Beer Week at PSH continues with the story of a new sponsor's demands, the firing of the Dean and the beginning of our love affair with Harry Kalas.
The final game of the 1970 season marked the end of an era for the Philadelphia Phillies. In the midst of a re-branding to attract younger fans, the Phillies would be leaving Connie Mack Stadium for the new Astroturfed, exploding scoreboarded, mini-skirted usherette filled Veterans Stadium; they'd updated this logo to a more stylized "P"; they'd be sporting red cleats for the first time in team history; they'd be introducing Phil and Phyllis; they'd be televising more games in '71 than ever before and adding a 4th camera in addition to slow-mo replays; and they'd made an advertising deal with a new sponsor in C. Schmidt and Sons, the brewer of Schmidt's Beer.
Another change Phillies fans would be "treated to" in 1971 was the voice of a new play-by-play announcer. Prior to the start of the season, the Phillies announced that Bill Campbell, the Dean, would not be returning to the booth with By Saam and Richie Ashburn. Since 1942, Bill Campbell had been the voice of Philadelphia sports. His career in Philadelphia started at WCAU and in 1946 he became the play-by-play announcer for the expansion Philadelphia Warriors, a post he held until the team relocated to San Francisco in '64. He was also the play-by-play guy for the Eagles from 1952 to 1966 and did the same for the Phillies from 1963 to 1970. He even called Big Five games. If you watched or listened to sports in Philadelphia during that time period, you did so through Bill Campbell.
Needless to say, the Philadelphia sports world was shocked and disappointed by the news that the Phillies were canning Campbell. At the luncheon when the announcement was made, reporters simply asked "Why?" They were told that the decision was made because the Phillies wanted to move to a younger announcer to draw a younger audience. The new, younger announcer was a relatively unknown 35-year-old from Houston named Harry Kalas.
The media jumped all over the Phillies for the decision. Frank Dolson of the Inquirer described the firing as premature, saying "Bill Campbell enjoyed doing big-league baseball as much as his fans enjoyed hearing him do it. Which is why his dismissal came as such a shock." Stan Hochman of the Philadelphia Daily News wrote, "the Phillies youth movement has claimed another victim: Bill Campbell. Announcer-type fellow. Still has the tonsils. Can go from ho-hum to home run screech in 3.2 seconds. Can still snap open a can of beer with èclat...Campbell might be the town's most professional announcer. Does his homework, talks to athletes, lets his emotions tumble through his descriptions...Oh, and by the way, the new guy's name is pronounced Kal-us, as in callous." A few days later, Bill Conlin chimed in with the strongest criticism of the firing with an article entitled "Striking Out and Honest Voice." He wrote that "all Bill Campbell ever wanted to do was call a good baseball game with some flair and integrity."
Kalas, who loved Campbell and felt horrible about the situation, ended up doing a pretty good job as Campbell's replacement. He built a rapport with Whitey that was second to none in all of sports broadcasting and engendered a special bond with generations of Phillies fans. The Hall of Fame announcer is sorely missed and will be always remembered. And Campbell didn't simply walk off into the sunset after he was pink-slipped. He became the play-by-play announcer of the Sixers in 1972 and lasted until 1981. After his play-by-play career was over he hosted a sports talk show on WIP until 1991, when he retired at the age of 68. Campbell never resented Kalas and the two became great friends.
So what does this have to do with Beer Week? Well, rumors about the real reason Campbell was let go swirled. Most didn't accept the "youth movement" justification because Bill Campbell was still shy of 50 when he was fired. People thought Bill Giles, who knew Kalas from their time in Houston together and whose wife was best friends with Harry's wife, was the real force behind the move to replace Campbell.
Giles always denied that was the case and instead, blamed C. Schmidt and Sons. Interviewed about the situation decades later, Giles claimed that the real reason Campbell was fired was because the new beer sponsor demanded it. The deal provided that Schmidt's would pay the Phillies $1 million for broadcasting rights and would also pay the announcers salaries. According to Giles, the Schmidts wanted Campbell out because he appeared in ads for Ballantine beer, the Phillies previous beer sponsor at Connie Mack.
Campbell, forever disappointed by the decision, never bought that excuse. He said "Bill Giles blames it on the sponsor. There wasn't any sponsor conflict. Bill wanted to bring Harry in and the problem was the beer sponsor only wanted to pay three of us...Somebody had to go and it was me." Bolstering Campbell's position is this poster and this schedule, which feature the whole crew (Ashburn, Campbell and Samm) in Ballantine ads.
Giles disagreed with Campbell's thinking: "That's bullshit. I didn't want to embarrass the Schmidt's beer people, so I put the onus on myself. When Schmidt's said Bill Campbell had to go, I knew the guy I wanted, so I called Harry."
