Most baseball fans are well aware that Shoeless Joe Jackson was one of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball (3rd highest career batting average of all time at .356), and they certainly know that he got kicked out of the game following the Black Sox scandal. But did you know he started his […]
A very cool video about the history of baseball in Philadelphia, and I think it is awesome that J-Roll does the audio for it. This is a must watch for local baseball fans.
The Phils recent signing of Cuban Danys Baez, along with recently reading an excellent article by Michael Lewis about Cuban baseball in Vanity Fair (baseball fans, this is a must read), got me wondering about the Phillies and Cuba. And that led me to Seamheads, which had a writeup about the Phils barnstorming Cuba…in 1911. […]
In the past, we’ve mostly dealt with local baseball history. But since the hockey team is in season right now, let’s talk hockey history. Specifically, let’s discuss the short lived Philadelphia Quakers. The team was originally known as the Pittsburgh Pirates, but when financial hardship set in, they decided to move the squad to Philly, […]
After 1875, the National Association was in big trouble. The teams refused to take long road trips, players were fixing games, and Boston club was kicking everybody’s ass. So in 1876 a new league was formed. It was called the National League, and it is the same National League that the Phillies play in today. […]
Today we learn about the genesis of the Phillies, or the Quakers as they were alternately called in the 1880s. For more detailed account of the origins of the Phils, go here. By 1882, the National League was struggling. One of its teams, the Worcester Brown Stockings, had played in front of 18 spectators on […]
The Athletics were one of the charter members of the upstart American League in 1901, and immediately went about stripping the Phillies roster of it’s talent. The A’s grabbed future Hall of Famer Nap Lajoie, who led the new league in batting in 1901 with an incredible .426 average (still the AL record). Whereas the […]
The 1964 Phils or the 2007 Mets. Who was the bigger choker? The answer: the 2007 Mets. On September 12, 2007, the New York Mets had a 99.4% chance to make the playoffs. The Phillies had a 1.2% chance to win the division. In comparison, the best chance the 1964 Phillies had of making the […]
There has been quite a bit of buzz recently about Spygate. Well Spygate isn’t the first time a pro team has used technology to try to steal signals from the other side. The Phillies did something similar in the 19th century. The following is from an old Christy Mathewson book (link below). ...the report went out […]
