Curtain Call - An Athletic Philadelphian

Doctor Manhattan sits pensively on the surface of Mars. His body is there, but his mind is in many places. It’s 2025, and the Athletics baseball team is preparing to move to a new city. It’s 1968, and the Athletics baseball team is preparing to move to a new city. It’s 1955, and the Athletics baseball team is preparing to move to a new city. Doctor Manhattan sees all of this occurring simultaneously, but in the same breath he’s also able to see a history that might have once indicated a different path for the team - one that showed a financial investment beyond that which any owner had ever committed before, one that could have helped this franchise avoid becoming one of the most transient ones in North American pro-sports history. He sees the whole story of the Athletics unfolding from start to finish, even looking forward to when they will supposedly in 2028 be preparing to move to yet another new city. And with all of that, he sees the beginning, before any of this had yet to come to pass, before this team became the ultimate white elephant, all starting in the city of Philadelphia in 1901.

Major League Baseball was not a real entity at the turn of the 20th century - instead, it had to this point been a shifting mass of competing leagues that, entering the 1900s, had largely fallen under the boot of the then-dominant National League. A so-called “National Agreement” was unofficially upheld that placed any of the other leagues during this time in a second tier below the National League, and Western League president Ban Johnson decided enough was enough. He, and the owners of several teams both existing and planned, renamed themselves the American League in 1900 and declared themselves the second true major league the following year. Largely, the AL was set up in cities where they would not be competing directly with NL franchises, but there were two notable exceptions: St. Louis, and more importantly for our purposes, Philadelphia.

Connie Mack had recently wrapped up a decade long career as a player and sometimes-manager in the National League before becoming involved with Johnson’s new venture. He in turn convinced an investor in the NL Phillies, Ben Shibe, to help finance the team that would take their name from an 1876 predecessor, the NL’s Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia (yes, it was indeed an old enough reference that they’d still broken baseball up into two words).

Now this may sound anathemic to the Athletics as we know them know, but the entire AL strategy in these early years involved throwing so much money at established NL stars in order to draw them away from their previous teams that they couldn’t possibly refuse. The Athletics and the rest of their AL cohort succeeded insofar as establishing themselves as legitimate competition to the NL, forcing a sort of merger (or at least update to the “National Agreement”) just two seasons in that saw MLB reform as a more official entity comprised of these two leagues, with all others falling below the pair in the pecking order.

Through the power of financial investment, the American League and the Athletics had found what seemed like a permanent home in the baseball world. Then, just a few short years later, two other major investments. First came Shibe Park, named for Mack’s partner, the first ever steel-and-concrete stadium when construction wrapped in 1909 (and the last stadium that would ever be purpose-built for the Athletics). By this time, the Athletics had already won the AL pennant twice, but largely the senior circuit had still dominated the World Series so far. And so, Connie Mack made another investment.

The four players above (first baseman John “Stuffy” McInnis, second baseman Eddie Collins, shortstop Jack Barry and third baseman Frank "Home Run" Baker) were indeed paid a total that equaled the then-princely sum of $100,000, equivalent to about $3.3 million today. A $3 million dollar infield is possible today, but only with players making the league minimum. At the time however this was a completely unprecedented sum, and when the players all took the field together for the first time in 1910, anyone who decried them as buying a championship was right about one thing - they immediately won their first World Series that year. In fact, in the next five years until 1914, they won four pennants and three World Series championships, a total that the Philadelphia Phillies still to this day have not equaled.

And then, just as money had built them up, money exposed one of the first cracks in their armor. They would lose the World Series in 1914, and then all of a sudden, the American League’s powerhouse got a taste of their own medicine. Another upstart organization, the new Federal League, was now seeking to do the same thing the AL had once accomplished - offering staggering sums of money to established stars in order to rip them away from pre-existing teams. Mack was unwilling to keep up with the Joneses on this occasion, and while the Federal League would eventually not just lose its battle against MLB but lose in court so badly that MLB was granted an antitrust exemption, it still struck enough fear into Mack’s heart that the $100,000 infield was broken up nearly as quickly as it had come together.

