The Wheeze Kids: An 11 Game Run to the 1983 Pennant

Most Phillies fans of a certain age can remember that the 1983 Phillies, dubbed the "Wheeze Kids," won the 1983 National League pennant by first winning their division and then sweeping past the Los Angeles Dodgers three games to one in the National League Championship Series. What might be less well remembered is that 1983 was a year of turmoil for the Phillies and that a division championship was far from assured as late as the middle of September. The Phillies had underachieved all year. In July, despite the team having a winning record and being in the pennant hunt, President Bill Giles fired manager Pat Corrales and replaced him with the then general manager Paul Owens. 

The change had little immediate impact. The team, a combination of the players still left from the 1980 world championship (Schmidt, Carlton, Maddox) and the remnants of Cincinnati's Big Red Machine (Morgan, Perez, Rose) of the 1970s, was simply not hitting and appeared to be showing its age. Thirty-nine-year-old Joe Morgan was hitting .201 and struggling on bad knees. Forty-two-year-old Pete Rose was hitting .248 and had been relegated to a pinch-hitting role. Forty-one-year-old Tony Perez was buried on the bench. Catcher Bo Diaz was hitting .227. Garry Maddox was platooning in centerfield. Leftfielder Gary Mathews was slumping. Even Mike Schmidt, who continued to hit home runs and drive in runs, was hitting just .252, and was complaining to the press about a lack of leadership on the team. 

The pitching of Steve Carlton, rookie Charles Hudson, and especially John Denny, along with a bullpen of Al Holland, Ron Reed, Willie Hernandez, and Larry Anderson was keeping the team afloat. On September 15, the Phillies were tied for first place and in a four-way dog fight with Pittsburgh, Montreal, and St. Louis for the divisional crown. On that date in St. Louis, the Phillies who had started hitting as September dawned, went on an eleven-game winning streak that left no doubt who would be the division champion. Here is how it happened.

September 16: The Phillies begin their streak with an unusual 13-inning walk-off win over the Cardinals. Charles Hudson goes eight strong innings, and Holland and Hernandez throw five innings of shutout relief. The Phils score two runs to tie the game in the eighth on a Bruce Sutter error. They then score the winning run in the 13th on a leadoff walk to Mike Schmidt, a Kiko Garcia sacrifice bunt, and two wild pitches by Cardinal reliever Steve Baker. The gift victory seems to jump start the Phils.

September 17: John Denny is the story on this Saturday afternoon game as he wins his 16th of the year, allowing only one unearned run. Al Holland earns his 20th save with a scoreless ninth inning. Gary Mathews hits his 10th homerun and drives in two. Greg Gross has two hits extending his hitting streak to eight games.

September 18: Mike Schmidt and Joe Lefebvre hit back-to-back homers to support Steve Carlton in a 5-3 Sunday afternoon win over the Cardinals. It is Lefty's 14th win of the season and the 299th of his career. Lefebvre had come over to the Phillies in May in a trade with the San Diego Padres and made considerable contributions all season, hitting a career best .310 and even filling in as an emergency catcher on occasion. 

September 19: The Phillies host the Cubs at Veterans Stadium and come from behind for a 7-6 victory. On his 40th birthday, Joe Morgan is the hitting star, going four-for-five with two home runs and four RBIs. His homer off closer Lee Smith in the eighth is the margin of victory. Shortstop Ivan DeJesus contributes a bases loaded double to the cause. DeJesus is in his second year with the Phillies after coming over in the infamous trade that sent Larry Bowa and Ryne Sandberg to the Cubs. Both Bowa and Sandberg are in the Cubs lineup. Anderson, Hernandez, Reed, and Holland contribute 3 2/3 innings of one run relief behind Marty Bystrom.

September 20: Joe Morgan goes four-for-five for the second night in a row, this time driving in three, as the Phillies beat the Cubs 8-5. Sixto Lezcano, platooning with LeFebvre in right, contributes a double, a single, and an RBI. Garry Maddox has three singles. Ron Reed earns his seventh save.

