#391 Mel McGaha MG - Kansas City Athletics

Fred Melvin McGaha
Kansas City Athletics
Manager

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Left  Height:  6'2"  Weight:  198
Born:  September 26, 1926, Bastrop, LA
Signed:  Signed by the St. Louis Cardinals as an amateur free agent before 1948 season
As a Manager:  Cleveland Indians 1962; Kansas City Athletics 1964-1965
Died:  February 3, 2002, Tulsa, OK (age 75)

Mel McGaha never played baseball in the majors, but he did spend a season playing professional basketball for the New York Knicks in 1948-49.  He shifted over to the baseball diamond following his year with the Knicks,  playing in the Cardinals system between 1948 and 1952, and then for Shreveport in the Texas League between 1953 and 1957.  At the age of 27 in 1954 he became a player-manager for Shreveport and in seven seasons as a minor league manager, McGaha accumulated a record of 578-510, guiding his teams to pennants in three different seasons.  

He joined the Indians coaching staff in 1961, and was named the club's manager in 1962 replacing Jimmy Dykes.  The Indians finished sixth in the American League with a respectable 80-82 record, but McGaha wouldn't return for 1963.  Instead, he joined the Athletics' coaching staff and he took over as manager in mid-June 1964 for the departing Eddie Lopat.  McGaha wouldn't last a full season in Kansas City, as owner Charlie Finley fired him just as quickly as he was hired.  His lifetime managerial record was 123-173.  McGaha would serve on the Astros' coaching staff between 1968 and 1970

Building the Set
September 3, 2021 from Seattle, WA - Card #344
As our summer came to a close, I turned my attention to attempting to complete our set's third series, needing just 15 more cards - a mix of commons, semi-stars and super stars.  I found the Willie Horton card (#206) for sale at a reasonable price from eBay seller earlchamp from Seattle, Washington.  Not wanting Horton to travel alone, I added another card I needed, this McGaha card, and the two cards traversed the country together arriving in our mail box on the Friday before Labor Day.

1962 Topps #242

The Card / Athletics Team Set
McGaha is all smiles in his second and final Topps flagship set appearance, perched on the dugout steps with his #41 peaking through on his sleeves and on the front of his jersey.  I wasn't familiar with McGaha before adding his card, and I was surprised to find his name is pronounced muh-GAY-uh and not muh-GA-HA, with the last two syllables rhyming.

1965 Season
McGaha's Athletics got off to a horrible start, going 5-21 over the first month of the season.  Owner Finley had seen enough and replaced him with Haywood Sullivan who guided the Athletics the rest of the year to a 59-103 record.  Sullivan had been managing the Triple-A Vancouver Mounties at the time, and he had last played with the Athletics in 1963.  In what I thought was a bit unusual, Sullivan not only took McGaha's job, he took his uniform number, wearing #41.  

McGaha was the only major league manager fired during the 1965 season, although the Mets replaced Casey Stengel (#187) with Wes Westrum, as Stengel retired due to health concerns.

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1962 Topps #242
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (2):  1962, 1965
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  1965 Topps #391

12 - McGaha non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 9/27/21.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

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