A group of Phillies fans cleaned Connie Mack’s grave. Now they want to do the same for other greats.

Their arms were sore last Sunday from two hours of scrubbing, but the work was finally done when the group of Phillies fans settled into a Chestnut Hill bar.

They came together after one of them posted on social media about Connie Mack’s grave being covered in moss, sediment, and bird droppings. Mack managed the Philadelphia Athletics for 50 years, built one of the first dynasties of American sports, and became known as Mr. Baseball. This, they agreed, was no Hall of Fame resting place.

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Mack died before any of the six Phils fans were born and owned a team that they did not root for. But they all believed Mack deserved better. And that’s why they brought 60 gallons of water to Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Cheltenham, attached bristle brushes to power drills, and got to work. Finally, it was time for a beer.

“We were just talking and we said, ‘So, who’s next?’” David Miller said. “We were tired. But it just felt right. Every ounce of it was worth it. All of us just said, ‘How can we keep it up? Who can we help next?’ It made us all feel really good.”

Miller’s father, Ron, called him last month after stopping at Holy Sepulchre ahead of Memorial Day to tell him about the condition of Mack’s grave. Miller’s grandparents are buried near Mack, so he’s seen the grave — a ledger with Mack’s birth name “McGillicuddy” etched in marble — countless times. But he had never seen it like this.

Miller is a Division I baseball coach at Manhattan College and spent seven seasons in the minors after being a first-round pick by Cleveland in 1995. His dad wondered if he knew someone in baseball who could give Mack a cleaning.

“I just said, ‘We can do this ourselves.’ There’s so many Phillies fans around,” Miller said. “All I have to do is put it on Twitter and Facebook and let the rest take care of itself. That’s exactly what happened.”

Miller connected with Chris Nowaczyk, who reposted the photos on “DrunkPhilsFans,” a popular social-media page he runs. Help was soon on the way. Ed Siegler regularly volunteers to clean military graves and said he could show the group the proper way to restore Mack’s stone. Brian Patrick works for a cleaning-solution company and provided the chemicals they needed. Chris Hesdon and Chris Dugan, two more Phillies fans, pitched in to help.

“Everyone did it for the same reason,” Nowaczyk said. “Wanting to honor Connie Mack and be remotely connected to him and just being dissatisfied with the state of someone who is so important to baseball. There was a sense of pride and a sense of connection that I never thought I could have. You read about these prewar things and most of them are gone. I would never have a connection to Connie Mack, so to remotely think that the six of us have this connection to Connie Mack is overwhelming. I’m really proud of it.”

Mack died in 1956 at his daughter’s home in Mount Airy. He was 93. His viewing two days later was fit for royalty. The mayor, two U.S. senators, city councilmen, every major-league owner, and baseball stars passed by Mack’s casket at Oliver Bair’s on Chestnut Street. Even President Eisenhower sent a telegram.

The son of Irish immigrants, Mack quit his job at a shoe factory when he was 21 years old to become a pro baseball player. There’s no money in baseball, the factory owner warned Mack. He played 11 seasons in the majors and helped establish Philadelphia’s American League team — the Athletics — in 1901. They won five World Series titles as Mack built the “$100,000 infield” and later a lineup headed by Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, and Mickey Cochrane. Mack was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937, a member of the Hall’s second class. In the early days of baseball, Mack was a king.

Before his funeral at St. Bridget’s in East Falls, a minor-league general manager remembered how Mack gave him 50 uniforms for free. Howard Ehmke, the winning pitcher of the opening game of the 1929 World Series, talked about the confidence Mack gave him before the game despite him pitching just once every three weeks that season. John Franklin “Home Run” Baker, the third baseman of that $100,00 infield, paid his respects.

The church was standing-room only and it rained as they buried Mack at Holy Sepulchre.

“Connie Mack had these six rules as a manager and an owner,” Nowaczyk said. “One of them is to always do your best and give your best even when you don’t feel 100 percent. I’ve always felt that way. It seems so simple. You go into work and maybe today you don’t feel like giving 100 percent but, shoot, someone deserves it. His idea was someone could come to see the A’s play today for the first time. And do you want them to think you’re a lollygagger? I always liked that message and think that’s something that prevails over 50 years.”

Nowaczyk grew up in Oxford Circle, the son of a Phillies fan and grandson of a Phillies fan. He considers himself a “lifelong baseball historian,” rolls Strat-O-Matic dice inside a mini Connie Mack Stadium, and has a replica of the park’s old Ballantine scoreboard at his Fox Chase home.

He loves baseball. And so does Miller, who was raised in Chestnut Hill and coached the final baseball team at La Salle University. Miller spent spring training with the Phillies in 1999 after they selected him in the Rule 5 draft. Wearing a Phillies uniform for six weeks in Clearwater, Fla., remains a career highlight for someone who grew up at Veterans Stadium.

“We played the University of Texas this year and Keith Moreland was the announcer for the Texas Longhorns,” said Miller, whose Manhattan College team played a March series in Austin, Texas. “I’m like, ‘Dude, Keith Moreland of the Phillies?’ He said, ‘Yeah, how do you know that?’ I said, ‘Trust me. I know that.’ That’s who I was. The Philadelphia Phillies were my entire childhood.”

It was that passion that brought them last week to a cemetery. They soaked Mack’s grave, sprayed some solution, and scrubbed. It was so fulfilling that they wondered over beers at the Chestnut Hill Bocce Club about whose grave could be next. Maybe Richie Ashburn’s or Harry Kalas’. Or Negro League slugger Louis Santop. Or maybe Mack’s old pitchers Herb Pennock and Chief Bender. They have plenty of cleaning solution left from Mack’s grave and a passion that has burned since they were kids.

“I think this could be something that just picks up steam,” Miller said. “Every Sunday we go and find someone else, clean their grave, and bring them back to life a little bit. Connie Mack deserved better than that grave. It was terrible.”