Connie Mack

They called the neighborhood Swampoodle. I never saw a poodle there and the spongy terrain was ancient history by the time I came along, the Cohocksink Creek having been rechanneled into a sewer and buried under miles of asphalt and two-story porch-front rowhouses. The name, actually, was a relic of American slang denoting a poor or low-lying section of a city. Some of the landmarks of Swampoodle were Schillings' bakery and ice cream parlor, St. Columba's Church and the greasy spoon at 22nd and Lehigh whose specialty was red-hot Texas wieners.

For 50 years and more than 7,500 regular-season games, Connie Mack managed the Philadelphia Athletics to widely varying levels of success on the baseball field. Few recall, however, that for one chilly autumn in 1902 - 18 years before the league that eventually became the National Football League was formed - the austere Mr. Mack managed a professional football team, also called the Philadelphia Athletics. And in the course of a season that lasted less than two months, Mack's team managed to make a lasting name for itself, featuring as it did a Hall of Fame pitcher on the line and playing in both the first night game and first indoor game in professional football history.