Mack Plan Is Marlin Blueprint

Back in the broke ‘30s, when coffee was a nickel and bread was a dime, Connie Mack had one of the great baseball nines of all time, the Philadelphia Athletics. They won the pennant in 1929, ’30 and ‘31, beating even the lordly Yankees in the process.

They had Lefty Grove, one of the great pitchers of all time. He won 31 games one year and 28 another and 300 in his career, even though, some years, he couldn’t lift his hand high enough to comb his hair. They had Jimmie Foxx, a mass of muscle, who hit 58 home runs one year--he batted .364 that same year. They had Al Simmons who hit .392 one year, .390 another. They had Mickey Cochrane, maybe the best catcher ever.

How good were they? Well, they were playing the Yankees one day and were rallying when the Yankee manager put through a call to his bullpen, where reliever Henry Johnson, warming up, had just bought a hot dog.

“Johnson, go in and relieve Pipgras,” the manager instructed.

“Who’s coming up?” Johnson wanted to know.

“Cochrane, Simmons and Foxx,” the manager answered.

Johnson turned to his fellow relievers and sternly said, “Don’t touch that hot dog. I’ll be right back!”

What happened to those mighty A’s? Well, Connie Mack put them on the auction block and sold them off piece by piece, like paintings in an art gallery.

Foxx and Grove went to the Red Sox, Simmons and Dykes to the White Sox, Cochrane to Detroit. The Philadelphia A’s never won anything again.

There hadn’t been that kind of fire sale in baseball since--although Charlie Finley once tried to deal off Vida Blue, Joe Rudi and half his crack team in Oakland one year and the commissioner, Bowie Kuhn, wouldn’t let him. Not in the best interests of baseball, you see.

But now comes Wayne Huizenga who makes Connie Mack--and Charlie Finley--look penny ante. Huizenga owns--owned would be a better word for it--the best team in baseball, the World Series champion Florida Marlins.

He put ‘em all in the window and said, “Make me an offer.”

To the baseball world, it’s as if he were hocking the Mona Lisa.

He dealt off Kevin Brown, who was kind of his Lefty Grove. Brown had a no-hitter and a one-hitter last year and an ERA of 2.69. He’s with San Diego now.

Moises Alou, who batted .292 with 115 runs batted in and played a major role in winning the World Series, is now with Houston. Jeff Conine, whose home run won the 1995 All-Star game for the National League and who hit 26 home runs that season for the Marlins, is now with Kansas City. Devon White, as good a center fielder who ever turned a triple into an out is in Arizona.

The carnage isn’t over. The Marlins are trying to deal off Jim Eisenreich, who as recently as 1996 batted .361, and they’re trying to find somebody to take over Gary Sheffield’s $61-million contract (you heard me!).

Say it ain’t so, Wayne!

But it is. Huizenga has taken a leaf from Connie Mack’s book, With one important difference: Mack was trying to make money; Huizenga is trying to save money.

I don’t know whether you noticed it but the cost of doing business in the grand old game has reached the point of no return. Huizenga went out and bought the best team money could buy. He won the World Series with those players. And, then, the agents told him it would cost three, four, five, maybe 10 times as much to keep them.

Huizenga apparently decided he was better off with T-bills.

Thirteen of the 25 members of that elite 1997 title team are gone. More are going. He might have decided it would be cheaper to buy downtown Miami. Or an offshore island or two. Say, Bermuda.

There might have been some litigation to all this if baseball had a commissioner. After all, Kuhn stepped in against Finley. But Bud Selig is not only an owners’ acting commissioner, he’s an owners’ owner. And, now that his Milwaukee team is in the National League, he might not be all that unhappy that the Florida Marlins have turned into the Florida Minnows.

Baseball is a business, no matter what the Supreme Court holds. You can cash in your chips any time you choose. Loyalties to the fans? You’re kidding, right?

Connie Mack would understand perfectly. In his day, Philadelphia fans got bored with perfection and winning.

The fans in Miami aren’t even going to get a chance to. The 1997 Florida Marlins are as long gone as the Floradora Sextette. Or the 1929 A’s.

Nothing exceeds like excess. The Florida Marlins were only five years old when they won their World Series title. The Chicago Cubs have been in existence since 1876 but haven’t won one since 1909, and haven’t won a pennant since 1945. The Boston Red Sox have been in existence since 1901 and haven’t won a World Series since 1918, when they had Babe Ruth. A year later, a greedy owner sold him.

They used to have a journalistic cliche for someone who played fast and loose with the fabric of the grand old game--grooving a pitch for Mickey Mantle, sending a midget up to bat and so on. They dubbed it “making a travesty of the game.”

I can’t tell whether Huizenga is making a travesty of the game--or whether those ridiculous salaries had already done it for him. Bear in mind that when they called part of Mack’s lineup the “$100,000 infield,” they meant that’s what the whole infield made a year. Not what the first baseman made an hour.