| The Mighty Mack Family
2004 marks the 75th anniversary of the Philadelphia A’s 1929
World Series champions, who were led by baseball legend Connie Mack.
Player, manager, scout, general manager, owner – Cornelius MacGillicuddy
“Connie Mack” – did it all. As a 6’2” player
he revolutionized baseball as the first catcher to squat behind the plate
– an innovation that continues today. And as the owner manager of
the Philadelphia A’s he built a dynasty that played five World Series
games, and holds the seemingly unbreakable records for most games managed,
won, and lost.
Mack’s teams in the early 1900s, featuring the “$100,000 Infield”
with Hall of Famers Eddie Collins and Frank “Home Run” Baker,
went to five World Series and won three times. John McGraw of the New
York Giants called the A’s a “white elephant” that no
one else wanted. Mack responded by adopting the pachyderm as his team’s
symbol, an insignia still used by the Oakland A’s. The cash-strapped
owner later had to sell off many top players, but the A’s became
a powerhouse again in the late 1920s, ending the reign of Babe Ruth’s
Yankees. The 1929-30 A’s team with Mickey Cochrane, Jimmie Foxx,
and Lefty Grove cemented their place in history as an outstanding team.
“Salaries were high, even during the Depression,” his daughter
Ruth Mack Clark, 90, recalls. “But after the crash, in which he
lost an awful lot of money, Dad sold off the players or else he would
have lost the team and the ballpark.”
Ruth was on hand last year to witness the A’s historic return to
Philadelphia for a game against the Phillies.
The baseball legend was born to Irish immigrants on December 22, 1862,
in East Brookfield, Massachusetts. His parents, Michael McGillicuddy and
Mary McKillop, emigrated from Killarney during the Famine years. Michael
served in the Civil War and was proud of his Irish Catholic heritage.
One of seven siblings, Connie kept McGillicuddy as his legal name, as
have his descendants. (Sports writers shortened it to fit into newspaper
box scores.)
“The Tall Tactician” was the winning manager of the first
All Star Game in 1933, and he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame
four years later. For “Connie Mack Day” in 1941, the legendary
George M. Cohan wrote a song, The Grand Old Man of the National Game.
Mack, who never missed Mass and was a proud member of the Knights of Columbus,
died in 1956. Two years before, in 1954, The Philadelphia A’s had
moved to Kansas City.
One of the last baseball managers to wear street clothes at the ballpark,
Mack cut quite a figure. “People would stare in recognition, because
he was so tall and stately in his three piece suit and white high collar
shirt,” recalls granddaughter Kathleen McGillicuddy Kelly, an Irish
dance instructor in Phoenix and former Radio City Music Hall Rockette.
“I loved going to the ballpark with him and my father.”
Both Mack’s family and his baseball legacy thrive even today. The
Grand Old Man had three children with his first wife, Margaret Hogan,
before her death, five more children with his second wife, Katherine Hallahan,
and 16 grandchildren.
Connie Mack III, a former U.S. Senator, threw out the first pitch when
the A’s returned to Philadelphia in 2003. He says that more people
are excited about meeting him because he is Connie Mack’s grandson
than because of his career in government.
“In the political environment, you understand the significance of
name recognition. My grandfather died almost 50 years ago, and his reputation
of character and integrity is astounding,” said Senator Mack, whose
interest in his Irish roots increased after visiting Northern Ireland
and the Irish Republic while serving in Congress. “For us to have
the heritage of a name that carries such respect, it imposes a responsibility
to live up to it.”
“We visited Co. Kerry and found the old McGillicuddy Castle,”
added the Florida Republican, whose driver’s license reads McGillicuddy.
“I wish I had taken an interest in my heritage earlier, but I am
glad I was able to expose my son to it.”
And the McGillicuddy political legacy lives on. Thirty-seven-year-old
Connie Mack IV follows in his father’s footsteps and was elected
to U.S. Congress representing Florida’s 14th District on November
2, 2004. Mack IV and his wife, Ann, have two children: Addison and (you
guessed it), Connie Mack V.
– By John Mooney |
