Mickey Cochrane wasn’t just a great baseball player. He was a hero and role model to millions of people during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The combination of Cochrane’s fierce competitiveness on the field and his likable personality off the field helped Americans take their minds off the unemployment and other economic woes of the Great Depression. Many parents named their children after Cochrane, including one Oklahoma family named Mantle.

Playing for the Philadelphia A’s and Detroit Tigers, Cochrane led five teams to American League pennants during the seven-year span from 1929 through 1935, during an era most remember as being dominated by Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees. Three of these five teams went on to win World Series titles. Cochrane was the catcher on Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s team that won three consecutive pennants from 1929 to 1931. However, it was as player-manager of the Detroit Tigers that Cochrane achieved national fame and adulation, leading the Tigers to two pennants in 1934-35 and Detroit’s first World Series title in 1935.

Cochrane had all the attributes expected of a great catcher – mastery of calling pitches, good arm, and defensive capabilities. He also had the attributes expected of any great ballplayer. He could hit for average, had above-average speed on the base paths, and when needed could hit for power.

Over a 13-season playing career, Cochrane compiled a .320 lifetime batting average, best among all major league catchers and ranking among the top 50 of all players. His best season at the plate was 1930 when he hit .357, good for fifth-best in the league after having led the A.L. in hitting at the end of June that year with a .404 average.

His exceptional batting eye was also reflected in his patience at waiting out pitchers, piling up 857 career walks. His .419 career on-base average ranks in the top 20 among all players. Cochrane also struck out less than once in every 24 plate appearances, capped by just 8 whiffs in 514 at bats in 1929.

While hitting just 119 home runs in his career, Cochrane had 64 triples, the most among Hall of Fame catchers that played in the 20^th century. His ability to launch doubles and triples lands him in the game’s top 100 in slugging percentage with a .478 average.

In his first 11 years in the majors, Cochrane never caught less than 110 games in the then 154-game season. He perfected the one-hand catching style to help protect the fingers on his throwing hand from getting overly banged up. Cochrane assisted two pitchers to establish 16-game winning streaks, still the American League record, when Lefty Grove accomplished the feat with the A’s in 1931 and Schoolboy Rowe with the Tigers in 1934.

Cochrane was selected American League MVP twice, in 1928 and 1934, primarily on his leadership abilities, which one writer has characterized as being “measured as easily as the distance to Oz.” On the field, Cochrane had a certain inspiration that infected other players to do their best. Cochrane never played on a team that finished in less than third place.

However, Cochrane never liked the limelight that was thrust upon him and was even burdened by it, as he suffered a breakdown with the Tigers in 1936 after being elevated to general manager in addition to his player-manager duties. On his way to recovery from the breakdown in 1937, he was hit in the head by a pitch in those helmet-less days and was nearly killed, ending his major league career. In 1938, as a bench manager, Cochrane was much less effective and was fired that August.

Cochrane managed the Great Lakes Naval Training baseball team for the U.S. Navy during World War II, from 1942-44. He also briefly served as general manager of the A’s in 1950. His happiest post-playing days were at his Montana ranch in the late 1940s, with his wife Mary and daughters Joan and Sara. His only son, Gordon Jr., died on a battlefield in Europe in World War II. At the ranch, Cochrane could be plain ole “Mike,” his preferred nickname and what anyone close to him called him, rather the “Mickey” moniker that was his baseball persona.

In 1947 Cochrane was the first catcher elected by the baseball writers to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Biographical information provided by Charlie Bevis, member of SABR and author of Mickey Cochrane's biography.

See the Mickey Cochrane book information page at McFarland Publishing. Click on the page icon at right to read an excerpt from the book (Chapter 11) displayed in the ARTICLES Section of this Encyclopedia of Baseball Catchers.