Philadelphia Phillies

• 1. Introduction

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  The Philadelphia Phillies hold a distinction that no other franchise in American professional sports can claim: they are the oldest continuous, one-name, one-city team in the country. They have played in the same city, under the same name, since 1883. That is well over a century of baseball, played through wars, depressions, stadium collapses, and one of the worst losing streaks since the modern game began. At one point, they became the first franchise in American professional sports history to lose 10,000 games. But they also won those same 10,000 games, and they did it in a city that has loved them fiercely through all of it. How does a team survive that long? What does it look like when a franchise built on near-permanent failure finally breaks through? And what explains the strange, stubborn loyalty of Philadelphia fans, who filled the stands even when the product on the field gave them very little reason to?

• 2. A Troubled Beginning

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  Al Reach, a pioneering professional baseball player turned sporting goods manufacturer, and attorney John Rogers received an expansion National League franchise for Philadelphia in 1883 as one of what became known as the Classic Eight of the National League. Their new club was nicknamed the Phillies from the start, a name that first appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer on the 3rd of April 1883 in coverage of an exhibition game. That inaugural 1883 squad promptly compiled a .173 winning percentage, the worst in franchise history. The opening years were grim. Harry Wright, who had managed baseball's first openly professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was brought in as manager in 1884 in hopes of reversing the team's fortunes. Improvement came slowly. Meanwhile, standout players including Billy Hamilton, Sam Thompson, and Ed Delahanty gave the club its first genuine stars. In 1896, Delahanty tied the major-league record with four home runs in a single game, a mark that has since been tied by several others. Reach eventually sold his interest to Rogers in 1899, driven by growing disagreements about the team's direction. When the American League emerged as a rival circuit in 1901, the Phillies saw many of their better players defect, including several who ended up with their crosstown rivals, the Athletics, whose owner Benjamin Shibe had once been a minority owner of the Phillies. The remaining squad finished 46 games out of first place in 1902, the first of three straight years finishing seventh or eighth. A balcony collapse at the Baker Bowl in 1903 killed 12 people and injured hundreds. Rogers was forced to sell to avoid being destroyed by lawsuits. The 1904 team finished 52-100, making them the first club in franchise history to lose 100 games. An early pennant in 1915, won behind pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander and outfielder Gavvy Cravath's 24 home runs, offered a glimpse of what the franchise could be. They won that pennant with a 90-62 record, seven games ahead of the Boston Braves, but lost the World Series to the Boston Red Sox four games to one. In 1917, new owner William Baker traded Alexander to the Chicago Cubs for pitcher Mike Prendegrast and catcher Pickles Dillhoefer rather than meet Alexander's salary demands. Baker ran the organization so cheaply that for much of his tenure, only one scout worked for the entire franchise.

• 3. Thirty Years in the Basement

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  The effect of trading Alexander away was felt almost immediately. In 1918, just three years after winning the pennant, the Phillies finished sixth, 13 games below .500. What followed became one of the longest stretches of sustained futility in baseball history. From 1918 to 1948, the Phillies posted only one winning record, which came in 1932. They finished eighth, meaning last place, a total of 17 times during that span, seventh seven times, and lost at least 100 games in 12 different seasons. They never were a serious factor past June in any of those years. Baker died in 1930, leaving half his estate to his wife and the other half to longtime team secretary Mae Mallen. Mallen had married leather goods dealer Gerald Nugent five years before Baker's death. When Baker's widow died in 1932, Nugent became the team's controlling owner. Unlike Baker, Nugent desperately wanted to build a winning team, but lacked the financial means to do it. He was repeatedly forced to trade what little talent the club had just to keep the operation afloat. At Baker Bowl, the team's home until 1938, the playing conditions had deteriorated badly. Until 1925, the Phillies used a flock of sheep to trim the outfield grass. Home runs by Chuck Klein, who won the Triple Crown in 1933, would strike the park's girders and shower fans with rust. The entire right field grandstand collapsed in 1926. In 1930, the Phillies surrendered 1,199 runs, a major-league record that still stands today. The lowest point arrived in 1941, when the club finished 43-111, setting a franchise record for losses in a season. The following year, they needed an advance from the league just to attend spring training. Lumber baron William D. Cox purchased the team on the 15th of March 1943 for $190,000 and a $50,000 note, and the Phillies rose out of last place for the first time in five years. But Cox was banned from baseball by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis on the 23rd of November 1943 after it emerged that he had been betting on the team's games. That same day, Bob Carpenter Sr., scion of the Delaware-based duPont family, bought the club with his son for an estimated $400,000.

