Archie Cochrane

Archibald Montgomery Cochrane

• Throws Left
• School Duke University
• High School Bridgewater (MA) High School, Staunton Military Academy

• Born January 6, 1910 in Bridgewater, MA USA
• Died January 28, 1977 in Borrego Springs, CA USA

Biographical Information

Archie Cochrane was the youngest brother of Hall of Fame catcher Mickey Cochrane. A left-handed pitcher in high school, he was also an excellent football and basketball player. After graduation, he went to a military prep school for two additional years in order to enhance his chances to be admitted to a top college. At Staunton Military Academy in 1927-28, he was a classmate of future Senator (and presidential candidate) Barry Goldwater; the second year, he was the captain of the school's baseball team on which Calvin Griffith was a freshman player.

In the spring of 1929, he tried out with the Martinsburg Blue Sox of the Blue Ridge League, but he failed to give the team an assumed name, which resulted in the to-be-expected newspaper coverage of the younger brother of a major league star making his professional debut. He was released after just one week and three games and entered Duke University that fall. He played on the school's freshman team in 1930, but the following season, news of his having played professional baseball reached Southern Conference authorities and he was declared ineligible to play on the varsity team, even though he claimed never to have been paid for his one-week stint in Martinsburg. One positive fall out of this however was that he was able to concentrate on his studies (graduation rates for student-athletes were already pretty poor at the time) and he earned a degree in 1933 which would serve him well in later life.

After returning home and getting married and with his first child on the way, he decided to give professional baseball another try in 1934 with the Manchester Indians team in the Northeastern League. However, he just went 3-for-19 in 6 games and decided to give his playing ambitions a rest. Because he played fewer than 10 games in his two professional stints, his name and statistics are not included in many databases of minor league players, including in Baseball-Reference's minor league records.

In the meantime, his brother Mickey had been traded from the Philadelphia Athletics to the Detroit Tigers and Archie went to visit him in his new home city. He soon re-located there, finding work in the sales division of the Ford Motor Company and settling in Dearborn, MI. During that time, his brother acquired a ranch just south of Billings, MT and eventually settled there when his career as a player and manager in baseball ended. Archie visited him there and eventually developed the idea of opening an automobile dealership in Billings, an idea he brought to fruition at the end of World War II thanks to a loan from his brother. He got in on the ground floor just as Ford was revamping its dealership network, and "Archie Cochrane Motors" very quickly became a very successful business as car sales boomed across the country. By 1948, he was in a good enough financial position to finance the establishment of a minor league baseball team in Billings, the Billings Mustangs of the Pioneer League, with most of the capital coming from Bob Cobb, owner of the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League. Archie was the team's president for its first two seasons, and remained a member of its board of directors after that. He would return to actively run the team in 1956 and 1957 when falling attendance was in danger of bankrupting the team, as the advent of television led to the downfall of numerous minor league temas and leagues across the country.

The team survived, but Archie turned to politics, serving on the campaign of his school buddy Barry Goldwater in 1962 and eventually being elected to the Montana State Senate in 1968 after a time as a school board member. He served six years before stepping down in 1974, one year after selling his dealership to Billings' most famous baseball figure, major league pitcher Dave McNally, who kept the business's name. Arche suffered a stroke later in 1974 which left him partially paralyzed and moved to California to benefit for a more favorable climate. He died there early in 1977.

Related Sites

• Archie Cochrane at the SABR Bio Project