Hall of Fame honor for a baseball lifer Joe Macko
He spent 60 years in the sport, most behind the scenes with the Rangers12:26 AM CDT on Sunday, April 19, 2009
Joe Macko celebrates his 60th season in baseball this year only because it isn't his 61st, a year he lost in the mid-1960s, when he played a bear, not baseball.
The story goes like this:
Once one of the minor league's all-time home run kings, with a career total of 306, Macko quit baseball in 1964 to work for Hamm's beer.
Or as he put his job description: "I was the dancing bear."
Macko, 6-2, 195 in his prime, donned the bear suit for promotional events around the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The pay wasn't bad, and it was all the beer you could drink with the customers.
And if the benefits sound good, you probably slept in before reading this.
"I got tired of drinking beer in the morning," said Macko, wincing, so back to baseball he went.
He'd already put in 17 years, since his first stop with Batavia in the Cleveland organization in 1948. He made a cool $150 a month and earned another $50 for driving the team bus.
After hitting .315 his first year, he got a raise to $200 a month.
"And I did such a good job driving the bus," he said, "they gave me $60."
He never made the big leagues as a player, but, in '53, he hit 11 home runs in spring training with Cleveland. Most clubs might have been convinced. But the Indians had former Negro Leagues star first baseman Luke Easter, who'd hit 31 homers the year before.
So back to the minors Macko went.
"They gave me a little more money to go down," he said, shrugging. "It was OK with me."
An inability to hit the curve kept him out of the big leagues, probably, and it was the reason he crowded the plate, too. Pitchers took exception. One year they hit him 17 times, and that was before midseason. They only hit him once after.
The difference?
"After I got hit a few times," he said, "I started charging the mound."
His best year was in '56, when he hit 36 homers and scored 100 runs for the Dallas Eagles. He liked the area and so did his family. When Dick Butler offered him a job as business manager of the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs after his stint in the bear suit, Macko quickly accepted. He eventually became GM of the Spurs.
When the Senators moved to Arlington in '72, Macko finally made the big leagues. For most of the next 29 seasons, he served as either the home or visitors' clubhouse manager.
In 2001, he retired. Sort of. Now 81, he serves as a part-time goodwill ambassador for the Rangers, who honored him this weekend for his induction into the Texas League Hall of Fame.
Explaining how he could remain in one profession 60 years, Macko said, "I've had a lot of fun in this game."
Probably helps if it keeps you out of bear suits.
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