December 8, 1914: The 1st Athletics Fire Sale

December 8, 1914: Connie Mack breaks up his champion Philadelphia Athletics. It sets a pattern for the franchise that lasts to this day.

Founded in 1901 with the American League, and not the first baseball team with that name, the Philadelphia Athletics were owned by Benjamin Shibe, with Connie Mack -- the former catcher shortened his name so it would fit better in a box score, but never legally changed his name from Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy -- as the team's manager, treasurer, and 25 percent owner.

They won the American League Pennant in 1902, before the World Series was instituted. They won the Pennant in 1905, losing the World Series to the National League Champions, the New York Giants. They fell a little short of the Pennant in 1907 and 1909, before winning it in 1910, defeating the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. They won the Pennant again in 1911 and 1913, each time beating the Giants in the World Series. They won another Pennant in 1914, but lost the World Series to the Boston Braves, in the competition's 1st major upset.

But 1914 was also the 1st year of the Federal League, which considered itself not bound by the reserve clause, as the AL and the NL agreed to be. So the FL could offer higher salaries, and Mack, as treasurer and part-owner, could not keep up.

On December 2, 1914, Mack's best pitcher, Eddie Plank, signed with the FL's St. Louis Terriers. Three days later, his next-best pitcher, Charles Albert "Chief" Bender, signed with the FL's Baltimore Terrapins. Both pitchers would be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Mack could have sold or traded either of them, and gotten something for them. Instead, he got nothing for them.

So he began to sell off his best players. Here's the starting players, and the remaining main pitchers, from the 1914 World Series, and what happened to them:

* December 8, 1914: Sold 2nd baseman Eddie Collins, a future Hall-of-Famer, to the Chicago White Sox, for $50,000. 

* Sometime before the 1915 season: Released pitcher Jack Coombs, who would be signed by the Brooklyn Robins (as the Dodgers were then known). 

* June 6, 1915: Waived pitcher Herb Pennock, who would be claimed by the Boston Red Sox. 

* June 28, 1915: Sold pitcher Bob Shawkey to the New York Yankees for $3,000. So much is made of the Red Sox' owner, Harry Frazee, selling their pitchers to help build the Yankees' 1920s dynasty, but Mack had a big role in that as well.

* July 2, 1915: Sold shortstop Jack Barry to the Boston Red Sox for $10,000. 

* July 15, 1915: Sold right fielder Eddie Murphy to the White Sox, for $11,500. 

* February 15, 1916: After 3rd baseman John Franklin "Frank" or "Home Run" Baker, a future Hall-of-Famer, sat out the entire 1915 season in a salary dispute, Mack sold him to the Yankees for $37,500. 

* July 1, 1916: Released left fielder Reuben "Rube" Oldring. 

* August 30, 1916: Traded center fielder Jimmy Walsh to the Red Sox for Raymond Haley. 

* December 14, 1917: Traded catcher Wally Schang, pitcher Bullet Joe Bush and center fielder Amos Strunk to the Red Sox for Sylveanus "Vean" Gregg, Merlin Kopp, Chester "Pinch" Thomas and, perhaps most importantly, $60,000.

* January 10, 1918: Traded 1st baseman John "Stuffy" McInnis to the Boston Red Sox for Forrest Cady, Larry Gardner and Tillie Walker. McInnis, Collins, Barry and Baker were known as "The $100,000 Infield." 

The results were staggering, in both directions. Coombs helped the Brooklyn Dodgers win the 1916 NL Pennant. Collins helped the White Sox win the 1917 World Series and the 1919 AL Pennant, before 7 of their players "threw" the World Series. (Collins was not in on the fix.)

Pennock, Shawkey, Schang, Bush would help the Red Sox win the 1918 World Series, then would be acquired by the Yankees, as they built their 1920s dynasty. McInnis would also help the Red Sox win that World Series, but did not go on to the Yankees, though he did play a reserve role on the Pittsburgh Pirates when they won the 1925 World Series. Baker would also be a part of that Yankee team, before retiring after the 1922 season.

As for the A's: They went 99-53 in 1914, but dropped to 43-109 in 1915. That net loss of 56 games has never seriously been approached in baseball history. In 1916, they went 36-117. Those 117 losses were the most of an MLB team between the 134 of the 1899 Cleveland Spiders and the 120 of the 1962 New York Mets, and remained the most ever in the AL until the Detroit Tigers lost 119 in 2003. The '16 A's' "winning" percentage of .235 remains the lowest in the major leagues since the 1899 Spiders.

