Connie Mack's Inspiration

Connie Mack's Inspiration

By Maurice McQuillen (1963)

Leo Cloutier and Connie Mack

Connie spotted writing ability in Berlin Boy

The Grand Old man of baseball himself, the late Connie Mack- venerable manager-owner of the Philadelphia Athletics who still ruled the roost when he was in his eighties- first spotted the potential sports-writing ability of Leo E. Cloutier as a lad of nine.
Bitten badly by the baseball bug, an unknown Berlin boy with plenty of spunk, had written to Connie Mack inquiring of the possibility of becoming a mascot for a mjor league club. The busy baseball pilot did not toss the letter into the wastebasket or onto the desk of an assistant, instead he sat down, reread the boys letter and composed a reply letter with much thought in it.
Impressed by the young lads use of sports parlance, Connie Mack said "Would advise that you try to develop yourself into a position along the lines of reporting baseball as there is usually a great opportunity in this line of work for a young man such as yourself. No doubt you have some friends who might be able to get you started with a small paper and in this way you would eventually work your way up into one of the large cities where they have baseball continually. from your letter i fell that should be able to fill the bill as a reporter."
That was back in early January 1930.Two years later, come spring, Leo Cloutier covered his first major league game in Boston for the Berlin Herald. Verteran hard-bitten, Hub sports writers were amused at the thought of a cocky child of 16 from the sticks sitting in the press box covering the game. Boston Post Sports Cartoonist Bob Coyne even worked it into his cartoon of the Red Sox/Yankees game of April 30 1932.
But Leo was an affable youngster who worked hard and enthusiastically, He quickly won the confidence, respect and real friendship of the cynical scribes and players alike. They liked his spunk. That first day as a working newsman he talked them into taking his picture with his idol, the immortal Babe Ruth.

Leo was off on a fast start to a fantastic sports writing and promoting career that would see him become editor of the New Hampshire Sunday News, director of the nations largest Baseball Dinner, sponsored by the Union leader Fund and now General Manager of The Richmond Vees, a Triple-A Farm Club of the New York Yankees.
It was more than a year before he wrote to Connie Mack and received his career-guidance letter that Leo saw his first big league baseball game.
Principal Allen Mc Gurdy of the Gorham Gramer School had promised an all-expenses paid trip to Boston to the youngster who won a certain number of points in the track meet with Milan and Errol. Leo cleaned up in the 100 yard dash, the low hurdles, high jump and javelin. So, May 24th 1929 as a lad of eight, saw his first major league baseball game. His teacher, Miss Romano Christie, now Mrs. Gordon Young of Vergreville, Alberta, Canada, kept spurring Leo onto victory, he recalls. And his substitute teacher Miss Thelma Clow of Lanconia a sports fan like his regular teacher kept him training all winter on the Androscogen River bridge in Gorham. There was no Gymnasium in this small town and so the boys would shovel the snow off a footbridge to train.
Leo's dad was a woodsman when it became time for him to enter gramer school, living miles in the woods. Leo assisted school officials by acting as an interpreter in explaining to woodsman's families from Canada that New Hampshire State Law required they send their youngsters to school.
All his gramer school teachers spotted Leo's flare for putting words together in newspaper style particularly on sports subjects and most notable on baseball. But it was after the inspirational Connie Mack Letter that Leo began to write all his compositions on Baseball and there was little doubt in anyone's mind that Leo would become a sportswriter. At the age of 12 he became sports editor of the Berlin Herald which after two weeks trial paid off in By-lines and $5 a week.
The Herald folded and as a 14 year old sophomore Leo was unemployed. He went to the Berlin Reporter and started a sports page commanding $10 a week. He had jumped to $12 a week when in 1938 he got a tryout in the Boston Red Sox. Leo was Captain of the Berlin high baseball team and he sent Sox player-manager Jimmy Cronin clippings of the stories he had written about him self. They were a bit on the self flattering side and emphasized the slightly exaggerated .416 batting average. Naturally Leo got the try-out.
That day the Red Sox had a double-header with the White Sox. There were 25,000 people in the park before the game to watch batting practice with old double X Jimmy Fox and Cronin as the big stickers. Leo snagged a 380 foot fly to center field about 10 feet short of the fence; he got a tremendous hand from the throng, but at the plate, he was a fizzle. So much for  his attempt to make the big leagues.

Leo returned to Berlin and sports writing. He was earning $14 a week when he married Berlin-born Laura Bertin of Poplar Street. He was making weekly $16 when his first child, Jon Craig Cloutier was born. To make ends meet he turned to promoting. He put on musical comedies and other shows. His firsts Baseball Dinner was in 1939 in St Barnabas church in berlin. It was hard work and little money but it prepared him for the days ahead when he would hit the big time.