Primary Position: First base
Birthplace: Hatteras
First, Middle Names: Maurice Lennon Nicknames: Dick
Date of Birth: Jan 29, 1898 Date and Place of Death: Feb. 2, 1972, Elizabeth City, NC
Burial: New Hollywood Cemetery, Elizabeth City
High School: Elizabeth City High School, Oak Ridge Academy, Oak Ridge, NC
College: N.C. State University, Raleigh, NC
Bats: L Throws: L Height and Weight: 5-11, 175
Debut Year: 1919 Final Year: 1928 Years Played: 6
Teams and Years: Philadelphia Athletics, 1919-20; Boston Braves, 1925-28
Career Summary
G AB H R RBI HR BA. OBP. SLG. WAR
560 1760 513 206 211 11 .291 .247 .373 +0.9
Cornelius McGillicuddy, the manager and part owner of the Philadelphia Athletics, was a hard man to impress. Few men would ever match Connie Mack, as he was known to all, as a judge of baseball talent. He would remain in the game for more than 50 years as a player, manager or owner, acquiring nicknames along the way that reflected what his contemporaries thought of his acumen — The Tall Tactician, the Tall Tutor and the Great Old Man of Baseball.
Mack traveled down to Columbia, South Carolina, in June 1919 to check out a talented, 21-year-old minor-league first baseman. Dick Burrus got five hits that day and fielded his position with the grace that reminded Mack of Hal Chase, a peerless first baseman who was in the last year of a 15-year career. Reserved by nature and calculating in his evaluation of talent, Mack was reduced to a gushing suitor.[I]
“When I signed Burrus, I believed I was getting the greatest first sacker the Athletic club ever had,” Mack later remembered. “I said he wouldn’t be just a good player, but a player who will get big, black headlines.”[II]