Baseball Loses the Man That Transformed Game

He was and still is baseball’s grand old man.

Connie Mack, for 50 years the manager of the Philadelphia Athletics, died 43 years ago today.

He was born Cornelius McGillicuddy during the Civil War and later changed his name so it would fit in a baseball box score.

He twice built the A’s into world champions, the last time in the early 1930s, when his Jimmie Foxx/Lefty Grove-led juggernaut won three consecutive American League pennants and two World Series titles. Eight Mack teams reached the World Series.

He retired from managing in 1950, when he was 87.

As much as anyone, Mack helped baseball move off turn-of-the-century cow pastures and sandlots and transformed it into the nation’s premier spectator sport.

On the day he died, an Associated Press reporter called Hall of Famer Ty Cobb at his Palo Alto home. Cobb broke down when told Mack had died.

“You never heard anyone say anything in criticism of him,” Cobb said. “Baseball has lost a truly great man.”

Mack, in failing health since breaking a hip the previous October, was 93 when he died in Philadelphia.

Also on this date: In 1976, Dick Vermeil resigned as UCLA football coach to take over the Philadelphia Eagles. . . . In 1960, merger rumors were in the air when it was announced NFL boss Pete Rozelle had met with AFL chief Joe Foss. But it would be 1966 before the warring leagues merged. . . . In 1963, Wilbur Johns, 59, retired as UCLA athletic director and was replaced by J.D. Morgan, 43. . . . In 1963, the Dodgers made Maury Wills baseball’s best-paid shortstop, signing him for $45,000. . . . In 1962, Sandy Koufax returned an unsigned contract to the Dodgers, declaring himself a holdout. In 1961, he earned $18,000 while winning 18 games and striking out 269 in 256 innings.