September 22, Game 1: After a rain out on September 21, the Phillies face a double header in Montreal against the Expos. In the first game, John Denny wins his 17th without his best stuff as the Phillies outhit the Expos, 9-7. The Phillies use 18 players in the game and virtually all contribute to a game that has everything. The streaking Morgan has three doubles, September call-up Len Matuszek has a two-run single, Lefebvre, who gunned down a runner at the plate in the first, has a three-run triple. Schmidt and DeJesus homer. Backup catcher Ozzie Virgil slams a two-run pinch hit dinger in the eighth for the game winner. Holland earns his 23rd save.

September 22, Game 2: In the second game, Charles Hudson shuts down the Expos 7-1 for his eighth win of the season. Greg Gross has three hits and Matuszek drives in two more. With the doubleheader sweep, the Phillies are three games in front of the Pirates in the division race.

September 23: The Phillies travel to St. Louis and Carlton earns the 300th win of his career, 6-2. Carlton allows seven hits and strikes out 12 over eight innings of work. He even drives in a run with a single. Holland comes in for the save. Carlton, true to form, does not speak to the press after the game. The win reduces the Phillies magic number to six.

September 24: The Phillies score five runs in the top of the ninth inning off Cardinals closer Bruce Sutter to earn a come from behind 9-6 win. Von Hayes, who had come over from Cleveland in the infamous 5-for-1 trade in December, begins the ninth with a pinch single and Matuszek doubles him home. Greg Gross reaches on a Sutter error that scores pinch runner Bob Dernier. Rose singles driving in Gross and then Schmidt caps the inning off with a two-run homerun, his 39th. The dynamic trio of Hernandez, Reed, and Holland close out the game with 4 2/3 innings of relief.

September 25: The Phillies win their tenth in a row with in a ten-inning thriller in St. Louis. Manager Owens uses twenty-one players in the game, including September callup Darren Daulton, who makes his major league debut by coming on to catch in the bottom of the tenth inning. Pete Rose has the game winning hit as a pinch hitter in the 10th. Larry Andersen gets the win and Holland records his 24th save on a night he was supposed to be rested.

September 26: The Phillies ride the right arm of John Denny to their eleventh win in a row, a 5-2 victory at Wrigley Field against the Cubs. Denny goes eight strong and Ron Reed picks up the save. DeJesus, Matuszek, and LeFebvre all contribute home runs. The win guarantees the Phillies at least a tie for the National League East crown.

The winning streak ends the next day when the Cubs' Steve Trout shuts the Phillies and Carlton out 3-0. The Phillies' division championship is a foregone conclusion by then, however, and they clinch the title with a 13-6 trouncing of the Cubs the next day.

Looking back at the streak what stands out is the contributions of the whole team to this run of victories. Joe Morgan, who had struggled all year, caught fire and went 16-for-44, .363 during the streak. Role players like Greg Gross, Joe Lefebvre, Sixto Lezcano, and Ozzie Virgil made key contributions. Ivan DeJesus was, in the words of the Philadelphia Inquirer, "indispensable." September callup Len Matuszek had numerous critical hits as well. Denny and Carlton were terrific, of course, but so were the bullpen trio of Hernandez, Reed, and Holland, who pitched nearly every day throughout the streak. Larry Andersen, who was called up at the end of July, also pitched well down the stretch. 

At the end of the season a team that had seemed to fight itself all year gelled into a team and went into the off season with tremendous momentum. That momentum sustained them through the National League Championship series against the Dodgers and then faltered against Eddie Murray, Rick Dempsey, and the American League pennant winning Baltimore Orioles in the World Series, but that is a story for another day.

It’s Briefly “Sonny” in Philadelphia

When left-handed pitcher Niles "Sonny" Jordan made his major league debut in the second game of a double header at Shibe Park on August 26, 1951, he was by his own account "awestruck." His opponent, the Cincinnati Reds, featured imposing slugger, Ted Kluszewski, as well as veteran hitters like Johnny Wyrostek and Connie Ryan. Whatever worries Jordan must have had that day, though, he had seen worse. On April 7, 1945, while he was serving on the destroyer USS Bennett in the Pacific, his ship was struck by a Japanese kamikaze fighter jet. Seven of Jordan's shipmates died in the attack and 14 others were seriously injured. Surely, the Cincinnati Reds presented a less formidable challenge. Jordan shut them out on three hits, winning 2-0.