When asked about this worst season in AL history, Mack said something that entered the American lexicon: "Well, you can't win them all."

Slowly, but surely, Mack began to rebuild. Ben Shibe died in 1922, and his sons, Tom and Jack, were amenable to Mack doing pretty much whatever he wanted. Although most teams didn't have full farm systems until the 1930s, Mack developed a working relationship with the Baltimore Orioles, who dominated the International League in the 1920s.

In 1925, the A's went 88-64, and were only 8 1/2 games behind the 1st-place Washington Senators. But the rise of the "Murderers' Row" Yankees delayed Philadelphia's return to greatness. In 1929, they began a run of 3 seasons in which they won 313 games, and game within a Game 7 loss in 1931 of winning 3 straight World Series.

But Mack lost all of his non-baseball holdings in the stock market Crash of 1929. He couldn't fund the A's with any other income. So, after the 1932 season, despite a strong 94-60 record (but 13 games behind the Pennant-winning Yankees), he began to sell of his 2nd generation of stars. The team never recovered, and the Mack family ended up selling the A's in 1954, to a buyer who moved them to Kansas City.

They failed there as well, and Charlie Finley bought them in 1960, moving them to Oakland in 1968. After 5 straight AL Western Division titles, 1971-75, including 3 straight World Series wins, 1972-74, he broke them up, and the team crashed. New owner Walter Haas rebuilt them in the early 1980s, but the pitching collapsed, preventing a new dynasty. The A's rebuilt again, and won 3 straight Pennants, 1988-90, but after another Division title in 1992, were broken up again.

The pattern held: By 2000, the "Moneyball" regime built a team that reached the Playoffs 5 times in 7 years, but won no Pennants. They sold off, rebuilt, and made 3 straight Playoffs, 2012-14. They couldn't afford to keep it going, sold off, rebuilt, and made 3 straight Playoffs, 2018-20. They couldn't afford to keep it going, and sold off. In 2022, the A's lost 102 games, their most since the Finley fire sale bottomed out at 108 in 1979.

Rumors of the A's moving again have been renewed, since they haven't been able to get a deal to replace the Oakland Coliseum. If they do move, how long will it be before they win again? And, if so, how long before they have a 9th fire sale?

One thing is for sure: The A's are not moving back to Philadelphia, where the Phillies, having won the 2022 NL Pennant, are overwhelmingly popular. The city can certainly support one winning team, but not two teams. But, wherever they go, or if they stay, at some point, the A's will go back to their Philadelphia roots, and break it all down and start all over again.

UPDATE: The A's made a deal to leave Oakland after the 2024 season, play at the Class AAA ballpark in Sacramento for 3 years, and then build a domed stadium in Las Vegas to open in 2028.

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December 8, 1914 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. Professional basketball barely existed. There was professional hockey, in the forms of Eastern Canada's National Hockey Association, and Western Canada's Pacific Coast Hockey Association.

The NHA season didn't begin until December 26, but the PCHA season opened on December 8, with 1 game: The Vancouver Millionaires beat the Portland Rosebuds, 6-3 at the Portland Ice Arena. The Millionaires would win the PCHA title, and beat the NHA Champion Ottawa Senators for the Stanley Cup. No Vancouver team has won the Cup since.

This was also the day that the Southwest Conference was founded. I have a separate entry for that event.

October 14, 1905: Christy Mathewson's 3rd World Series Shutout

October 14, 1905: The New York Giants win the World Series, with Christy Mathewson pitching his 3rd shutout of the Series.

After refusing to play the American League Champions in a World Series in 1904 -- remember, the World Series had only started in 1903 -- the New York Giants got tired of being called cowards. So team owner John T. Brush got together with National League President Harry Pulliam and AL President Ban Johnson, and wrote the rules for the World Series.

Now, manager John McGraw told his Giants that they had to win. After all, it was one thing to look like cowards and then make up for it. It was another thing to look like fools.

The AL Champions were the Philadelphia Athletics, managed by Connie Mack. Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy -- he shortened his name so that it would fit in a box score, but never legally changed it -- and John Joseph McGraw were both Irishmen from the Northeastern United States, and both loved baseball, and both were geniuses at it.

Those were their similarities. But their differences were bigger. Mack, 42 years old at the time, was "lace-curtain Irish," described with words like "patrician," "courtly" and "gentlemanly." McGraw was more the stereotype that "Yankee" Protestants made of Irish Catholics: Loud, obnoxious, hard-drinking, hard-fighting. Mack was tall and thin, known as "the Tall Tactician." McGraw, 31, was short and chubby, known as "the Little Napoleon of Baseball."

