Philadelphia Baseball History

For the Philadelphia sports fan it is easy to be romantic about the Athletics. After all, their five world championships surpass those of all of the professional sports teams that play in Philadelphia today. But let’s not kid ourselves. The A’s we’re not always that good. In fact, during the time between the two major dynasties, and after 1931, the A’s were downright horrible. A lot of that had to do with the way baseball teams were recruited. While Connie Mack was good at recruiting baseball teams in the early 20th century, he proved unable to adapt to modern methods of recruitment. And thus the Philadelphia A’s wallowed in or near the cellar for a good portion of their existence. In 1901, when Ban Johnson was forming the American League to be a competitor to the National League, he courted Connie Mack, then manager of the Milwaukee Brewers of the western league, because of his talent in putting together baseball teams.  Mack could assemble talented teams b...

Bucking a trend for the 2017 season, the Phillies beat the Mets last night in a resounding way, posting 6 runs to the Mets' 2. With two games left in the season, both of them at home against the Mets, the Phils have gone a total of 6-11 against New York. Up until yesterday, only one of those wins had come at Citizens Bank Park, due to the Mets sweeping the Phillies in a CBP series in April, and taking 3 out of 4 in August. While in general, the Phillies have a better record at home than on the road, the Mets just seemed to have the Phillies number.  Many Phillies contributed to last night's win. Ben Lively pitched six innings, giving up six hits, including two solo home runs which accounted for the only runs the Mets scored. Lively showed good control, walking no one. Maikel Franco got the Phillies offense off to its start in the second inning, hitting a two-run blast that scored Odubel Herrera. Herrera joined the offensive punch, with a sacrifice fly in the third, sc...

A somewhat unlikely hero emerged from the Phillies' shut-out of the Braves yesterday: Maikel Franco. After showing promise in the 2015 season, and being the recipient of praise from Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt during the 2016 preseason, Franco's performance at the plate has been disappointing.  With 304 at-bats in 2015, Franco hit .280, with 14 home runs and 50 RBIs.  In 2016, with 581 at-bats, his average fell to .255.  Despite his 25 home runs and 88 RBIs, Manager Pete Mackanin exclaimed that he wanted to see improvement in Franco in 2017.  Instead, Franco's average fell to .231.  With six games left in the season, his home run total is 21 and his RBI total is 70. Franco's sub-par offensive performance, and Freddy Galvis' impressive play at shortstop, caused the Phillies to experiment with rookie J.P Crawford.  Known for being a shortstop for most of his minor league career, Crawford played a few games near the end of the AAA season at third base. ...

After going 71-91 in the 2016, the Phillies were hoping that they were on the road to improvement. The team finished better than its 63-99 record in 2015, and were not even in last place in its division. The fans got an opportunity to see some of its promised young talent during the season.  Surely, the Phillies could show that they were on their way to rebuilding a contending team. In the off season, Manager Peter Mackanin expressed his hope that the Phillies could finish at .500 in the 2017 season.  He pushed General Manager Matt Klentak to go after more hitters, and shore up what had been a dismal offense in 2016.  Klentak seemed to respond, signing professional hitter Howie Kendrick and left handed hitter Michael Saunders. In addition to trying to strengthen the offense, Klentak went after veteran pitching, re-signing Jeremy Hellickson, who posted fairly solid numbers on a losing team in 2016, and obtaining Clay Buchholz, who had had some good years with Boston. ...