At 16, he began work in a shoe factory and became a foreman by the time he was 20.
While working at the factory, McGillicuddy played semi-pro baseball for East Brookfield. When he was 21, the Meriden club in the Connecticut State League offered him $90 a month to play catcher. At that time it was a hefty salary. Meriden shortened his name to "Connie Mack" to fit on scorecards, and the nickname stuck. Mack went on to play for Hartford and then Newark, two other minor league teams. Then, along with four other players, he was sold for the then enormous sum of $3,500 to the Washington team in the National League.
In 1886, Mack played in ten games for Washington and hit .361. But after that season there was a key rule change: batters could no longer call for the pitcher to throw a high or low pitch. When pitchers learned that Mack couldn't hit low pitches, his batting average sunk to .201 in 1887 and to .187 in 1888. He was never a good hitter after that, but he was a good enough fielder that he hung on for eleven seasons as a big-league player. In 1890, he played for Buffalo (in the short-lived Players League), and from 1891 through 1896 he was a catcher for Pittsburgh.
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