Philadelphia Phillies History
No one could have
realized it at the time, but when the Phillies were formed in 1883,
history was in the making. Now, as the 21st century begins, the
Phillies are the oldest, continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in
all of professional sports.
The original Phillies began when the Worcester
Ruby Legs were disbanded and the franchise was moved by the National
League to Philadelphia. Al Reach, who in 1866 had become the first
professional baseball player and was later a successful sporting goods
dealer, became the Phillies first owner along with attorney John
Rogers. Reach named the team the Phillies, a take-off on the team's
geographic roots, "Philly."
The first Phillies
game was played May 1, 1883 at Recreation Park on the corner of 24th
Street and Ridge Avenue with the club losing 4-3 to the Providence
Grays. The club would go on to win just 17 of 98 games that season,
pitcher John Coleman losing 48 of them.
The Phillies fortunes
changed in 1884 with the naming of the widely-known Harry Wright as
manager. Wright, a future Hall of Famer, would lead the Phillies to
respectability during the next decade, with the team finishing out of
the first division only once during his reign.
Great players also began dotting the landscape.
Charlie Ferguson, the first Phillies star, pitched the club's first
no-hitter in 1885 and won 99 games in four seasons before dying of
typhoid fever at the age of 25. Ed Delahanty joined the team in 1888.
The first of the Phillies' great hitters, he hit over .400 three times,
winning a batting title with a .410 average in 1899, and finishing his
career with a .346 mark, fourth highest in big league history.
Delahanty was also
the first Phillies player to hit four home runs in one game when he
slammed four round-trippers in 1896. Jack Boyle in 1893 and Delahanty
in 1894 also had the Phillies' first six-hit games.
In 1894, the Phillies
had three future Hall of Famers in the outfield, and each of
them--Delahanty, Billy Hamilton and Sam Thompson--hit over .400.
Hamilton won batting titles in 1891 and 1893, the same year Delahanty
led the league in home runs with 19 and in RBI with 146. Thompson was
the Phils' first home run king, twice leading the league, including in
1889 when he hit the unheard of total of 20. Hamilton also led the
league four times in stolen bases, pilfering 111 in 1891. In 1894 he
set a still-standing Major League record by scoring 192 runs and a club
record by hitting in 36 straight games.
The Phils also had their share of good pitching,
Camden's Kid Gleason set a club record with 38 wins in 1890. Gus
Weyhing won 32 in 1892, Charlie Buffinton and Brewery Jack Taylor each
had three straight 20-plus win seasons, and Red Donahue hurled a
no-hitter in 1898.
For more than a
decade, the Phils had a lefthanded catcher named Jack Clements. They
also had a lefthanded shortstop, Bill Hulen. Billy Sunday played
briefly for the Phillies before becoming a world-famous evangelist.
Until his death in 1943, pitcher Dan Casey claimed that he was the
subject of the legendary poem, "Casey at the Bat." And long-time first
baseman Sid Farrar had a daughter Geraldine who became a famous opera
star.
The Phillies played at Recreation Park until
moving in 1887 into a new stadium called Philadelphia Park at Broad
Street and Lehigh Avenue. Built at a cost of $101,000, the park
originally held 12,500 and was regarded as the finest baseball arena in
the nation. A fire destroyed much of the park in 1894, but while the
Phillies moved to a field at the University of Pennsylvania, it was
rebuilt, using mostly steel and brick. The park, with a new seating
capacity of 18,800, featured a cantilever pavilion, a radical new
technique in stadium construction.
As the 20th century
dawned, the Phillies had become one of the stronger teams in the
National League, with good reason. The team had three future Hall of
Famers in the lineup with Ed Delahanty at first base, Nap Lajoie at
second and Elmer Flick in right field. In 1900, Flick led the league in
RBI and was second in batting average with a .367 mark.
Hopes of the team's
first pennant, however, were soon dashed when the American League was
formed in 1901. Within two years, the new league had signed not only
the Phillies' three star players but a handful of others, most of them
going to the rival Philadelphia Athletics. In a cruel touch of irony,
the first five American League batting champions would all be former
Phillies with Lajoie winning three titles and Delahanty and Flick each
one.
After placing second in 1901, their highest finish
since 1887, the Phils slipped in the standings. To make matters worse,
in 1903, a balcony at Philadelphia Park collapsed, sending 12 people to
their deaths and injuring 232 others. Soon afterward, popular owner Al
Reach and his partner John Rogers sold the team.
