Connie Mack: The Turbulent and Triumphant Years, 1915–1931 by Norman L. Macht (review)

How does a noted baseball biographer follow up a 673-page, award-winning biography of a baseball icon? He does it by writing an equally engaging 648-page biography of the exact same icon. Norman Macht’s subject is the revered Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy, aka Connie Mack. The first volume of what promises upon completion to be a three-volume set is aptly entitled Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball (University of Nebraska Press, 2007). It ends as owner-manager Mack picks up the pieces of his Philadelphia Athletics club following its stunning defeat in four games by the Boston Braves in the 1914 World Series. The second volume finds Mack moving forward in 1915 with a large dose of optimism but far less star power. Macht does a fine job describing why the A’s leader felt he could still win, despite the loss of greats like second baseman Eddie Collins, pitchers Chief Bender and Eddie Plank, and, a bit later, disgruntled third baseman Frank “Home Run” Baker.

The fact that Mack miscalculated in grand fashion, sending his ball club to baseball Siberia for a decade, comprises the first half of the book. During these “turbulent” years the A’s finished in the basement seven times and in the second division an additional three times. It takes a skilled writer to maintain interest through some three hundred pages detailing how Mack, once wildly successful, battled to climb the American League standings and maintain his dignity. Macht is up to the task. He sprinkles the text with interesting stories of Mack and his players, many of whom received no more than a tryout on the recommendation of one of Mack’s many friends and acquaintances. A number of these stories, like that of Sam Crane, an A’s short-timer who Mack rehabilitated after a stint in prison, serve to show Mack’s humanitarian side (49).

The author has a way with a simile, using the device to maintain a brisk pace during the down years. At one point as Mack struggles to find a winning combination he is said to feel “like a cross-eyed safecracker.” In describing surprisingly strong attendance as yet another edition of the A’s falters, Macht ventures that just “maybe the organist was playing well” (80). As the saga of the lean years unfolds, Macht introduces particularly insightful personal correspondence from Mr. Mack. One that stands out is a letter to Frank Baker (13–14) seeking to bring the slugger back into the fold after his surprise retirement.

In analyzing Mack’s early struggles to regain the preeminence his organization once enjoyed, Macht points out that Mack attempted to build his teams by finding young, untried, and often untrained talent. This was the method that worked so well in forming the teams that carried the A’s to success from 1909–1914. In so doing, he essentially eschewed available talent from the minor leagues. He finally relented in the early 1920s, tapping the top-level minor leagues for prospects such as future Hall of Famer Lefty Grove. Macht reports that “[a]fter seven years in the wilderness Connie Mack concluded that he could no longer grow stars from seedlings” (276). He funded the effort through increased attendance afforded by the emergence of the slugging Babe Ruth. As a result the A’s, buoyed by a nucleus of solid performers already in place, began a slow rise to the top. The crafty formulation of those teams ultimately led to the “triumphant” years, forming the second half of the book.

The A’s ascendancy, culminating in pennants from 1929–1931 and World Series victories in 1929 and 1930 was not meteoric. In 1924, a season which saw the club finish fifth, a twelve-game losing streak is described as burying the team “in the basement like a vampire at noon” (330). Nonetheless, you can almost feel the electricity vibrating through Macht...