April 15th is a big day in MLB history, and the league does a fine job of honoring it. It was the day Jackie Robinson first stepped on the field as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and thus broke the color barrier in the sport that had been put up 60 years earlier. (He […]
It was on April 14, 1910, that William Taft became the first ever President of the US to throw out the first pitch of a Major League game. The 300 pounder tossed the pitch to legendary pitcher Walter Johnson, and thus started a rich American tradition. Good trivia question: since Taft, every single president has […]
On this date in 1997 Allen Iverson set an NBA rookie record as he scored 40 points in his fifth consecutive game.Who’s record did he break? Wilt Chamberlain’s record, set in the 1959-60 season with the Philadelphia Warriors. April 7th – 44 Points, 8 Assists, 1 Rebound April 9th – 40 Points, 9 Assists, 8 […]
As the Sixers prepare to get destroyed by give it their all against the Miami Heat, I thought we’d take a look back at Miami’s former pro basketball team, the Miami Floridians. (In truth, after an inaugural season in Miami, they became just the Floridians, because they became a team of barnstormers, playing home games […]
With a soccer-specific stadium in beautiful Chester, an average attendance that the playoff-bound Sixers don’t rival even in an arena with 2,000 more seats, and a team atop the table early in the 2011 season, soccer fever is running high in Philadelphia. While most young fans think that Philly’s soccer history goes only as […]
The Phillies are in the midst of a series with the Nationals this week. There is no city with a stranger or more confusing baseball history than Washington, D.C. It was the home of three teams called the Senators. (Though to save newspaper headline space, the latter two teams were commonly referred to as the […]
Joe Frazier: When the Smoke Clears from Riverhorse on Vimeo. It is strange that Philadelphia chooses to identify itself with a fictional boxer who overcomes monumental odds to become champion, when they have a real life boxer whose story is far more incredible than anything ever penned by Sly Stallone. Joe Frazier grew up in […]
Hall of Famer Charles Albert “Chief” Bender played one season with the Phillies, but he is much better known for the 12 seasons he spent across town with the Philadelphia A’s. He won over 63% of his starts, and the higher the pressure was, the better he performed, winning six World Series games with a […]
Flamboyant owner Bill Veeck would be turning 96 today if he were still alive. While doing a little reading on him today I made an interesting discovery…that he claimed to have almost bought the Philadelphia Phillies in 1942 and loading up the roster on Negro League stars such as Satchel Paige and Roy Campanella. However, […]
Big Ed Delahanty was one of the true superstars of baseball in the 1890s, and became one of the first great power hitters in the sport. He was part of the famed 1894 Phillies outfield that claimed four .400 hitters, with Big Ed ripping them at a .407 clip. Between 1894-1899, he was unstoppable, with […]
Perhaps the greatest Phillie of the 1900s was Sherry Magee, a left fielder from tiny Clarendon, PA. Though his statistics during his 11 years with the Phils aren’t overwhelming (.299 BA, 75 HRs, 886 RBIs), he played in the deadball era, and led the NL in RBIs five times. He was also an expert diamond […]
As I have written previously, the Phillies outfield of the 1890s was one of the greatest outfields in baseball history. The third outfielder in that great triumvirate was a man named Sam Thompson. Thompson came to the Phils from the Detroit Wolverines in 1888, and proceeded to put up monster numbers for the Phils throughout […]
