Connie Mack and the Triumph of Chain Store Baseball: The Philadelphia Athletics Fall from Grace

For the Philadelphia sports fan it is easy to be romantic about the Athletics. After all, their five world championships surpass those of all of the professional sports teams that play in Philadelphia today.

But let’s not kid ourselves. The A’s we’re not always that good. In fact, during the time between the two major dynasties, and after 1931, the A’s were downright horrible.

A lot of that had to do with the way baseball teams were recruited. While Connie Mack was good at recruiting baseball teams in the early 20th century, he proved unable to adapt to modern methods of recruitment. And thus the Philadelphia A’s wallowed in or near the cellar for a good portion of their existence.

In 1901, when Ban Johnson was forming the American League to be a competitor to the National League, he courted Connie Mack, then manager of the Milwaukee Brewers of the western league, because of his talent in putting together baseball teams.  Mack could assemble talented teams because he had a network of friends throughout the baseball universe. They would report to Mack about promising prospects playing in the minor leagues, in colleges and with factory teams. The minor leagues as we know it, as a network of teams at different levels formally affiliated with a major league team, did not yet exist. Instead, if a major league team were interested in a minor league player, the major league club would have to purchase the player’s contract from the minor league club. 

Through this network, Mack recruited such players as Rube Waddell, Eddie Plank, Charles Albert “Chief” Bender and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. His Philadelphia Athletics won the American League pennant in 1902 and 1905. 

Mack added the talents of pitcher Jack Coombs, and the so-called “$100,000 Infield,” that consisted of Eddie Collins, Jack Berry, Stuffy McInnis and Frank “Home Run” Baker. Mack’s eye for talent and his network of friends enabled him to build the first A’s dynasty, which won four pennants between 1910 and 1914, and three World Championships. 

But starting in 1915, when Mack and the A’s hit tough financial times, in part due to emergence of the Federal League, Mack sold off his players. This began a period of about a decade when the A’s mostly resided in the lower part of the standings. 

During the 1920s, Cardinal General Manager Branch Rickey innovated player development by first creating a network of minor league teams affiliated with one major league club. The Cardinals began investing in ownership stakes in teams such as the Houston Buffaloes, the Fort Smith Twins and the Syracuse Stars. Through the minor league affiliations, the Cardinals developed their own talent cheaply, and could sell off players not needed for the major league club to other major league clubs. This is what made the Cardinals a perennially dominant National League team. 

Mack, meanwhile, continued to rely on his network of friends to build his Athletics’ teams. Even after selling Frank “Home Run” Baker’s contract to the Yankees, Mack maintained a friendship with Baker. When Baker managed in the Eastern Shore League, he introduced Mack to a young slugger named Jimmie Foxx.  Foxx became part of the A’s powerhouse team that included the likes of Al Simmons, Mickey Cochrane and Robert “Lefty” Grove, that won the American League pennant from 1929 through 1931, and two World Championships. A 1996 Sports Illustrated article argued that the 1929 A’s may have beat out the 1927 Yankees as the greatest team ever assembled. 

But the stock market crash of 1929 brought hard times to the United States, and to Connie Mack. He sold off the great players on the 1929-31 team, and the A’s never recovered. The A’s spent most of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s at or near last place. 

A major reason the Athletics never assembled another competitive team was Mack’s opposition to Rickey’s minor league system.  Mack derided the farm system, calling it “chain store baseball.” On his 89th birthday in 1954, Mack lamented that the Athletics had not established its farm system earlier, noting that other clubs were more interested in developing their own talent than in engaging in trades. “I guess Branch Rickey’s chain store baseball wins after all.”

Of course, by that time it was too late for the Philadelphia Athletics. Mired in debt due to fielding team after team that few people wanted to pay to see, the Mack family sold the Athletics to the landlord of the Yankees, who promptly moved them to Kansas City. Some argue that the Athletics essentially became the Yankees de facto farm club, as the team made a series of lopsided deals with the Bronx Bombers, one of which sent a young Roger Maris to the Yankees for aged outfielder Hank Bauer. 

In the end, it was the aged Mack’s inability to grasp at innovation that doomed the Philadelphia Athletics.  Whether embracing the minor league affiliates system earlier would have saved Philadelphia from losing its most prolific championship team is a debate that may inspire arguments from sports fans longing for the days when the city’s teams did not linger in mediocrity. For now, Philadelphia sports fans can only dream of the days of the beloved Grand Old Man, who brought championships to the city. 

William J. Kovatch, Jr.

References

Associated Press, “Connie Mack Tells Views on Birthday,” Chicago Tribune (December 23, 1954).

Baseball-Reference, “The Register: Minor League Affiliates,” https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/affiliate.cgi.

Pat Doyle, “Branch Rickey’s Farm,” Minor League Baseball History, A Look Back (Baseball Almanac) http://www.baseball-almanac.com/minor-league/minor2005a.shtml.

David Fleitz, “Shoeless Joe Jackson,” Society for American Baseball Research Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/7afaa6b2.

David M. Jordan, The Athletics of Philadelphia: Connie Mack’s White Elephants, 1901-1954 (McFarland 1999).

Melissa Lockard, “Athletics’ History: KC A’s—Yankees Pipeline,” Oakland Hardball (February 25, 2007) https://scout.com/mlb/athletics/Article/Athletics-History-KC-As-Yankees-Pipeline-104402240.

Andy McCue, “Branch Rickey,” Society for American Baseball Research Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/6d0ab8f3.

Mark R. Millikin, Jimmie Foxx: The Pride of Sudlersville (Scarecrow Press 2005).

William Nack, “Lost In History,” Sports Illustrated (August 19, 1996) https://www.si.com/vault/1996/08/19/216207/lost-in-history-from-1929-to-1931-the-philadelphia-as-were-the-best-team-in-baseball-with-four-future-hall-of-famers-and-a-lineup-that-dominated-babe-ruths-legendary-yankees-so-why-hasnt-anyone-heard-of-them.

Westbrook Pegler, “Connie Mack: The Life Story of Baseball’s Grand Old Man,” Chicago Tribune (August 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 1931).

Doug Skipper, “Connie Mack,” Society for American Baseball Research Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/3462e06e. 

Robert D. Warrington, “Departure without Dignity,” Baseball Research Journal (Fall 2010) https://sabr.org/research/departure-without-dignity-athletics-leave-philadelphia.