that the Johnson deal was the only one with a chance of approval. When the American League owners met in New York to discuss the sale to Johnson, they voted 5–3 to approve the sale. Johnson immediately requested permission to move to Kansas City, which was granted after Detroit's
Spike Briggs switched his vote. The A's sold Shibe Park, now renamed Connie Mack Stadium, to the Phillies. Mack was still chauffeured around to games by his caretaker. He attended the
1954 World Series and the occasional regular season game, but in October 1955, he fell and suffered a hip fracture. Mack underwent surgery on October 5, missing the World Series that week for the first time ever. He required the use of a wheelchair after that point, celebrating his 93rd birthday in November. His death came at his daughter's house on the afternoon of February 8, 1956. According to his doctor, he'd been fine until the 7th when he "just started to fade away". Officially, it was announced that he died of "old age and complications from his hip surgery" Mack's funeral was held in his parish church, St. Bridget's, and he was buried in
Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in
Cheltenham Township just outside Philadelphia, with Commissioner of Baseball
Ford Frick, the AL and NL presidents, and all 16 MLB owners serving as pallbearers. ==Personality==