Thank God for Schmidt's Beer. In a shitty sort of way, it looks like the ends justified the means.
h/t to Randy Miller's book "Harry the K, the remarkable life of Harry Kalas," which served as a source for this post.
Don't have to go far back in the time machine for this one. In August of 2009, the Phillies were taking on the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. It was the 5th inning of a game that the Phils would go on to win 12-5, and Cub catcher Jake Fox (now with the Orioles) lofted a fly ball to deep center. Shane perched under it, ready to make the grab, and suddenly an entire beer cascaded down upon him. It turned out that it was thrown by raging D-bag John Macchione (seen below), a Chicago Cubs fan who wears shirts that, uh, well, look like what Shane Victorino wears. Shane of course, handled it all with his usual cascade of cliches:
"I think he needs to be held accountable. But for the most part, I just see it as the guy thought it was fun. It is what it is. It didn't cost me in any way and it didn't hurt me in any way. It's part of the ballgame."
Yep, you've got your force outs, your bunting runners over, your hit and run, and your dumping entire beers on the heads of the players. All part of the ballgame. This was not the first time a player had been hit by beer. A more famous incident happened in the 1959 World Series, and resulted in a beer shower for White Sox left fielder Al Smith and one of the most remarkable photographs in baseball history.
There was a team called the Philadelphia Athletic Club that played in Philly in the 1860s and 70s, a separate entity from the American League A's Club that would be gin playing in 1901. But before I tell you much more about the Athletics controversial pennant win of 1871, I should tell you a bit about baseball rules in the 1870s. They were radically different than today (A special thanks to David Nemec's Great Encyclopedia of 19th Century Baseball, an amazing reference book where I am getting a lot of my info.)
Home plate was a 12 inch square. The pitcher threw from a box, not a mound, 45 feet from home plate. In 1871, he had to throw underhand, though there was a new rule in 1872 that allowed him to throw sidearmed. The batter was allowed to request high pitches or low pitches. The batter had three strikes, but foul balls did not count as strikes. A hit batsman did not get to take his base until the 1880s. Balls could not roll foul back then. It was deemed fair or foul by where it first hit the ground, not where it ended up. In the 1870s, no-one wore a glove, including the poor catcher, which makes me think that catchers in those days must have been dumb and easily persuaded, because who in their right mind would play catcher with no damn glove?
Anyways, the Athletics team was owned by billiard parlor operators and liquor store owners. That would come into play in the controversial 1871 pennant chase. Showing all of the foresight of Bud Selig, the league leaders had never decided whether the team that won the most games or the team that won the most season series would win the pennant. There was also controversy over what to do about some games that a team in Rockford had won with an illegal player. The following is taken from the Great 19th Century Encyclopedia:
On November 3, in Philadelphia, loop president James W. Kerns called a meeting to sort out the confusion and find a way to name a champion by November 15. Harry Wright (manager of the Boston Red Stockings, the other team the committee was considering for the pennant) could not have felt easy when he realized that Kerns and the Athletics, in their role as hosts of the meeting, meant to provide refreshments-namely champagne. In the convivial atmosphere it was perhaps inevitable that the committee, after waffling all season, resolved enough of the contested issues in the Athletics favor to crown them the first major league champions.
On June 3, 1932, Lou Gehrig and the Yankees travelled to take on the Athletics in Shibe park. These two teams were the dominant teams of the late 20s and early 30s, yet surprisingly only 7300 fans were in attendance for the game. Those 7300 never forgot what they saw that day.
Gehrig stepped into the batters box in the first inning to face the Athletics George Earnshaw. Gehrig blasted a pitch from Earnshaw over the wall in left center. In the 4th inning he took one over the right field wall.But the A's formidable offense came roaring back, and they took an 8-4 lead into the top of the 5th. But Gehrig hit his 3rd home run to get NY back in the game, and Connie Mack pulled Earnshaw. He should have left him in. The A's bullpen imploded, allowing 13 runs in 4 innings of work. In the 7th inning, Gehrig batted again. And he homered again, this time to right off Rube Walberg.
Gehrig came to bat again in the 8th. By now, the Philadelphia fans knew they were witnessing history and stood on their feet, imploring him to hit his 5th home run. He grounded out weakly. It looked like he was done. However, the Yankees blew open a tight game in the 9th, scoring 6 runs, and Gehrig got to bat again, this time off of a shell shocked Eddie Rommel. Gehrig blasted one to deep center, the deepest part of the park. It was his hardest hit ball of the day. The crowd stood on its feet...then groaned as it was caught on the inches from the 468' center field wall. He was the first 20th century player to hit 4 home runs in a game. (One of the 19th century players to do it was the Phillies Ed Delahanty.)
