10,000 Losses, A Reflection

June 22, 2007 | By Mike Santa Barbara | Discuss

It’s May 1st 1883 and a lawyer and former ballplayer are unveiling a brand new team in Philadelphia called the Phillies. At the time John Rogers and Alfred Reach had no way of knowing what the Phillies would become. And surely they did not realize how much losing their new team would do in the next 124 seasons. Every Phillies fan by now knows that the Phils are closing in on 10,000 losses. Every Phillies fan also knows that the Phillies have the most losses in sports history as well. Every Phillies fan knows just how bad the Phillies' history of losing is, right?

Finishing their first season with a record of 17-81 was not an auspicious start to say the least for the Phillies. Between the inaugural season and 1917 the Phils would flirt around .500 placing 3rd or 4th in the division most seasons. The Phils were in the middle of the pack thanks to guys like Ed Delahanty, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Roy Thomas, Sherry Magee, and Tully Sparks. All of which were tops in the National League in many categories during that time. In 1915 they would finally win their first Pennant only to lose to the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. After 1915 the Phils had two 2nd place finishes in a row before the Phils' losing legacy really began.

From 1918 to 1973 you could call it the Phils' “Dark Ages” if you wanted, but pretty much any bleak description would do. Between this time not only would the Phils change ownership nearly a dozen times but they also had to contend with Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s. During this time the Phils finished higher than 4th place only 5 times while finishing in last place 20 times. The Phils also amazingly lost more then 90 games 30 times (13 times over 100.) In 1941 The Phils would finish with their worst record in team history at 43-111. In 1961 the Phils set a Major League Record by losing 23 consecutive games. This was followed up by the debacle in 1964 when the Phils lost the Pennant on the last day of the regular season. The A’s would go onto win 2 World Series Titles and 3 Pennants during this time before moving to Kansas City after the 1954 season.

After 1973 things started to turn a little more positive for the Phils for the first time in a long time. The Phils were actually in the process of “building” a team organization for real for the first time. Hiring the likes of Bill Giles and Dallas Green for front office jobs and hiring Paul Owens as GM in 1972 were some of the first steps. The Phils were starting to build around a solid nucleus of players like Larry Bowa, Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski and Steve Carlton. For the next 10 seasons the Phils would consistently finish atop the division. Finally, winning the franchise's first World Series in 1980 over the Kansas City Royals.

From 1983 to the present the Phils have only made the playoffs twice losing in the World Series both times to the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays in 1983 and 1993 respectively. Between 1983 and 1993 the Phils mostly finished the season 20 or more games out of first. The same can be said for the time between 1993 and 2003 except for 1994 and 2001. The season was cancelled in 1994 due to a player strike and in 2001 the Phils finished 2 games out of first. However, The Phils have managed to finish with a winning record the last four seasons but still missing the playoffs each season.

The history is there in front of you; you can go over the numbers again and again. Oddly enough in Philadelphia we almost take pride in our history of losing. We wear it like a badge of honor; true many other teams' fans do as well. The Cubs in Chicago who root for the “Lovable Losers,” Fans in Boston who just recently got over “The Curse of the Bambino." However, both groups of fans are beloved by the majority of the country. People feel sorry for them; baseball fans of other teams root for them in the playoffs saying they deserve it because they haven’t won in so long. The same love is not spread toward Philadelphia or it’s fans, nor is the history of losing as well known across the country. In Philadelphia though it seems as if just like in football, basketball, or hockey we don’t care about what goes on in the sports world outside our little bubble. We don’t want the other teams' fans feeling sorry for us, rooting for us, taking pride in our victories, or sharing in the agony when we lose.

Phillies fans have put up with more losing then any other group of fans in baseball. And this season many will witness the 10,000th loss. There will be some perverse celebrating of this historical number all be it a bad one, but one nonetheless. And in a weird way they will celebrate with pride, as most wouldn’t trade any of the losses for wins. Why? Trading away losses for wins, just one, could of changed Phillies fans forever. We wouldn’t be the same kind of fans we are today; we could indeed be very different. A win or two here or there in the past and we may be like Yankees fans feeling that we are entitled to winning. An extra win here or there could of gotten us into the playoffs a few more times with overachieving teams only to be knocked out of the playoffs again and again. And we would be like Red Sox fans seemingly always on the short end of the stick and looking for answers in the form of a piano owned by a Hall of Famer in a body of water. A few more wins in the past may of helped us deal with losing a little better and the whole country could see us handling it so well. See how when we lose, our hearts are more broken then we are angry, and we would be Cubs fans. In the end we are not Cubs, Red Sox, or Yankees fans, we are simply Phillies fans. And I’m sure that when Alfred Reach and John Rogers started this club 124 years ago all they wanted us to be was simply, Phillies fans.

Contact Mike Santa Barbara at MikeSBPhillyPurge@yahoo.com