• 4. Blue Jays and Whiz Kids

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  Before the 1944 season, the Carpenters held a fan contest for a new team nickname, hoping to shed the franchise's image of failure. Management chose "Blue Jays", the submission of a fan named Elizabeth Crooks, who received a $100 war bond in return. The adoption of Blue Jays as an official additional nickname immediately drew protest from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, whose athletic director Wilson Shaffer criticized the Philadelphia club and suggested they use the blue jay's scientific name and call themselves the Philadelphia Cyanocitta Cristata instead. The student council at Johns Hopkins, citing the Phillies' long track record of failure, passed a resolution demanding "suitable satisfaction" for what they saw as theft of their name. The moniker never caught on with fans and was quietly dropped by January 1950. The Toronto Blue Jays later adopted the name when they began play in 1977, and coincidentally went on to defeat the Phillies in six games in the 1993 World Series. Bob Carpenter Jr. invested heavily in young players and the farm system, and the Phillies developed future Hall of Famers Richie Ashburn and Robin Roberts. On the last day of the 1950 season, Dick Sisler hit a dramatic home run in the tenth inning against the Brooklyn Dodgers to clinch the Phillies' first pennant in 35 years. The team was dubbed the "Whiz Kids". In the World Series, they were swept in four straight games by the New York Yankees, exhausted from a late-season plunge triggered largely by the loss of starting pitcher Curt Simmons to National Guard service. The heartbreak of 1950 set up the franchise's next era of struggle. The Phillies finished last in the National League four straight years from 1958 to 1961, and in 1961 lost 23 consecutive games, the worst losing streak in the majors since 1900. The "Phold of '64", as it became known, arrived when the 1964 Phillies held a 6.5-game lead in the pennant race with 12 games to play, then lost 10 in a row and finished one game out of first. They lost the pennant to the St. Louis Cardinals. One bright spot in that 1964 season: on Father's Day, Jim Bunning pitched a perfect game against the New York Mets, the first in franchise history.

• 5. The 1980 Championship

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  Steve Carlton arrived in Philadelphia via trade in 1972. In that same season, the Phillies were the worst team in baseball. Carlton won nearly half of their games, posting 27 wins out of 59 team victories, and claimed his first NL Cy Young Award. Building around Carlton and third baseman Mike Schmidt, the Phillies won three consecutive division titles from 1976 to 1978, though they fell short in the NLCS each time, losing to the Reds in 1976 and the Dodgers in 1977 and 1978. In 1979 they acquired Pete Rose, and in 1980 everything came together. The 1980 National League Championship Series against the Houston Astros stretched through five games, four of which required extra innings. The Phillies fell behind two games to one but came back, clinching on a tenth-inning game-winning hit by center fielder Garry Maddox. The World Series against the Kansas City Royals went six games. Mike Schmidt, who won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1980, also won the World Series MVP on the strength of his 8-for-21 performance, a .381 average, including game-winning hits in Game 2 and the clinching Game 6. That final game drew a television audience of 54.9 million viewers, remaining to this day the most-watched game in World Series history. Carlton posted a record of 24-9 that season and captured his third NL Cy Young Award. With that championship, the Phillies became the last of the 16 pre-expansion teams to win a World Series. Ruly Carpenter sold the franchise for $32.5 million in 1981 to a group headed by longtime Phillies executive William Yale Giles. The team returned to the World Series in 1983, a squad nicknamed the "Wheeze Kids" because of its many veterans, but lost to the Baltimore Orioles in five games.