By 1916, one of baseball’s great title runs had sunk all the way to the basement with an abysmal 36-117 record, and would remain in dead last until 1922. Once an economic powerhouse in the sport, the spendthrift ways of ownership had relegated the Athletics to an afterthought as new titans like the New York Yankees rose up to make a claim as the new dynastic champions. For someone that could glimpse through time like Doctor Manhattan, and who knew how this kind of penny-pinching would doom later iterations of the franchise, it would be reasonable to wonder if this would be the end of this once great organization.

But then, all of a sudden, their fortunes swung back the other way. The Yankees of the late 1920s were nothing to sniff at - the 1927 “Murderers’ Row” is still considered one of if not the greatest lineups of all time - but Philadelphia managed to assemble their own collection of stars with Al Simmons, Jimmie Foxx, and Mickey Cochrane in a lineup that started to present real competition to the Bronx Bombers during the back half of the decade. After finishing second to the Murderers’ Row Yanks in 1927 as well as the following season, Philly finally got the last laugh in 1929…and in 1930…and again in 1931, winning not just a pennant but a World Series in two of those years.

Unfortuately, these Philadelphia teams don’t loom quite as large in the public consciousness now when compared to their Yankee contemporaries. An easy answer as to why would be that they don’t sustain the success much beyond this moment - and an answer to why that is the case is, in a couple of words, the Great Depression. Beginning in 1929, the United States of America went through one of its most devastating an prolonged economic contractions in history, and Mack’s finances suffered greatly from this, as did the Philadelphia Athletics’ finances, because that’s the thing about basing your entire organization around one charismatic leader in any arena - you are fully dependent on that arena. Mack’s purse strings tightened, and the team once again fell into its own depression with a 14-year long stretch of losing seasons shortly after that 1931 World Series win.

If Mack’s money was the only thing that was waning that would have perhaps been able to reverse at a certain point, but Mack himself was also waning. Born in the midst of the American Civil War, Mack was already approaching 70 by the time the A’s captured that ‘31 title, and he was not looking to remove himself from the operations of the organization any time soon - at great expense to the organization itself. Mack was reportedly showing signs of mental decline, sleeping through innings and making management calls that his coaches would deem poor and largely ignore. And as he declined, so too did the once pristine-stadium that had been left in the dust in the 30-odd years since being built. Even this might not have sunk the A’s given their stature in the city at the time - more than 90 years after their most recent championship, they still hold the record for most championships won in the city of Philadelphia in the 4 major North American professional sports leagues. But during this decline, the crosstown Phillies emerged from their own decades-long strecth of mediocrity into the realm of respectability, siphoning off support in terms of both fans and dollars.

And then, as Mack entered the twilight of his life, he ignored the teachings of King Lear and made an error that could be seen as the beginning of the end, dispersing portions of his stake in the team to his trio of sons so that they might take control following his passing. The team, already hemorraghing support and money, continued to cut corners wherever they could in order to try and salvage some solvency out of the operation, but all of these moves just sped up the death spiral as they fell further and further from the heights they’d once occuppied. Now discontent began to brew amongst the younger Macks, with brothers Roy and Earle butting heads against Connie Jr. as the latter began to look for potential sellers along with the Shibe family.

Roy and Earle, in an attempt to front the money that could potentially buy out the shares of the owners looking to depart, plunged the team even further into a debt that they would never be able to pay off; and by the mid-1950s, a deal was finally struck with Chicago real estate developer Arnold Johnson to buy what remained of the team from the Mack family following the 1954 season.

So, with all that as prelude, let’s meet the man responsible for turning off the lights on the way out for the Philadelphia Athletics - Joe DeMaestri.

DeMaestri was born about as far from Philadelphia as you can get while still in the contiguous United States, hailing from San Francisco where he was born in 1928. After graduating from high school, he went directly into professional baseball initially as a member of the Boston Red Sox organization in 1947. After a couple years in the minors, he changed the color of his Sox during the 1950 Rule 5 Draft when Chicago brought him to the Southside.

Joe made his major league debut the next year as a middle infielder for the Sox with limited playtime in just 56 games, and largely underwhelmed to the point where he was shipped out of town as part of a trade between Chicago and the St. Louis Browns that included four players from both teams changing uniforms. This did not go a lot better for him, even with increased opportunity for the moribund-and-soon-to-be-relocated Browns, and so a second trade followed in the subsequent offseason that landed him in the setting for our story, Philadelphia.

