While it is not typical for me to review books more than 10 years old, when I visited my local library recently and saw this one, I checked it out and figured it would be one to read a small amount at a sitting over a longer period of time then it usually takes to finish a book. It was well worth the effort - plus, it's the first book in a trilogy about Connie Mack and the Philadelphia Athletics. Here is my review of Norman Macht's first book on the legendary man.
Title/Author:
"Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball" by Norman L. Macht
Tags:
Baseball, biography, history, Athletics
Publish date:
September 1, 2007
Length:
742 pages
Rating:
5 of 5 stars (excellent)
Review:
Cornelius McGillicuddy, better known as Connie Mack, was one of the more important figures in the early history of baseball. He is best known as the first manager of the Philadelphia (now Oakland) Athletics, having brining them in as a charter member of the American League. Mack helped form this league along with Ban Johnson, Charles Comiskey and others to form a true competitor to the National League. But there is much more to the story of Connie Mack aside from just being the first owner and manager (for more than 50 years) of the Athletics. His life, in and out of baseball, up to 1915 is chronicled in this excellent volume – which is the first of a three-volume set on Mr. Mack, as he was commonly called.
To cover this much material, the book must be well researched and painstakingly recorded. It took Macht several years to compile this material and several more years to compose it into the three books. As one can imagine, the attention to detail is excellent, almost to the point that it feels like the reader thinks that he or she is living in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. While many have given high praise to Macht for his writing about the Athletics under the helm of Mack, this reader believed that it would not have been as good as it was had he not done an even better job at writing about Connie Mack the catcher, who was usually one of the better players on whichever team that would give him a job, at least when it came to baseball smarts and guile. Mack's prowess as a catcher would benefit him well later when he became a manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League.
When he joined the Milwaukee Brewers of the Western League, which later became the American League, Mack answered the call of Ban Johnson to create a team in Philadelphia and it was there that Mack enjoyed his best success to date, winning five of the first 14 American League championships. Much like Mack's teams, Macht seems to hit everything right when writing about these teams and the colorful characters such as Home Run Baker and Napoleon Lajoie, whom Mack and the Athletics lost in a bitterly contested court case as to whether the player was bound by the contract of his former team.
That part of the book illustrates that no matter what era of baseball one reads about, it has always been a business first and a game second, especially to men like Mack whose livelihood depends on much more than just wins and losses. While this book only takes the reader to 1915 when Mack was still in the dugout for the Athletics into the 1950's, it is an excellent look into the early years of professional baseball and the setting into his life, both personal and professional.
Book Format Read:
Hardcover
Buying Links:
https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803232631/
Totally agree a five star book..ive gone on to read volume 2 and currenty reading volume 3
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