Dressing Next to History
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@big8dog887, via YouTube
The 1927 and 1928 Philadelphia Athletics might be the strangest roster Connie Mack ever assembled. Half of it was just getting started. The other half was nearly finished.
On one side were the kids: Grove, Simmons, Cochrane, Foxx. On the other were the legends. Cobb signed at 40. Eddie Collins came home to the club where he started. Zack Wheat joined for his final season. Speaker followed in 1928. Cobb and Speaker both arrived in the wake of a game-fixing allegation that Commissioner Landis ultimately dismissed, and neither had anything left to prove except that they could still play.
13
future Hall of Famers in one game, May 24, 1928 — still the most in any regular season game
Mack wasn't running a finishing school. He thought he could win right away. But the Yankees of those years were something else entirely, winning 110 games in 1927 and holding off the A's again in 1928. On May 24, 1928, the two clubs played a game featuring 13 future Hall of Famers, still the most in any regular season game.
The pennants didn't come while the legends were in uniform. They came the next three years, 1929, 1930, and 1931, won by the young players who had spent two seasons dressing next to baseball history.
Some lessons don't show up in the box score. They show up a few years later.
