This Day in Baseball: Connie Mack Vs. Clark Griffith

By Precious Sanders @pdsanders99

Eighty-four-year-old Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack challenged Clark Griffith, the seventy-eight-year-old owner of the Senators, to a race from third base to home plate, to take place prior to an exhibition game on April 4, 1948.  An ambulance drove the two competitors, as well as a doctor and two nurses, to the starting line.  Commissioner Happy Chandler officiated the race and Senators coach Nick Altrock fired the starting gun.  The race ended in a close tie, or as Commissioner Chandler described it, “a dead heat.”

1951 Clark Griffith and Connie Mack Old Timers Day (Mears Online)