Leslie Mann (athlete)

Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Mann attended the Y.M.C.A. College in Springfield, Massachusetts.[1] He played both football and basketball at Springfield and was regarded as "one of the best football players the training school ever had."[2]

Mann later became a professional baseball player. From 1913 to 1928, he played for the Boston Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, New York Giants, and Chicago Cubs.

He was a member of the 1914 "Miracle" Braves team that went from last place to first place in two months, becoming the first team to win a pennant after being in last place on the Fourth of July.[3] The team then went on to defeat Connie Mack's heavily favored Philadelphia Athletics in the 1914 World Series.

Mann jumped to the rival Federal League in 1915, signing with the Chicago Whales. The short lived league was in its final season, but Mann recorded his best season as a professional, batting .306 and leading the league with 19 triples as the Whales won the pennant.

With the demise of the Federal League, Mann returned to Major League Baseball as a member of the Chicago Cubs in 1916. As a member of the pennant winning Cubs in 1918, Mann also recorded an RBI single off Babe Ruth in Game 4 of the 1918 World Series. Ruth's Boston Red Sox defeated the Cubs 4-2 to win the Series, their last World Series title until 2004.

Mann served mostly as a platoon player from 1919 onward. Although he'd bat over .300 in several season over the final part of his career, Mann did do so falling well short of the necessary plate appearances to qualify for a batting title.

Mann also worked for many years as a college football and basketball coach. From 1914 to 1916, he was a basketball coach at Amherst College.[1][2][4][5]

In 1919, he became a coach at Rice Institute in Houston.[1] In February 1922, Mann was hired as an assistant football coach at Indiana.[1][6] He also coached the Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball team during the 1922–23 and 1923–24 seasons.[7]

Starting in 1924, Mann was hired as the head basketball coach and assistant football coach at his alma mater, which by then had become Springfield College.[8]

After retiring as a player and coach, Mann became an advocate for baseball as an international sport. He founded the U.S.A. Baseball Congress, and organized a 20-game tour of Japan in 1935.

Through his efforts, baseball was selected as a demonstration sport in the 1936 Summer Olympics played in Berlin. Originally, the United States team was scheduled to play a Japanese team, but the Japanese withdrew. The American team was separated into two squads who competed against each other in a single game. The "World Champions" lineup beat the "U. S. Olympics" lineup by a score of 6–5 before a crowd of 100,000 people on August 12, 1936.[9]

Mann went on to found the International Baseball Federation, which organized an international championship in England in 1938. The English team, composed mainly of Canadian college players, won 4 out of 5 games against an amateur American team. He also organized subsequent championships in Cuba in 1939 and Puerto Rico in 1941. World War II brought Mann's efforts to an end.[10]

Mann also arranged a 33-game tour of South Africa and Rhodesia between November 1955 and February 1956.

He died in Pasadena, California.

• 1,498 Games
• 4,716 At-bats
• 1,332 Hits
• 677 Runs
• 203 Doubles
• 106 Triples
• 44 Home runs
• 503 RBIs
• 129 Stolen bases
• 324 Bases on balls
• .282 Batting average
• .332 On-base percentage
• .398 Slugging percentage
• .966 Fielding percentage

• List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
• List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference, or Baseball Reference (Minors)
• Leslie Mann at College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com