Incredibly, lost in the hubbub over Gehrig's day, few people noticed that his teammate Tony Lazzeri hit for the cycle! The Yankees won the game, 20-13. The Yankees were in the midst of an amazing 108-47 record that year, which culminated in a sweep of the Cubs in the World Series.
RELATED: A list of all players to hit 4 homers in a single game. Incredibly the Phillies are the only team to have 3 players do it. (Delahanty, Klein, and Schmidt.)
Now that Shaq has finally retired, there's going to be thousands of articles, blog posts, and stories memorializing his 19-year career. And rightfully so. Shaq was one of the most dominant players in the history of the NBA, period. But, was he THE most dominating player ever? PSH doesn't think so. With our Philadelphia-centric slant, let's take a look at how O'Neal's career numbers stack up against Philly's own Wilt Chamberlain.
| Shaquille O’Neal | Wilt Chamberlain | |
| Seasons | 19 | 14 |
| Total Points | 28,596 | 31,419 |
| Total Rebounds | 13,099 | 23,924 |
| Points Per Game | 23.7 | 30.1 |
| Rebounds Per Game | 10.9 | 22.9 |
| Best Statistical Season | Los Angeles Lakers '99-'00: 29.7 ppg/13.7 rpg | Philadelphia Warriors '61-'62: 50.4 ppg/25.7 rpg |
| MVP Awards | 1 | 4 |
| Championships | 4 | 2 |
| All-Star Selections | 15 | 13 |
| Scoring Titles | 2 | 7 (consecutive) |
If that table isn't enough, here are some other things to think about:
Shaq apologists always raise the competition each player faced as a reason for Chamberlain's astronomical numbers. I don't buy it. Sure, the average size of Chamberlain's opponents was smaller than those of O'Neals, but Chamberlain dominated because of his own size, speed, skill and strength. And since when does height compare to scoring dominance? (See: Shawn Bradley, Manute Bol, and George Muresan). Chamberlain played against 6'10" Bill Russell 142 times, which is a large enough sample size for his stats to mean something. During those games, Wilt had matching averages of 28.7 ppg and 28.7 rpg while Russell averaged 23.7 ppg and 14.5 rpg.
And don't assume that in their primes, Shaq was stronger than Wilt. The 7'1" 275 lbs. Chamberlain was a track star and devoted gym rat at Kansas. He even worked out with Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. He bench pressed 465 lbs. in college while Shaq could put up 450 lbs. People talked about Wilt's strength more than anything:
The greatest play I’ve ever seen was one of the last games of the 1966—67 season and we were playing Baltimore. We were going for the best record in NBA history. There was a play earlier in the game where Gus Johnson had dunked one over Wilt. Gus was a very strong player. I weighed 220 pounds, and with one hand Gus could push me out of the lane. The man was a physical specimen 6-foot-6, 230 pounds all muscle. He loved to dunk and was a very colorful player. When he slammed it on Wilt, he really threw it down, and you could tell that Wilt didn’t like it one bit. Later in the game, Gus was out on the fast break, and the only man between him and the basket was Wilt. He was going to dunk on Wilt— again. Gus cupped the ball and took off—he had a perfect angle for a slam. Wilt went up and with one hand he grabbed the ball—cleanly! Then he took the ball and shoved it right back into Gus, drilling Gus into the floor with the basketball. Gus was flattened and they carried him out. It turned out that Gus Johnson was the only player in NBA history to suffer adislocated shoulder from a blocked shot. --- Billy Cunningham Once Wilt got upset with me and dunked the ball so hard that it went through the rim with such force. that it broke my toe as it hit the floor. --- Johnny Kerr In my rookie year, Wilt was involved in a pick-and- roll play and suddenly Bill Russell was off Wilt and guarding someone else, and I had Chamberlain. Wilt took me down near the basket and caught a pass. Being the bright kid out of Ohio State I thought I was, a I figured, “No problem. Wilt isn’t a good foul shooter. I’ll grab him.” Well, Wilt didn’t like being held. I reached around from behind and held both of his arms. He wasn’t going to let some rookie stop him, So Wilt took the ball—and me—up. He dunked the ball and I hung there on his arms, both of my feet off the ground and hanging on to Wilt’s arms for dear life until he put me down. --- John HavlicekShaq's numbers clearly don't stand up to Wilt's. And those who think Wilt dominated only because his competition was weak are painfully mistaken. Shaq was great, but Wilt was the best: the most athletic and dominant big man in the history of the NBA.
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 pro baseball career in Philadelphia?
In 1908, Connie Mack bought Joe Jackson's contract from the Greenville (S.C.) Spinners for $325. He came in with a bang. In his first major league game, late in the 1908 season, Shoeless Joe had a hit and RBI, made a spectacular catch, and had two strong throws to the infield. His future in Philly seemed secure, and the sportswriters were singing his praises. The Evening Times wrote, "He has justified early predictions of his abilities. With experience and the coaching of Manager Mack, he should turn out to be...the find of the season."
