The Foxx Who Found His Way

By: C.G. Morelli

Jimmie-

Would you be interested in becoming a professional ball player? If you are, contact me.

Signed,

Frank Baker

It was fitting the Hall of Fame career of slugging first baseman Jimmie Foxx began with this hastily scribbled message on the back of a penny postcard from one home run legend to another in the making.

He was only 16 years old at the time, but the young track star and baseball phenom had at least one notable fan keeping a particularly critical eye on him from the stands at Foxx’s Maryland high school games.

The eye belonged to one Home Run Baker, a former Philly A’s slugger turned Eastern League manager. He knew the young Foxx had the athleticism, the build, and just the right amount of stupidity to make a splash in the bigs. And, boy, could that kid hit the ball a country mile.

Baker quickly received a reply to his postcard and Foxx began, in 1924, a short-lived minor league career under his tutelage. I say short-lived because it lasted just 76 games. That’s all it took for the Foxx to hit .296, mash 10 homers, and draw a lot of interest from teams in the bigs.

Both the Yanks and the A’s became heavy suitors for Foxx after that ’24 campaign. Naturally, Baker steered his young project in the direction of his own mentor, Connie Mack, in Philadelphia.

Foxx spent the tail end of the ’24 season sitting inches from Mack on the bench and learning what the Tall Tactician referred to as the “finer points” of the game. After that, Foxx bounced around the A’s system for the next few years and by1929, at the much more prominent age of 21, “Double X” was finally unveiled as Mack’s everyday first baseman.

The wait would prove to be more than worth it.

The next few years were a blur of statistical achievements for Foxx. From ’29-’31, he and slugger Al Simmons combined for 192 home runs in leading Philly to three straight World Series. He won two MVP awards in consecutive years by smashing 58 homers and driving in 169 runs in ’32, and by earning the Triple Crown in ’33 with 48 taters, 163 RBI, and a .358 batting average. He would hit more than 35 homers and drive in more than 125 runs in each of the next seven seasons with the A’s and Red Sox, and would pick up an unprecedented third MVP award in 1938.

When all was said and done and the sun began to set on a 20 Major League year career, Jimmie Foxx had sent 534 baseballs into the cheap seats (that was 2^nd to only the great Babe Ruth at the time) and maintained a .325 batting average. He was a unanimous selection into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1951, just six years after his official retirement.

But all the numbers and accolades and serious home run power aside, Jimmie was just a regular Joe. He was a guy you might see down at the end of the bar after a game sipping a beer, munching on stale peanuts, and mulling over a second match of darts. He was a farmer’s boy from rural Maryland who could probably 3-in-1 a tractor faster than he could round the bases. He was a fresh-faced 16-year-old with a penny postcard from his idol in hand and a slack-jawed, half-amazed look on his face.

And then he was a Hall of Famer.

The Tall Tactician

By: C.G. Morelli

Connie Mack said a lot of things during his career. Of course, it’s easy to say a lot when your career as manager spans half a century. He once said, “Humanity is the keystone that holds nations and men together. When that collapses, the whole structure crumbles.  This is as true of baseball teams as any other pursuit in life.” This perhaps recalls the image of the Tall Tactician, a man whose impeccable values and fatherly overtones produced much veneration for him from his arrival in Philadelphia in 1900 until his departure in 1950.

When all was said and done, Mack had compiled 3,731 wins with the Athletics, the most for a manager in baseball history, besting John McGraw by over 1,000 wins. His teams won the World Series five times in that span, and the AL title nine times. Ironically, Mack also racked up 3,948 losses during his tenure as the A’s manager. This total is also, far and away, the worst in baseball history. Mack actually finished in last place 17 times while at the helm of the Athletics. So, I guess it’s fitting that the most successful losing manager of all time would also coin the phrase, “You can’t win ‘em all.”

In fact, even with his staggering total of victories and irreplaceable impact on the game, Mack would humbly tell you that he wasn’t the quintessential baseball skipper. For that title, he’d have to tab one of his contemporaries during the early part of the century.  “There has only ever been one manager,” he said, “And his name is John McGraw.”

But, in Philly, he was more than quintessential. He was the Philadelphia Athletics.

Even after a dismal farewell season in ‘50, where his team finished an embarrassing 52-102 to claim last place for the 10^th time in 16 seasons, he was still considered the man.

After all, we’re talking about the first manager in history to win three World Series titles, and the only manager ever to win the series back to back on two separate occasions (1910-11, 1929-30). Last time I checked, people in Philly don’t forget stuff like that too quickly, which is probably why Mack could walk down the narrowest, most remote alleyway in the city and still be recognized as the father of Philadelphia baseball even by the stray cats.

But it was because of this prominence, this ultimate feeling of comfort which Mack exuded upon the fans, that his departure spelled the beginning of the end for the A’s in Philly.

The loveable fan favorite, Jimmy Dykes, took Mack’s role and improved the team to a 6^th place finish the following season. Even so, attendance plummeted drastically and continued to do so for the next few years. Things just weren’t the same without the Grand Old Man of Baseball staking his post on the dugout steps.

“Any minute, any day, some player may break a long standing record,” he said, “That’s one of the fascinations about the game, the unexpected surprises.”

Perhaps Mack’s departure was one of those unexpected surprises the Philadelphia Athletics were never prepared to face. Or maybe it was the fascination for the game that suddenly left the hearts of the fans and the organization once the venerable leader had fled the battlefield.

Whatever the factor, the A’s would never find a way to recover within the confines of their own backyard. They were sent packing to Kansas City in 1954. Mack died two years later, having spent 66 years in baseball as a player and manager.

After a lifetime of service to the game it’s no wonder Mack once said, “No matter what I talk about, I always get back to baseball.” Somewhere, I’d like to think, Mr. Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy is having a little chat about baseball as we speak.