Connie Mack MGPhila.-AL 3/24/10

Cornelius "Connie" McGillicuddy (1862–1956), known to baseball as Connie Mack, is preserved on a Sporting News supplement dated March 24, 1910 — a pre-season image of the Philadelphia Athletics manager months before his club would close out the 1910 World Series with a five-game dispatching of the Chicago Cubs. The right-handed Mack had already moved past his playing days behind the plate and was deep into the second life that would make his name: managing the Philadelphia Athletics from the American League's inaugural 1901 season through 1950, an unbroken half-century at the helm of a single franchise that no manager has come close to matching. By the date of this Sporting News supplement, he had assembled the "$100,000 infield" — Stuffy McInnis, Eddie Collins, Jack Barry, and Frank Baker — that would carry the Athletics to the 1910, 1911, and 1913 World Series titles. The Sporting News supplements of 1909–1913 were full-page sepia photographs distributed with the trade paper, and dated supplements like this one carry a precise documentary value that the contemporary tobacco issues generally don't offer. Mack remained behind the bench in his trademark business suit and stiff collar — never a uniform — until his retirement at age 87. He died February 8, 1956 in Philadelphia. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937 in the second Cooperstown class, elected as a manager-pioneer rather than as a player.