Philadelphia Baseball History

As a Philadelphia Phillies fan, you know when a certain baseball player consistently plays well against your team.  It's the guy who gives you a sinking feeling in your stomach whenever he comes to the plate, or takes the mound against the Phils.  We call them “Phillies Killers.” One such Phillies Killer back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, whom I remember giving me agita, was Pirates relief pitcher, Kent Tekulve. Kent Tekulve Was a Phillies Killer To set the stage, in the five season from 1976 through 1980, the Phillies won the NL East four times.  The only year another team captured the division championship during that span was 1979, when the Pirates won the World Series. In fact, from 1976 to 1978, the Pirates finished second in the division, right on the tail of the Phillies.  During that time, their late inning relief workhorse was one Kent Tekulve. Kent Tekulve’s Time with the Pittsburgh Pirates Hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio, Telkuve debuted for the P...

Baseball teams did not always employ a closer.   There was a time when a relief pitcher came out of the bullpen to rescue a starter who had gotten into trouble in the middle to late innings, and pitch two, three, four innings to finish out a game.   The conventional wisdom was to employ a good balance of left-handed and right-handed arms to put out the fire when a team found itself in a jam. Such was the case for the Phillies in the mid to late seventies, when they began their rise to dominance in the National League East.   While Phillies fans today can all identify left-hander Tug McGaw’s iconic celebration after striking out Willie Wilson to win the team’s first ever World Series in 1980, few may recall his right-handed cohort who helped the Phils emerge from perennial basement dwellers to a force to be reckoned with in the National League.   That Phillies pitching arsenal included a quality right-hander, Gene Garber. Garber may best be known for his y...