Philadelphia Baseball History

It was late in the season in 2017.  The Phillies had already traded away the last of the members of the 2008 World Championship team.  Despite a fast start in April, including a six game winning streak at the end of the month, this was clearly a rebuilding year.  This was the second full season for team President Andy MacPhail and General Manager Matt Klentak, and while fans were asked to endure some difficult times, there was supposedly promise in the years to come.  Analysts promised fans that there was talent in the minor league system, just waiting to burst through and bring contention to the Phillies.  One such prospect was Rhys Hoskins. A fifth round draft pick in 2014, Hoskins impressed with his offensive prowess in the minors.  In 2015, spending half his season each at low A Lakewood, and high A Clearwater, Hoskins batted .319 with 17 home runs.  In the next season, he developed his power with AA Reading, hitting 38 home runs, just 2 behind...

The imposing figure on the mound was familiar to the Shibe Park faithful, but not in the uniform he currently wore and not in the position he was playing.  It was 1945.  Jimmie Foxx had returned to Philadelphia, but this time with the Phillies (who were calling themselves the Blue Jays informally). World War II was still raging.  Although President Franklin Roosevelt insisted that baseball continue during the war, it ranks had been depleted.  With the likes of Ted Willliams, Stan Musial and Joe DiMaggio joining the war effort, many teams struggled to put players on the field.  Many older players, like Foxx, found their career extended as a result. Foxx, known in his prime as The Beast or  Double X, saw his skills begin to diminish around 1941.  He played for the Cubs for a few years mostly as a pinch hitter, before joining the Phillies.  Now he was being asked to round out the Phillies' pitching staff as the season, and Foxx's playing career...

    “Big Bertha” was the nickname given to large German artillery guns used during the First World War.   It was also the nickname given to a 6’ 4” tall, 240 pound navy veteran hailing from Tyler, Texas named Louis Napoleon Santop. Gifted with explosive power both behind the plate and at the plate, Santop was the premiere catcher and power hitter in African-American baseball in the pre- and early negro league era. In pre-game warm-ups, Santop entertained the crowd with an exhibition of his arm strength, throwing a baseball over the centerfield fence, and then randomly throwing to each of the bases, all while in the crouched position behind the plate. At the plate, Santop hit massive line-drives in the dead ball era.   It has been said that he could call his shots long before Babe Ruth did it in the 1932 World Series, and even hit one home run about 500 feet. At age twenty, Santop made-up half of the “kid battery” of the 1910 Philadelphia Giants,...