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 b...