THE PURGE

August 23, 2023

Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily email that tucks you in every night with a baseball bedtime story.

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about a manager who dismantled his entire team after losing the World Series.

Most of us have heard of the legendary Connie Mack.

He is the winningest manager in baseball history with 3,731 wins over his 53-year career; a record that will never be broken.

The next closest person is Tony La Russa, who is more than 800 wins behind him.

Mack was a mild-mannered guy who rarely raised his voice and always dressed in a proper suit, rather than a uniform like most managers.

In addition to being their skipper, he was a part-owner of the Philadelphia Athletics.

From 1902-1914, he led the team to six AL Pennants and three World Championships.

But in 1914, Connie Mack had a problem.

The newly-formed Federal League was in its inaugural season and was taking players away from the American and National Leagues.

The A's were short on cash due to a steep decline in attendance that year, and to make matters worse, their team got swept in the World Series; losing to the Boston "Miracle" Braves.

The Athletics were highly-favored in this series, and the fact that they got swept made some people think that they intentionally lost the contest.

Even Connie Mack suspected that gamblers were in cahoots with some of his players.

He knew that his talented roster would jump ship to the Federal League if he didn’t pay them what they thought they were worth, but the A's didn't have the cash.

So one way or the other, the team was headed downhill.

Connie took a "break up with them, before they break up with you" approach.

In one day, he released Eddie Plank, Chief Bender and Jack Coombs - they had won almost 600 games collectively for Mack.

All three guys cleared waivers and Mack got nothing for them.

Then Mack's best hitter, Eddie Collins, threatened to jump to the Federal League, so Mack traded him to the White Sox for $50K.

John Franklin "Home Run" Baker, wanted to stay with the team, but also wanted more money; Mack refused to negotiate, and Baker sat out for the entire 1915 season.

Throughout that next year, Mack continued to sell players off for cash, and the A's were so bad that attendance fell to under 2,000 per game.

The A's finished that year 43-109, one of the worst seasons in history.

Then, just when you thought it couldn't get worse, they took it to the next level.

In 1916, they lost 117 games and turned into the laughing stock of the league; a far cry from their former dominance.

WEBGEMS WEDNESDAYS

STRANGE NAMES

If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.

Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.

If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.

Today's winner is:

Steve had many nicknames throughout his career.

People called him "Tree", "Steve Thanksgiving", "Steve Halloween", "Steve St. Patricks", ect.

The Twins drafted him in '75 and offered him $2500; a Minnesota scout told him straight up "we don't think you'll ever make it to the big leagues."

He declined their offer.

Steve signed with the Reds two years later and spent most of his time in the minors, but got called up a couple of times.

His most memorable moment came as a White Sox player when he finally got revenge on the Twins.

He hit his first-and-only dinger against Minnesota that day, and it turned out to be the game-winner.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

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