Sonny Jordan was a star athlete at Sedro-Woolley High School in Washington State. After the war, he was pitching for the local city league when he was signed by Phillies' scout Don McShane. He worked his way through the Phillies minor league system, first at Klamath Falls (Oregon) in the Class D Far West League, then to Terre Haute (Illinois) in the Class B Three-I League, and then another Clas B stop with the Wilmington Blue Rocks in 1951. He had winning records throughout his minor league career and put up an eye-popping 21-3 record at Wilmington. On August 13 the Phillies optioned struggling righty Bob Miller to Wilmington and called up Jordan. 

The Phillies had already lost the first game of the day, 4-2, with ace Robin Roberts taking the loss. The Phillies were having a disappointing season in their follow-up to the 1950 pennant winning year. As Jordan took the mound, the Phillies were 60-63, in fourth place, 18 games behind the league leading Brooklyn Dodgers. The Reds were just 54-68 in sixth place. Jordan's mound opponent was Willie "The Knuck" Ramsdell, a veteran knuckleballer.

Pitching with what the Philadelphia Inquirer's Stan Baumgartner called "an overhand, crossfire motion," Jordan set the Reds down easily in the first three innings, allowing only a lead-off single in the third to shortstop Virgil Stallcup. The Phillies got to Ramsdell for a run in the bottom of the third with the help of an error. Phillies catcher, Andy Seminick singled and as Jordan tried to get a bunt down, was picked off first. Reds' catcher Johnny Pramesa threw wildly, however, and Seminick steamed around to third base on the error. Leadoff hitter Eddie Waitkus then hit a sacrifice fly to left field and the Phillies had the lead.

In the fourth, Jordan walked Lloyd Merriman leading off the inning, but Seminick came to his aid by throwing out Merriman trying to steal. Singles by Connie Ryan and Stallcup put two men on in the fifth, but Jordan worked out of it by inducing two popups. In the seventh, Phillies leftfielder Bill "Swish" Nicholson dropped a fly ball for an error that allowed Ryan to get to second base with one out. Jordan again wriggled out of the jam by inducing two fly ball outs.

The Phillies doubled their lead in the eighth on a Granny Hamner double, a Putsy Caballero bloop single, and a sacrifice fly by pitcher Jordan. In the bottom of the ninth Jordan set Wyrostek, Kluszewski, and Ryan down on three routine ground balls and walked off the mound to the handshakes of his new teammates and the cheers of the 13,899 in attendance. Jordan had struck out four, walked only two, and allowed just the three singles. The Phillies managed only three hits in the game off hard luck loser Ramsdell.

Jordan's gem was the finest Phillies pitching debut in memory. The Inquirer's Baumgartner said it was even more impressive than Curt Simmons 1947 debut when he beat the New York Giants 3-1. Jordan made four more starts for the Phillies and finished the season with a 2-3 record and respectable 3.19 ERA. It looked like the Phillies had found a left-handed starter to complement Curt Simmons in the rotation. Alas, it was not to be. Those five starts would be Jordan's only appearances with the Phillies.

On December 10, Jordan was traded to those same Cincinnati Reds, along with Andy Seminick, Dick Sisler, and Eddie Pelligrini, for Smoky Burgess, Howie Fox, and Connie Ryan. Jordan appeared in three games for the Reds in 1952 but spent most of the season at Tulsa in the Texas League. After 1952, he never appeared in another major league game. Jordan spent five more seasons in the high minors before hanging up his spikes. He had a record of just 2-4 in eight major league games but was an impressive 108-66 in the minors.

After his retirement from baseball, Jordan returned home to Sedro-Woolley and worked for many years for a lumber company there. He spent his leisure time golfing. He often said that his greatest thrill in pitching in the major leagues was pitching alongside his hero, Robin Roberts. He said, "Pitching with [Roberts] was mind-boggling." Sonny Jordan passed away in 2008.

Niles "Sonny" Jordan

The Bobby Abreu Conundrum

The first time Bobby Abreu appeared in an opposition uniform at Citizens Bank Park on June 4, 2012, he stepped to the plate and was met with a chorus of boos.  He promptly singled, driving in the first run of the game and helping his new team, the Los Angeles Dodgers,
to an eventual 4-3 win. Bobby ended up 2-for-4 with that RBI, a typical Abreu game. He had been traded away from the Phillies in 2006. Despite his superior play, he never engendered much love from the Phillies Phaithful and upon his return he was met with the standard Phillies fan sign of disapproval - the boo.