Here, at long last, DeMaestri settled into a pretty regular role beginning in 1953, appearing in 111 games and more than doubling his previous career high in plate appearances. At the time, his slash in his two season in Philly of .241/.275/.332 was pretty mediocre, but his play at shortstop garnered him the praise of teammates and coaches to the point that one would be forgiven for being a little shocked to see how poorly his defense rates today with baseball-reference’s dWAR. In the 11 years that DeMaestri spent in the majors, only twice would he have a season without negative WAR overall, and one of those was a bit of a technicality since it rated as exactly 0.0. Most of that was with the bat, but still, this was about as close as you could get to the definition of “replacement player”.

The 1954 Philadelphia Athletics were, in a word, bad - they finished dead last, even behind the former St. Louis Browns who had just moved to Baltimore to become the third major league iteration of the Orioles. By win percentage, this 51-103-2 team was the 7th worst squad ever fielded during the franchise’s time in Philadelphia, and all of their warts were on full display during a couple of late season matchups with the New York Yankees as the last couple grains of sand ticked through the hourglass. There have been times, when writing this series, that trying to figure out whether to count final home games or final games overall have made it difficult to pin down just one Guy to really dive deep on. Thankfully, for reasons that will become apparent in a moment, these Philadelphia Athletics and their shortstop Joe DeMaestri made this particular instance a whole lot easier for me. But first, let’s go ahead and look at that final home game.

On September 19 of that year, Philly hosted the Yankees at Connie Mack Stadium, one of the last vestiges of the success they’d experienced in the city even if in name only. By this point the Yanks had already reached 99 wins on the season - however, they were far enough back of Cleveland in this pre-ALCS era that their season was just as close to its end as the A’s was. Maybe that’s why neither team seemed to be all that formidable on this day for much of the game, with Philly shutting out New York through 7. Starter Art Ditmar and reliever Charlie Bishop had been lights out all day, but the same would unfortunately not be said of Bishop’s fellow bullpen arm Moe Burtschy, who got lit up for in the 8th with an Earl Weaver special by Gil McDougald as the capper for make it 4-2 Yankees.

That was still the score later on as we reached the bottom of the 9th, with the Athletics down to potentially their final 3 outs in front of a Philadelphia home crowd ever. New York’s Jim Konstanty came out for a second inning of work on the mound and made quick work of Jack Littrell and Jim Robertson to bring up the #9 spot in the lineup. This had been the pitcher’s spot all day, and if player-manager Eddie Joost had just left Al Sima (who had replaced Burtschy) in their to finish things off, it’s hard to imagine that there would have been a whole lot of consternation over it. But, managers gotta manage, and so Joost turned to one of his few remaining bench bats - Joe DeMaestri.

The good news is that at the very least, he didn’t strike out. DeMaestri manages to get a pretty good swing on the ball, sending it to center field, but there wasn’t a whole lot of the outfield that wasn’t covered by Yankees superstar Mickey Mantle at this time. The ball finds his glove, and DeMaestri is denied a chance to provide some final heroics as Philadelphia falls by that final margin of 4-2 to the now 100-win New York Yankees.

We fast forward through a meaningless series loss to Boston and through a couple of games in the Bronx to reach Game 154 between the Athletics and the now 103-win Yankees on September 26, 1954 - the final game the Philadelphia Athletics would ever play. Philly again jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, but New York responded a lot quicker this time, tying it up in the bottom of that 2nd inning before taking the lead 3-2 in the 3rd. Both teams pitchers continued to get knocked around by both teams, and the Athletics actually managed to take a narrow 6-5 lead into the top of the 7th when we finally got a chance to see our potential hero rear his head once again.

DeMaestri had once again failed to crack the starting lineup on this day, but he did manage to get into the game a little bit earlier this time, entering as a defensive substitution at third in the inning prior. A pair of singles to start the inning followed by a sac bunt to move the runners over meant that when DeMaestri stepped to the plate for his first at bat of the day with a pair in scoring position, and another chance here late in the twilight of the team to provide some final theatrics. This time he did not disappoint.

Once again, a solid swing sent the ball to Mantle in center, but the Commerce Comet couldn’t get to the ball in time this go-round as it found the grass, sending both runners home and extending Philadelphia’s lead to 8-5 as DeMaestri recorded his final two RBI of the season.