There were plenty of
bright spots, though. Chick Fraser in 1903 and John Lush in 1906
pitched no-hitters. There would not be another Phillies no-hitter for
58 years. Sherry Magee led the league in RBI in 1907 while hitting a
lofty .328. Togie Pittinger won 23 games in 1905, Tully Sparks won 22
in 1907 and George McQuillan won 23 with a 1.52 ERA in 1908. That same
year, rookie lefthander Harry Coveleskie earned the nickname "Giant
Killer" by beating the New York Giants late in the season three times
in six days to knock John McGraw's team out of the pennant.
The first City Series games between the Phillies
and the A's were played in 1903. The series would be a popular
attraction for Philadelphia baseball fans for more than 50 years.
As usual, the
Phillies had their share of interesting personalities. Ponderous
manager Billy Shettsline was a colorful figure who was in the midst of
working his way from ticket-taker to club president. His arm gone bad,
Kid Gleason had left the mound to become the team's second baseman.
Norristown's Roy Thomas was a stellar outfielder and leadoff hitter,
whistling catcher Red Dooin was a superb backstop and Kitty Bransfield
was a solid player at first base. Toward the end of the decade, the
Phillies' third baseman was a man named Eddie Grant. Some years later,
having been traded to the New York Giants, Grant would become the first
major league player killed in World War I.
By the end of the decade, the Phillies were
starting to climb back up in the National League standings. Slowly, the
team that would soon win the club's first pennant was being put
together.
Thirty-three years after their first National
League season, the Phillies finally reached the World Series. They did
it in 1915 with a powerful team led by first-year manager Pat Moran.
The Phils swept to the pennant with a 90-62 record, leading most of the
way and finishing seven games ahead of the defending world champion
Boston Braves. Grover Cleveland Alexander won 31 games and pitched four
one-hitters, Erskine Mayer won 21, and Gavvy Cravath set a Major League
record with 24 home runs while also leading the league in RBI and runs
scored. The home run record would last until Babe Ruth broke it in
1919. After Alexander and the Phils won the first game of the World
Series, the club lost four straight to the Boston Red Sox, the end
coming when Harry Hooper bounced his second ground-rule home run of the
game into the center field bleachers for a 5-4 Red Sox victory,
Boston's fourth straight one-run triumph. It was otherwise, mostly a
splendid decade for the Phillies until the later years. Sherry Magee
led the league in batting, RBI and runs scored in 1910. The following
year, the Phils signed Alexander, and the future Hall of Famer won 28
games as a rookie. Two more future Hall of Famers, pitcher Eppa Rixey
in 1912 and shortstop Dave Bancroft in 1915 joined the club. In 1913,
Doc Miller set a club record with 20 pinch-hits and Tom Seaton won 27
games as the Phils leaped into second place. And the slugging Cravath
won six home run crowns between 1913 and 1919. The Phils lost key
players to the Federal League and to World War I during the decade.
They also lost another owner. Horace Fogel, an ex-sports writer, was
banned from baseball for life for injudicious comments about the
league. In 1913, former New York City police commissioner William Baker
became the team's seventh president since Reach left in 1903. Baker had
Philadelphia Park renamed Baker Bowl, but more significantly would
destroy a fine team after its second straight second place finish in
1917. His worst move was trading Alexander, after he had won 30 or more
games in three straight years, to the Chicago Cubs for two nobodies.
Alexander had been drafted into the Army, and Baker was afraid that he
might not make it back as a player.
The Phils set an attendance record in 1916 of
515,365 that stood until after World War II. In 1918, slugger Cy
Williams arrived in one of the Phillies' best trades, the club had its
longest game in history, a 21-inning, 2-1 loss to the Cubs, and Moran
was fired. By 1919, the Phils had slipped to eighth place as a long,
dreary era began. That year, Joe Oeschger pitched all 20 innings of a
9-9 tie with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
By the time the 1920s
arrived, the Phillies were slipping into what would become the bleakest
period in club history. It lasted for 31 years during which time the
Phils had just one first division finish.
The decade of the
'20s was especially dreary. The Phillies finished eighth five times and
seventh three times. They lost more than 100 games four times, had six
different managers and unwisely traded future Hall of Famers Dave
Bancroft and Eppa Rixey before their primes.
On a more positive
note, outfielder Cy Williams emerged as the Phillies' new slugger,
winning three home run crowns. When he won his first Phillies title in
1920, Williams extended the club's record to seven home run crowns in
an eight-year period.
