Hit-the-Road Mack Was the Real Deal

Jerry Reinsdorf is a piker.

Reinsdorf, you will recall, is the owner-chairman of the Chicago White Sox who shocked the game and alienated his fans by trading off the heart of his pitching staff to the San Francisco Giants for a passel of minor-league nobodies the other day.

He did it, he said, because his team--while only 3 1/2 games out of the division lead--had “no chance” to catch the leaders, the earliest striking of the colors since Mussolini’s navy.

It is viewed as the most callous, scandalous dismantling of a championship lineup in the history of the game.

But is it? Uh-uh. Not even close.

Earlier this century, there was another owner, an icon of the game, Connie Mack, who makes Reinsdorf look wishy-washy by comparison.

Mack was, so far as I can determine, the only man ever to own and manage a team at the same time.

His Philadelphia Athletics were an on-field success. Nine times under Mack’s stewardship they won a pennant. Five times they won a World Series.

At the box office, they were something else again. Philadelphia periodically got bored with their nonchalant perfection.

Mack didn’t worry. He had a sure-fire gimmick to keep his franchise afloat. He would hone his players into valuable commodities, see to it they got plenty of press, up their value--and then put them on the auction block and sell them to the highest bidder.

And what players he dealt off! Eddie Collins, the matchless second baseman; the immortal “Home Run” Baker, Stuffy McInnis, pitchers such as Chief Bender and Eddie Plank, catchers such as Wally Schang. Most of them are in the Hall of Fame. They all had productive years after Mack sold them. Baker even sat out for a year in a snit over the sale. Other team members jumped to the outlaw Federal League.

The effect on the franchise was catastrophic. The Athletics of that era went from winning the pennant in 1914 with a 99-53 record to finishing last in 1915 with a 43-109 record.

Mack was such a mass of dignity in his celluloid collars, necktie with a stickpin in it and long sleeves that no one undertook to criticize him.

He painstakingly set out to build another cash-crop pennant team. It took him about 15 years, but when it came together, it even beat out the lordly Ruthian Yankees. They won pennants in 1929, 1930 and ’31.

Mack had the powerful Jimmie Foxx, who hit 58 home runs one season; the peerless pitcher, Lefty Grove, who was 31-4 in 1931; the redoubtable Al Simmons, who hit .381 one year and .390 the next; the great Mickey Cochrane, as good a catcher as anyone ever saw; George Earnshaw, a perennial 20-game winner. They all went to the Hall of Fame, too, except for Earnshaw, who should have.

Within a couple of years, they were all gone, and the Athletics went from first place, 107-47, down to last place, 58-91, where they stayed for years.

There used to be a slogan in those years “Break Up the Yankees!” popularized because the Yankees were too good for the game, winners of 14 pennants and nine World Series in 20 years (they won the pennant once by 19 1/2 games!). But Connie Mack really did break up the A’s.

You probably couldn’t get away with that today. I mean, can you imagine the outcry if anyone had wanted to deal off Willie Mays in his prime? Or Sandy Koufax? Mickey Mantle?

Mack needed the money in those Depression years. Besides, he couldn’t be fired. He owned the team.

But now comes an owner in different era. Reinsdorf owns not only the White Sox but also the Chicago Bulls (think he would have dared deal off Michael Jordan in his prime?).

He hasn’t exactly dealt off Lefty Grove, Chief Bender or Jimmie Foxx. But he has cut the heart out of his pitching staff, dealing off a starter (Wilson Alvarez) who won 15 games last year, a reliever, Roberto Hernandez, who had 38 saves last year, and Danny Darwin, a canny veteran who can give you key innings.

Reinsdorf is not Mack. He didn’t do it for money. But he may have done it to save money. San Francisco gave him a whole bunch of low cost part-timers for his proven performers.

Not too long ago, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn would not let another owner, Charlie Finley, similarly cash out a stack of blue-chip players (headed by Vida Blue). Finley even had the same franchise as Mack, although the A’s had now moved to Oakland, thanks, in part, because of what owner Mack had done to them.

Reinsdorf already had incurred the wrath of Major League Baseball by breaking the unwritten code and shelling out $55 million for Albert Belle, a power hitter (98 homers in two years) whose chief contribution to the game has been wall-to-wall malevolence. He broke a dam with that deal. Players’ agents from coast to coast promptly upped the ante for their clients by millions of dollars.

But Reinsdorf is only a rookie compared to Mr. Mack (as everyone reverently used to call him). Connie Mack wouldn’t give a $55-million contract to the 12 Apostles. And if he had them under contract, he would have sold them to the Red Sox and Yankees.