The Yankees got one back in the bottom of the inning to make it 8-6, but the bullpens locked down from there on, and thus we found ourselves in the bottom of the 9th of the game, and the final 3 outs for the Philadelphia Athletics. Marion Fricano had come on to relieve Ditmar for Philly in the 6th and was still here 3 innings later getting to work against 5-6-7 of the Yankees lineup. First, a strikeout looking against Irv Noren - then, a lineout to right field off the bat of Bill Skworon. Finally, to close out the game and the season and their opponent’s run in the City of Brotherly Love (and Sisterly Affection), Bob Cerv knocked a slow grounder to third base where it was fielded by none other than the one, the only Joe DeMaestri, who made the toss to first to secure the win.

DeMaestri would come along with the A’s to Kansas City the following year, and continued to be a solid shortstop and pretty bad batter. Even then, he managed a couple bright spots at the plate, including a 6-6 performance in an 11-inning game against Detroit in 1955. In 1957, the only year in which he ever posted a positive WAR, he even managed an All-Star appearance! And he wasn’t done being tangentially related to some historic moments in baseball. If you look back up at that image, you might notice that the top row in which DeMaestri is featured on the right, there’s another name on the left that’s not typically associated with the Athletics - future Yankees slugger Roger Maris, who was sent over to New York in a trade after the 1959 season alongside teammates Kent Hadley… and Joe DeMaestri.

While DeMaestri had been more or less an every day player for all seven of his seasons with the Athletics between Philly and KC, that simply would not be the case for a pair of years in New York on a team with legitimate title aspirations - but that’s not to say that he didn’t get to play his part. The contending Yankees did indeed reach the 1960 World Series, the first of DeMaestri’s carer, and faced off against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

This series, in which the Yankees vastly outscored the Pirates in all wins but still dropped three close ones in the first six games, is most famous for what happens at the end of Game 7 with Bill Mazeroski at the plate. But in order for the Pirates to even rally back to force the extra innings in which Mazeroski would hit still-to-this-day the only walkoff Game 7 homerun in the Fall Classic, a couple bounces had to go their way. One such bounce was very literal, when a ground ball hopped up and struck infielder Tony Kubek in the throat, forcing him out of the game and leading to DeMaestri coming in for a couple innings as the injury sparked a five-run Pittsburgh rally. In the 9th inning, DeMaestri was unfortunately for our purposes yanked for pinch hitter Dale Long, and so he would have to watch from the dugout when the Pirates upset the Bronx Bombers just a couple innings later.

That would be his last official World Series appearance, but even then Joe wasn’t done - he managed to hang onto a part time role for one more year during the famous 1961 Yankees season that saw his fellow-former Athletic Roger Maris set the single season home run record, asterisk be damned. The Yankees also managed to get back to the Fall Classic, this time against a Cincinnati Reds team that they dispatched in a 4-1 gentleman’s sweep. Even though Joe didn’t appear in a single game that year, he did at least get to watch a happier sight from the dugout this time as the Yankees win gave him his first ever World Series win. It would be the final season of his 11-year, -3.6 bWAR MLB career.

The A’s have since left Kansas City for Oakland, and as of writing this, they have departed from the Bay as well. They’ll spend some number of years in a minor league ballpark in Sacramento before supposedly leaving yet again, this time for Las Vegas. Owner John Fisher, far richer than Mack ever was but paradoxically far greedier and miserly than he was as well, certainly indicates every intention to have a purpose-built stadium ready for them in the desert in just a couple of seasons. If so, it will be the first time the A’s are in a home made specifically for them since Shibe Park opened its gates in 1909.

The Athletics as an organization were built on the flexing of financial might, along with the American League that they played no small part in establishing as one of its foremost early powerhouses. Money made them equals with the National League - money made them the team-to-beat in the American League - money brought them to their absolute lowest point, only to bring them right back up for one last gasp of contention before dropping them back to the depths of futility. The green color in their wardrobe is appropriate, as maybe no other team in MLB or American pro-sports history has been so thoroughly defined by and tied to the financial capabilities and desires of their owners. Maybe Doctor Manhattan watching from afar has an idea how long the team will stay in their soon-to-be fourth and fifth homes - how long it will be until there is a sixth, or seventh, or twentieth. The rest of us that haven’t yet come unstuck in time will just have to wait and see to find out who will be the next Joe DeMaestri.