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Show ONLY a few years ago, almost the entire country started pulling for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The 1 Dodgers were the people's choice, or j cherce. But this season as a lone bystander or spectator, I'm pulling for Connie Mack's Athletics. Which means Connie Mack. With the respect in which Connie ' Mack is held in this country, with all the publicity he has drawn, I still pSSIXj doubt that the Unit- n,,n ed States quite ap- . s predates what Con- x s nie Mack has meant s N- x to the integrity, to i the cleanness, to the 'i all-out sportsman- N ship of baseball; ; Nf virtues which should j belong to all games. I don't believe the majority of the peo- Connie Mack pie know or understand under-stand the great job Connie has done through more than 60 years in promoting these ideals, which are far above the nine pennants and the many World Series his teams have won. There have been many smart managers and many smart owners. But no one else who could match what Connie Mack has contributed to baseball and to sport in general, as player, manager and owner or one who could say with Victor Hugo: "The snows of winter may be on my head, but the sunshine of eternal eter-nal spring is in my heart." F orty Years Ago Coming up from the south, I first met Connie in the World Series of 1905. That was the year when Christy Mathewson wrecked the Athletics with three successive shutouts. shut-outs. Connie Mack was then well over 40 years old. He was supposed to be past his prime, over four decades dec-ades ago. But after that 1905 Series I found that Mr. Mack had no alibi of any sort to offer. He had only praise for the great pitching of Matty, who held his hard-hitting team to 13 singles in 3 games. "What a pitcher," Connie said then. "What a pitcher." He had nothing to say about the absence of his great pitcher, Rube Waddell, who had been injured before the series and couldn't even throw a ball. It may be the younger generation genera-tion doesn't know so much about Mr. Mack. Well, at the age of 82 or 83, or whatever it is (who bothers about the years, anyway) , Connie is a lean, tall, gray-haired fellow as straight as a south Georgia pine. The last time I saw him was the 1944 World Series in St. Louis between the Cardinals Car-dinals and Browns when he looked to be the keenest of all the flock that follows any World Series show. We talked of the days when he dug up the greatest bunch of left-handers that ever worked for any ball club. Connie was always partial to southpaws Rube Waddell, Herb Pennock (rated by Bill Hanna as the greatest of them all), Eddie Plank (the Gettysburg Guide), and Lefty Grove certainly one of the best. It was also Connie Mack who dug up one of the great infields of baseball base-ball even if you have forgotten their names Stuffy Mclnnis, Eddie Collins, Col-lins, Jack Barry and Home-Run Frank Baker. Kindly name me a greater infield? A Great Sportsman In these last 40 years I have never seen or met Connie Mack when he wasn't kind and considerate of all concerned ballplayers, baseball writers and the public at large. He merely happened to be a great sportsman. And we can use a lot more great sportsmen than we have today. He has nothing to cover up nothing to explain. For 60 years he has stood four square against all the winds that blow in sport, and many of these are adverse winds. There was never any "dead pan" about Connie. He had a quaint sense of humor. The tough breaks never bothered him. "It all belongs In the game," he used to say. "You get the good ones and you get the bad ones. It all averages up." Some time ago I was kidding Ty Cobb as to whether he or Babe Ruth was the greatest ballplayer. "Why pick on Ruth or me," Cobb said. "Why not turn to Connie Mack? Mr. Mack has done more for baseball and sportsmanship in general gen-eral than any two men that ever lived. He is the ablest man and the squarest shooter I've ever known and 60 working years couldn't knock him down." That's one of the reasons I'm pulling pull-ing for Connie Mack and his Athletics Ath-letics through 1945. Country of Youth This is a young country, and il should be the country of youth. They are the ones who should take charge not the older men who rarely hear I a shot fired in anger. What we need is a sporting program pro-gram for these 10,000.000 or 12.000.-000 12.000.-000 war servicemen, which army and navy are now arranging, to take up the physical and mental slack. Tennis, golf, baseball and basketball basket-ball will da more to "rehabilitate" these battle-weary heroes than anything any-thing else. |