HANK MAJESKI
MAJESTIC MAJESKIHe's One of the Bigger A's
"Connie Mack's Athletics had given Joe Dobson a rough time the previous day and the Boston Red Sox right-hander was saying: 'What a pest that Majeski is. I pitched him three different ways in three different innings and he hit me each time.'
'Yeh, but he's a streak hitter, Joe,' a Red Sox teammate remarked.
'Maybe so,' Dobson replied, 'but his streaks are coming closer together these days.'
Which, of course, they are. Chunky little Hank Majeski, third baseman of the Mackmen, is a pretty good hitter, with more power than a lot of hitters almost twice his size.
'His power is in his wrists,' Al Simmons, Philadelphia coach, explained. 'He snaps that bat pretty quick.'
Ever since Pinky Higgins was sold to the Red Sox, Connie Mack has been searching for a 154-game third sacker. The list of those who tried to fill Pinky's shoes reads like a Who's Who for the minor leagues. But then Hank arrived on the scene and Connie's far turn troubles were over.
A long-ball hitter, Majeski last season helped make the Athletics one of the surprise clubs of the American League, hitting a good .280, with thirty-nine of his hits going for extra bases. Not only that, he paced all regular American League third sackers in fielding, handling 428 chances with only five errors. This season he already is playing a vital role in another Mackman outfit that started the campaign raising havoc among the preseason favorites in the Will Harridge circuit.
From the stands, Majeski appears as nervous as a cat around third base, taking a step from side to side, or in and out, with each delivery by the Philadelphia pitcher. But, actually, he is as cool as the well-known cucumber. He keeps on the move out there only because he plays the game up to the hilt, and the more action the better.
'I really love third base and no kidding,' Hank said. 'There's always something doing out there. You're in the game every minute because you never know when somebody is going to slash one at you.'
The five-foot-nine, 180-pound Mackman wasn't always a third baseman. Casey Stengel changed him in 1939 with the Boston Braves and Hank has played there ever since.
'I was a second baseman until I joined the Braves,' Hank told me. 'But Stengel had Tony Cuccinello at second, so I moved over to third.'
Majeski figures Stengel did him a big favor.
'I probably could have played fast minor league ball at second base for the rest of my life, but might never have made the grade in the majors at that spot,' Hank said.
Credit for the boy's improvement at the plate goes to Earle Brucker. 'He talked to me in the spring of '46, just after the A's had bought me from the Yankees,' Hank said. 'He pointed out that I was going through a lot of unnecessary motion at bat before the ball was delivered. He advised me not to wag the stick so much. And it made a better hitter out of me.'
When handing out credit for what success he has had in baseball, however, Majeski speaks first of Harry O'Brien, his coach at Curtis High School, at Staten Island, N.Y.
'When I was a kid in high school, I was only about five-four or five-five in height, too small to play anything except baseball,' Hank said. 'And most of the kids out for the nine were six foot or close to it. So it didn't look as though I had a chance.
'But Harry O'Brien felt I had the stuff to play on the team and his confidence in me got me started,' he continued. 'He took a personal interest in me and helped me plenty. He's one of the best handlers of youngsters I've ever seen and still coaches every sport except football at Curtis High.'
Majeski played on the Curtis varsity for three years. In his spare time he played second base for the Staten Island team in New York's popular Police Athletic League. Jack Daly, who handled semi-pro clubs in the neighborhood, got Majeski on the road to organized ball. He arranged a letter for Hank to take to Charlotte, N.C., in the Piedmont League.
The first fellow young Hank met at Charlotte was the late Herb Pennock, then in charge of the Red Sox minor league interests, Charlotte being a Sox farm club. The kid second sacker worked out for a few days, then was shipped to Eau Claire, Wis, of the Northern League, where he signed his first pro contract. Also breaking at Eau Claire that year, 1935, was Stan Spence.
The following year the Eau Claire option was dropped by the Red Sox and picked up by the Chicago Cubs, so Majeski went to Catalina Island for spring training in '37. Sent to Moline of the Three-I League, he had a good year and was sold to Birmingham. Indianapolis drafted him from the Barons at the end of the 1938 season and the Braves bought him a few days later.
Hank commuted between Boston and Newark during the next three years, being cut loose by the Braves in '41. He was ready for another chance at fast company by '43 but entered the Coast Guard in January of that year. Out in November, '45, he went to spring training with the Yankees in '46, the Bears being a Yank farm. It was during that '46 campaign that he was sold to the Athletics.
Majeski still lives in Staten Island, but in the summer of '46 moved into a new home with his wife, Margaret. His chief off-season pastime is puttering around the house or sitting beside a new television set, following football, basketball or hockey games.
'I'm anchored beside that set most of the winter,' Hank said, grinning.
During the spring, summer and early fall, Connie Mack uses the anchor- to anchor Majeski at third base."
-Ed Rumill (Baseball Digest, July 1948)
NICK ETTEN
"Nick, who bats and throws left, started playing professional baseball in 1933. In 1944 when with the New York Yankees, he led the league in home runs and in 1945 led in runs batted in. He joined the Oaks in mid-season last year.
Born in Chicago in 1914 of German descent, Nick is 6' 2" and weighs 198 pounds. He likes to bowl, read and go to the movies."
-1948 Signal Gasoline Oakland Oaks
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