The Palo Alto History Project, Tony Mak

The Palo Alto History Project

Tony Mak & the Palo Alto Oaks

Bayshore Athletic Center

Tony Mak: One for the Ages

It’s the opening week of the baseball season and although Barry Bonds is sitting on the brink of breaking the
most immortal of all sports records, many fans find their interest in the Majors on the wane. With the
endless steroid talk, the prima donna salaries and the constant jumping of players from team to team, there
are plenty of reasons for one to enact their own personal boycott of 21st Century Mudville. Of course, this
isn’t the first time that the Major Leagues haven’t lived up the nobility of the national pastime. Whether it
was the player’s strike of the 1990s, the artificial turf and orange baseballs of the 1970s or the throwing of
the World Series in 1919, the love for the game itself has often had to pull its professional league out of the
mire. So to help motivate you to get out the old leather and start shagging some flies, here’s a look back at
a giant in Palo Alto baseball history, a man who truly loved the game---he was known as Tony Mak.

In 1954, Tony Makjavich joined the Palo Alto Oaks, the local semi-pro team that still plays its home games
from June to September at Baylands Park.   For forty-nine summers, Tony Mak coached the team like a
boy too happy playing to come in for dinner. When he died in 2003, he was still the manager of the Oaks.
He was 90 years old.

Growing up in Depression-era Washington State, Makjavich served in the army during World War II,
married Alice (his wife of 54 years), and settled down in Palo Alto, a trucker by profession. His true calling,
however, was baseball. A pretty good ballplayer himself, Tony had played in the minors for the San
Francisco Seals and Oakland Oaks. During his days on the diamond, he had the pleasure to know and play
with some of the greats of the game---including Joe DiMaggio, Billy Martin and Ty Cobb, who once slid
into Tony’s leg so hard, he needed 14 stitches before he could get back on the field. When Cobb moved to
Menlo Park after retiring, Tony used to caddy for the legendary “Georgia Peach,” sometimes honing his
outfield skills by catching Cobb’s hooking golf drives at the Stanford Driving Range.

As manager of the Oaks, Big Tony (as he was known by his players) was never paid and never asked to
be. He also never yelled at his players, just insisting on his three rules, “No smoking, no drugs, no long
hair.”   He always delivered that last rule with a chuckle. Over the years, he mentored hundreds of
ballplayers, in one case coaching three generations of the same family. Some of his players like Dick Stuart,
Bob Boone, and Felipe Alou Jr. made it to the big leagues, and Tony’s keen eye for talent led to decades of
work as a St. Louis Cardinals scout. Over the years, the Oaks were up and down, sometimes challenging
for league titles, sometimes not. When Tony retired as a trucker in 1981, he just kept right on coaching.
Nobody knew then, but he still had a couple decades to go.

He’d prove tough beyond his age. In San Francisco one Sunday in 1990, Tony Mak was short of players.
Rather than forfeit, the 77 year old trotted out to play second base, handling ground balls with ease. At the
plate, Tony managed to walk. Taking his lead off first base, his players, wearing huge grins, began
continuously flashing him the “steal” sign. Tony just kept brushing it off.

A few years later, Makjavich was mugged by two men outside Baylands Park after a game. Badly beaten
and suffering two broken ribs, Tony Mak was back in the dugout a week later. When 85, Tony got hit in
the leg with a line drive, developed a blood infection, had to make 4 visits to the hospital---and never missed
a game. In his final season as an 89 year old manager, the Oaks won 18 straight games, nearly completing a
perfect season. When he died, the Oaks could barely go on---they had never known another coach.

It’s still another couple months before the 2007 version of the Palo Alto Oaks take the field. But while you’
re waiting, perhaps it is worth checking out the Big Leaguers for a while---at least to see if you can spot a
few Tony Maks out there.

                                                                                                  -Matt Bowling

(Note: This article ran in the Palo Alto Daily News on April 23rd, 2007)

Tony Mak shows off his
stance

Tony: Front row, center

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The Oaks in the seventies.
Tony in the back on the left

Palo Alto: Then & Now

2004

A Palo Alto baseball team in 1911. While the Oaks had not yet been
founded, the picture gives a sense of the baseball fashions in the early 20th
Century, including a coach who looks like he's on his way to a cocktail
party.

The 2004 Palo Alto Oaks pose in their light blue and red uniforms. The
pants are a lot less baggy, caps are on display and while not pictured,
certainly the gloves prove more reliable in the field than their 1911
counterparts.

1911

The skipper

The Oaks some years back,
Tony is in the front row on
the far right

Big Tony

The Oaks call Tom Casey
Field at the Baylands
Athletics Center home

Tom Casey Field, home of the
Palo Alto Oaks

Dick Stuart, later
hero of the Pirates,
once played for
Tony