But Joe was homesick, had never been in the big city before, and slipped out of town and back to South Carolina before the A's next game. Philly sportswriters ripped him, saying that he was scared to play against Ty Cobb (The A's were taking on the Tigers.) His teammates ripped him anonymously in the papers as well. When he returned to the team, the veterans teased him because he couldn't read and had a Southern drawl.
Joe, embarrassed because he couldn't read, would look at the menu in restaurants, then order whatever someone else ordered that sounded good. Philly fans would taunt Joe with screams of "Read any good books lately?" (Funny sidenote...in 2008, a Cleveland writer asked Cliff Lee what his favorite book was. Cliff responded, "I don't think I've read a book in my life, to be honest." The media and the Philly fans seem to have let that one slide.)
Jackson was sent down to the minors in Georgia in the 1909 season, and led the league in batting average. He was called up to the Big League squad in September, but went only 3 for 17 in limited action. He started 1910 in the minors, and in July, Connie Mack decided that Jackson would never make it in a big city like Philadelphia. He traded Jackson to the Cleveland Naps (later the Indians) for Bris Lord and $6000. The next year, Shoeless Joe would bat .408 in Cleveland. Bris Lord had a decent 1911, batting .310, but he batted only .238 the next year and was traded to the Cleveland Naps. It's interesting to note that if not for the Philly fans and writers, one of the greatest players in Major League Baseball history may have indeed spent his career in the City of Brotherly Love.
(Special thanks to Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson by David Fleitz, where I got a lot of this information.)
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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.
The Phillies played their first game against the Almendares club on November 5th and were quickly introduced to Cuban ace Jose Mendez. Virtually every major league team that came to Cuba had an encounter with Mendez and it seemed like every time, it was the Cuban hurler that came out on top. Mendez eventually came over to the States in 1918 to pitch for Chicago in the Negro League but his best pitching days were behind him. On this day though, he was still in the prime of his pitching career, picking up the victory in a 3-1 win over Philadelphia.
The Phillies defeated Havana 5-3 the next day but it would be their last win until the 19th. A string of three losses, including a 4-0 shutout at the hands of Almendares left the Phillies with a disappointing 1-4 record on the trip. But the offense finally began to get started on the 19th, when they beat up Almendares by a score of 8-1. Two days later, they squeaked by Havana 7-6. The Phillies would win two more contests before leaving the island on the 24th with a 5-4 record.\
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, and they dropped the puck for the first time on November 11, 1930. The team played at the Philadelphia Arena at 45th and Market. They lost their first game 3-0 to the New York Rangers, and according to a reporter, by the end of the game, Philly fans were making "caustic remarks". (What? Philly fans?) Things only got worse. The team averaged only 2,500 fans a game, and no wonder. The team was brutal to watch, finishing the season with a 4-36-1 record, and their .136 winning % was the worst in NHL history until the Washington Capitals had a .131% in 1974-75. After one season, the NHL suspended the team, and they never took the ice again. Surprisingly, one member of the team went on to have a Hall of Fame career. Syd Howe later became a star player for the Detroit Red Wings and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1965, two years before Philadelphia got a new NHL hockey team. For a more detailed history of the Quakers one and only season, click here on Flyershistory.net.
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. The first game in National League history took place in front of 3,000 people at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. The Athletics, who had come to the NL from the NA, took on the Boston Red Stockings (the forerunner not to the Red Sox, but to the modern day Atlanta Braves.) The Red Stockings edged the Athletics, 6-5, helped in part by 11 Philadelphia errors. Late in the season, out of the pennant race, the Athletics decided to not take a western road trip. The decision would cost them, as they were kicked out of the league. This would mark the end of pro baseball in Philly in the 1870s, but baseball would return with a vengeance in the early 1880s.
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 final day of the 1882 season. They needed to get big cities back in the league. So Commissioner A.G. Mills called former Athletic and entrepreneur Al Reach, who owned a succesful sporting goods company in Philly, about starting up a team to take over for the folding Worcester squad. Reach was interested, and built a new stadium at 25th and Ridge Avenue known as Recreation Park.
Though they had taken over for the Worcester squad that had been dropped by the league, they did not receive their players, so the 1883 squad was essentially an expansion team. And, as with most modern expansion teams, they were terrible. They finished their inaugural season 17-81, 46 games out of first place. They lost one game to Boston 29-4 and another game to Providence 28-0. Their ace, a gentleman by the name of John Coleman, finished the season with a record of 12-48. 48 losses is still the major league record for most in a season, even more than Tyler Green ever had. But the foundation had been laid, and the team would win a World Championship less than 100 years later.