Hitting home runs was
easy at Baker Bowl where the right field wall stood just 272 feet down
the line. In 1921, the Phils set a Major League team record with 88
homers. The Phils led the National League in homers in five straight
years between 1919-23. Williams slammed 41 round-trippers in 1923, the
same year the Phils lost a 20-14 decision to the St. Louis Cardinals in
a game which featured a record 10 home runs.
In the early 1920s,
Casey Stengel played with the Phillies. So did future Philadelphia
Eagles Hall of Fame coach Earle (Greasy) Neale. Phils pitcher Lee
Meadows was one of the first Major Leaguers to wear glasses.
The Phillies always
had plenty of .300 hitters. In 1922, the same year the club lost a
26-23 shootout in Chicago to the Cubs in a game that still stands as a
Major League record for most runs by two teams, outfielders Williams,
Cliff Lee and Curt Walker all hit over .300. George Harper hit .349 in
1925.
The Phils were the
victims of the major league's first unassisted triple play when the
Boston Braves' Ernie Padgett turned the trick in 1923. In 1927, a
section of the Baker Bowl grandstand collapsed, forcing the Phillies to
play 12 games at Shibe Park.
The best news of the
decade came in 1928. The team hired the highly respected Burt Shotton
as manager, signed minor leaguers Pinky Whitney and Don Hurst,
and--best of all--bought a kid named Chuck Klein for $5000. Klein went
on to become one of the greatest players in Phillies history.
Klein paid immediate dividends by hitting .356,
driving in 145 runs and leading the league with 43 homers in 1929. He
was joined that year by Lefty O'Doul, who led the league with a .398
batting average while collecting a record 254 hits to go along with 32
home runs and 122 RBI. Altogether six Phillies hit over .300 in 1929,
four slugging more than 200 hits as the team placed fifth, its highest
finish since 1917.
No period in Phillies
history was more bizarre than the decade of the 1930s. On the one hand,
the club had some of its worst teams. On the other hand, it had some of
its best players.
A perfect example was
the 1930 season. The Phillies hit .315 for the third highest team
batting average in National League history. Five regulars hit above
.300. Yet, the club still lost 102 games, thanks largely to a pitching
staff that had an ERA of 6.71 and gave up an all-time record 1199 runs.
In 1930 Chuck Klein
hit .386 with 40 home runs and 170 RBI in one of the best years any
Phillie ever had. Lefty O'Doul added a .383 average during a year that
also saw Grover Cleveland Alexander return to the team as a washed-up
part-timer.
Klein was in the
midst of one of baseball's finest first five-years. In 1931, he won his
first of three home run titles with 31 homers while also leading the
league in RBI, hitting .337 and being named the league's Most Valuable
Player. After going .348-38-137 and winning another MVP award in 1932,
Klein topped off his heroics in 1933 by winning the Phillies' only
Triple Crown with a .368 average, 28 home runs and 129 RBI. He and
fiery shortstop Dick Bartell were both starters in the first All-Star
Game that year.
The Phils of the
1930s had loads of outstanding hitters. First baseman Don Hurst led the
league with 143 RBI while hitting .339 in 1932. Spud Davis, Pinky
Whitney, Johnny Moore, Ethan Allen and Dolph Camilli were all heavy
hitters as the decade progressed.
Good pitching,
though, was a rarity. Jumbo Elliott in 1931 and Curt Davis in 1934 were
19-game winners. In 1935, manager and catcher Jimmie Wilson converted
third baseman Bucky Walters to pitcher, and he along with Claude
Passeau became fine moundsmen. But it wasn't enough to keep the
Phillies from four eighth place and three seventh place finishes during
the decade.
The Phils' best
season was in 1932 when they wound up fourth under manager Burt
Shotton, the team's only first division finish between 1917 and 1949.
The Phillies of the
'30s were noted for trading their top players to make ends meet.
William Baker died in 1930 and he was eventually replaced by Gerry
Nugent, who swapped everything that wasn't nailed down. Nugent's wife,
Mae, became the first woman vice president in the National League.
In 1935, the Phils met the Cincinnati Reds at
Crosley Field in the first Major League night game. That year, second
baseman Chile Gomez became the team's first Latin American player. In
1938, the Phils finally moved out of Baker Bowl and into Shibe Park
where one year later thay played in their first home night game.