They were different as players. Mack was a catcher, a good fielder and a good handler of pitchers, but not much of a hitter, batting .245 in a career that lasted from 1886 to 1896. McGraw was a 3rd baseman, a good fielder, and a great hitter, whose .466 career on-base percentage still ranks 3rd all-time behind Ted Williams' .482 and Babe Ruth's .474. McGraw was not yet officially retired as a player, although the 1903 season saw him sustain a knee injury that left him playing only sparingly until finally quitting in 1907, and be hit in the nose by a throw, which gave him breathing problems for the rest of his life.

And they were different as managers. Mack wore a suit in the dugout, and thus wasn't allowed on the field. So he would stand on the top step of the dugout, and maneuver his fielders with his scorecard, like a conductor leading an orchestra. McGraw would storm out of the dugout and argue with an umpire over anything, and was a pioneer in arguing not because he thought an ump was wrong, but because he wanted his players to see him standing up for them.

They both knew great pitching when they saw it. And each had an ace who had gone to college (an unusual thing for a baseball player at the time) in Pennsylvania: Eddie Plank of Gettysburg College, and Christy Mathewson of Bucknell University. Mathewson would be 1 of the 1st 5 inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1936; Plank was elected in 1946. (Mack and McGraw would be the 1st men elected as managers, part of the 2nd class of 8 inductees in 1937.)

Game 1, October 9, at Columbia Park in Philadelphia. Mathewson allowed just 4 hits, while the Giants scored 2 runs off Plank in the 7th inning and another in the 9th, and won, 3-0.

Game 2, October 10, at the Polo Grounds in New York. Albert Bender, a Chippewa tribesman known as "Chief," outpitched "Iron Man" Joe McGinnity. Again, the score was 3-0, but, this time, it was the A's that won. Red Ames pitched the 9th inning for the Giants, facing 5 batters. Between them, in this Series, Mathewson and McGinnity faced 359 out of 364.

Game 3, October 12, back in Philadelphia. On just 2 days' rest, Mathewson allowed only 4 hits. The Giants chased Andy Coakley from the mound in the 5th inning, and won, 9-0.

Game 4, October 13, in New York. McGinnity and Plank each allowed only 5 hits, but an A's error in the 4th led to a 1-0 Giants win.

Game 5, October 14, in New York. It was Mathewson, on 1 day of rest, against Bender, on 3. The Giants scored a run in the 5th and another in the 8th. If Matty was tired, he didn't show it, allowing just 5 hits. The Giants won, 2-0, becoming the undisputed World Champions of baseball for the 1st time since 1889.

The Giants had outscored the A's 15-3. Mathewson went 3-0, with an ERA of 0.00, allowing 13 hits and 1 walk for a WHIP of 0.519, and struck out 18 -- all in a span of 6 days. It was the greatest pitching performance baseball had yet seen -- and one that would be nearly impossible within 20  years, due to the arrival of the Lively Ball Era.

The Giants and A's would play each other again in the World Series of 1911 and 1913, with the A's winning both times, including winning games against Mathewson. Mathewson died of tuberculosis in 1925, only 45 years old. McGraw retired as Giants manager in 1932, although he came out of retirement to manage the NL side in the 1st All-Star Game in 1933, with Mack managing the AL side.

McGraw died the next year. Mack, doing so long after he should have stopped, but by then the majority owner of the A's and unwilling to fire himself, continued to manage the A's until 1950, at age 87, before his family finally ganged up on him and forced him to retire. They couldn't run the team any better than he could, and sold the team in 1954, to Arnold Johnson, who moved them to Kansas City. Mack died in 1956. The following year, the Giants announced their move to San Francisco. McGraw's widow, Blanche, was honored at the last game of the season, and said the move would have broken her husband's heart. She lived long enough to attend the New York Mets' 1st home game at the Polo Grounds in 1962.

The athletic complex at St. Bonaventure University in McGraw's hometown of Olean, New York is named for him. The football stadium at Bucknell is named for Mathewson. And Shibe Park, where the A's played from 1909 to 1954 and the Phillies played from 1938 to 1970, was renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953.

In 1978, the Philadelphia Phillies established the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame. From that year until 2003, they elected one Athletics figure every year, starting with Mack. Also elected from the 1905 team were pitchers Eddie Plank, Rube Waddell and Chief Bender. Mack, Plank and Bender have also been elected to the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame.

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October 14, 1905 was a Tuesday. The World Series clincher was the only score on that historic day.