Midwest League Profile

Jack Mull

Jack Mull's spent much of his adult life in Midwestern ballparks.

He signed with the Cubs, apparently after college, and was assigned to the Quincy Gems as a catcher. His MWL stat line in 1969:

         G  AB  R  H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB HB   BA
Quincy  94 227 38 71 12  1  9  31 30 70  6  4 .256

The Cubs promoted him to their Texas League farm club on the basis of that season, where he stayed for four seasons. Presumably he was a good catcher; he was a terrible hitter.

Before the 1974 season, the Cubs offered him a managing position, which he accepted. He led their Gulf Coast League squad to a 33/14 record and a league championship.

The Giants offered him a Triple-A playing contract for 1975, so he spent a couple years at Phoenix (Pacific Coast League) before retiring again.

Jack accepted a managing assignment, as Cedar Rapids' skipper, for 1977. From '77 to 1994 Jack worked in the Giants organization, managing at every level in the farm system. Seven of those years were in our league, and five of them were at Clinton. When he wasn't managing, he was coaching; he spent 1985 on San Francisco's big league staff. The last few summers have seen him working in the Cleveland organization; due to health problems, he's lately been serving in coaching positions.

Jack's been a fairly conventional manager; he calls for the bunt more often than most, but has no other quirks. If he's got good baserunners, they run; if not, he holds them fairly close.

He's managed for 19 years, now, and has been fairly successful: five of his clubs have had the league's best record, a couple have won championship playoffs, and he's been selected as Manager of the Year in three different leagues.

His best season was probably 1993, with Clinton: 80/54 (.597) with the league's best record and a manager of the year selection. South Bend won the playoff, though, 3 games to 1.

Mull's still pretty young, so he might return to our towns again. Or perhaps he'll follow Jim Leyland, who also watched a lot of games from Riverview's dugout, to a big league helm.

Jack's managerial record is available on this site.

My thanks to Pat Doyle (Old Time Data) and Michael Mavrogiannis, both of whom I know from SABR, for much of the detail here.

This profile originated as the January 23, 1999, Midwest League Tidbit on the Midwest League Mailing List.