Connie Mack – Style in Basebal

This is a guest post from Ted Walker of Pitchers and Poets

In the search for style, the last place you’d look would be in the dugout of a Major League Baseball team. Despite the occasional baggy pants, chunky hemp necklace, or flat-brimmed cap, there isn’t much the players or coaches can do to stand out from the crowd in their uniforms. And the only personnel wearing anything distinct is the sports trainer, who’s usually dressed in a bland team polo, khaki shorts and bright white running shoes. In that world, a gold wristwatch on a manager’s wrist can stand out like a feather boa.

There is, however, an exception to this stylistic mundanity, and his name was Connie Mack.

Connie Mack remains an icon of style in an otherwise uniform environment. Mr. Mack, as everyone called him, was a businessman and a baseball man who coached the Philadelphia Athletics for 50 years. No coach has won more games, over 3,500, and no coach has looked better doing it.

He wore a tailored suit and the hat to match in the dugout, for every single game. He was rarely, if ever, known to waver from that uniform, a gentleman among the brawlers and ruffians of the early century. Only the baseball scorecard that he kept at hand and used to direct his outfielders suggested his occupation.

The suit that he wore when other managers chose to mimic their players reflected his character as a businessman and a manager.  “The thing that will stick in my mind about Connie Mack is his disposition. In his time he had to deal with just about every type of ballplayer there was. He had some real characters to handle, but they all ate out of his hand.” If his handsome suit, his starched collar, and his tightly combed hair don’t reflect his character, I’m not sure anything could.

1952 AL MVP pitcher Bobby Shantz described the rare time he saw Mr. Mack adjust his venerable demeanor. “It was in St. Louis. The temperature was in the high nineties and it was extremely humid. The heat must have really gotten to Mr. Mack–understandably so, as he was in his eighties by then–because he took off his hat and loosened his tie. It was the only time I ever saw him out of uniform.”

Mr. Mack earned the right to wear a suit in the dugout, as no one would question the authority he had earned or the respect he deserved. He, in turn, returned the favor, by dressing the part.