• 6. Macho Row and the 1993 Run

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  The 1993 Phillies were one of the stranger championship contenders in baseball history. Led by Darren Daulton, John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, and Curt Schilling, the team was dubbed "Macho Row" for their shaggy, unkempt appearance. Their character endeared them to fans and attendance reached a record high the following season. Their 17-5 record in April set the tone for the entire year, and the team finished 97-65. Kevin Stocker, a rookie, led the team in batting average at .324. Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams anchored the bullpen with 43 saves and a 3.34 ERA. They beat the Atlanta Braves four games to two in the NLCS to earn the fifth NL pennant in franchise history, then faced the defending champion Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series. In Game 6, Toronto's Joe Carter hit a walk-off home run to clinch the series, ending the Phillies' season in one of the most dramatic moments in World Series history. The 1993-1994 MLB strike damaged the franchise's momentum, and several key players from that team departed in the years that followed. The rebuilding era that followed nevertheless laid the foundation for what came next. Between 1996 and 2002, the Phillies drafted the players who would form the core of their next great team: Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Cole Hamels. In December 2002, Jim Thome signed a six-year, $85 million contract with the club. On the 6th of December 2002, that signing signaled that a new era was beginning.

• 7. Five Straight and a Second Ring

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  Ryan Howard won the NL Most Valuable Player Award in 2006, and Jimmy Rollins won it in 2007. That 2007 team won the National League East on the final day of the season, as the Mets collapsed from a seven-game lead with 17 games remaining. The Phillies won their second World Series championship in 2008, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays four games to one. Game 5 of that series began on the 27th of October and was suspended after the top of the sixth inning with the score tied 2-2, the first-ever rain suspension in World Series history. The game resumed on the 29th of October, with the Phillies winning 4-3. Cole Hamels won MVP honors for both the NLCS and the World Series. Roy Halladay joined the team before the 2010 season, acquired from the Toronto Blue Jays for three minor-league prospects. On the 29th of May 2010, Halladay pitched a perfect game against the Florida Marlins. In Game 1 of the 2010 NLDS, Halladay threw the second no-hitter in Major League Baseball postseason history, leading the Phillies over the Cincinnati Reds 4-0. Before the 2011 season, the team signed Cliff Lee to a five-year deal, forming a rotation with Halladay, Lee, Hamels, Roy Oswalt, and Joe Blanton. Fans and media dubbed Halladay, Oswalt, Lee, and Hamels the "Phantastic Phour" and "The Four Aces". That rotation combined for a 71-38 win-loss record and a 2.86 ERA, the best in the majors. On the 17th of September 2011, the Phillies won their fifth consecutive East Division championship. On the 28th of September 2011, they set a franchise record with 102 wins in a season, beating the Atlanta Braves in 13 innings in the final game of the regular season. They lost in the NLDS to the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Cardinals went on to win the 2011 World Series.

• 8. Return and Renewal

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  Owner John Middleton declared before the 2019 season that the Phillies were willing to "spend stupid money", and the team signed Bryce Harper to a 13-year, $330 million contract, taking him from the division-rival Washington Nationals. The Phillies missed the playoffs that year, eliminated on the 24th of September while facing Harper's former team. After a COVID-shortened 2020 season and a near-miss in 2021, the team hired Dave Dombrowski as President of Baseball Operations in December 2020. Rob Thomson replaced fired manager Joe Girardi on the 3rd of June 2022, and the Phillies went on to reach the World Series that year for the first time since 2009. They faced the Houston Astros, entering as underdogs against a team that had gone 7-0 in the postseason. Catcher J.T. Realmuto hit a game-winning home run in the top of the tenth inning in Game 1 to give the Phillies a 6-5 win. In Game 3 at Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies hit five home runs in the first five innings, the first time that had occurred in World Series history. The Astros won the series four games to two. The Phillies won NL East titles in 2024 and 2025, two more consecutive division championships extending a recent era of sustained success. Over the franchise's full history since 1883-33 Phillies players have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, with third baseman Mike Schmidt widely considered the greatest player in franchise history.