Fast forward to 2022 and Bobby Abreu is a candidate for the Hall of Fame. While most experts agree that his credentials for induction are borderline, and few think he will get in this year, there can be no question that Abreu belongs in the Hall of Fame conversation. And yet, unlike Dick Allen or Jimmy Rollins or past players like Richie Ashburn, we hear no groundswell of support out of Phillies fans for the candidacy of Bobby Abreu. This confounds me. I was lucky enough to see Bobby play in about 20 games a year for his entire career in Philadelphia, 1998-2006 and what I saw was the finest pure hitter the Phillies ever had, an on base machine with a great sense of the strike zone, and a man with a spectacular combination of speed and power who averaged nearly 30 stolen bases and 20 home runs a season. His numbers are off the charts as you can see below.

What you will also see is a player who was remarkably consistent. Every year, year in and year out, Bobby hit around .300, had about 170 hits, 35 or more doubles, 20 home runs, 30 stolen bases, and most impressively 150+ games played. Abreu played every day. He rarely took a day off. He played through all the bumps and bruises and aches that come from playing baseball every day. All this and yet Abreu could not gain the love of the Phillies fans. It doesn't make sense.

What was the gripe against Abreu? Well, he wouldn't run into walls, and he had the audacity to say so. As he told the Philadelphia Daily News in 2006, "I play hard. I might not dive. I might not run into walls. I play every day. I play hurt. I hear what people say. They say I don't play hard. They say I don't care...I care." Abreu was not a great defensive right fielder, but in his early years in Philadelphia he was at least average, and he did possess a strong throwing arm. As he got older, his outfield play deteriorated, but that was after his days in Philadelphia as he was used more and more as a designated hitter in the American League.  

Aaron Rowand became a folk hero in Philadelphia by running into a wall and making a spectacular catch in centerfield with the bases loaded. That seems to be the kind of play many Phillies fans expect from their heroes. I watched the replay of Rowand's catch recently. I noticed that as Rowand crashed into the wall. Bobby Abreu was right in the picture, having hustled all the way over to back up the play. Abreu may not have crashed into walls, but he cared, he hustled, he did his job in the outfield.

Another complaint about Abreu was that he was a statistic accumulator and not a team player. Larry Bowa, who managed Abreu for the Phillies from 2001-2004, said, "I think the one knock against Bobby - was he would hit with a man on third base and less than two outs, and he'd take pitches like two inches off the plate, And I told him, I said, 'Bobby, I need you to drive that run in, man. You can expand the zone a little bit.' And he said, 'Bo, I know what the strike zone is, I'm not going out of my element there.' And you know, that's what made him successful. This guy could work a pitcher." 

Ultimately, I think the failure of Phillies fans to embrace Abreu comes down to his laid-back style. Much of the game of baseball came easy to Bobby and it looked that way to the fans. Philadelphia fans do not generally respond well to laid back ballplayers. They like their players fiery like Larry Bowa or Jimmy Rollins or John Kruk or Dave Hollins. More nonchalant players like Mike Schmidt, Cole Hamels, or going way back, Del Ennis, do not attract the same kind of adulation as those players who wear their hearts on their sleeves. Older fans may remember that both Ennis and Schmidt, the premiere Phillies sluggers of their day, were often booed unmercifully for perceived failures.

Bowa believes that Abreu belongs in the Hall of Fame, if not now, eventually. "But his work ethic, people took him for granted a lot. I look at his numbers and they are eye-popping numbers, believe me. I am not saying he is a first-time ballot Hall of Famer, but I think eventually, this guy should be in the Hall of Fame."

Whether Bobby Abreu is a true Hall of Famer or not is up to debate. What should not be up to debate is that he deserves to be embraced by the city of Philadelphia and the fans of the Phillies for his outstanding on the field performance over a sustained period of time. In the pantheon of Phillies right fielders Abreu stands at the top with Chuck Klein, Johnny Callison, and maybe someday, Bryce Harper.

The Robin Roberts/Ferguson Jenkins Connection: Chicago 1966

The Phillies' Robin Roberts was unquestionably the dominant right-handed pitcher of the 1950s. Another Phillies right-hander, Ferguson Jenkins, became one of the most dominant right-handed pitchers of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Unfortunately, due to an ill-advised trade, Jenkins' brilliance was put on display in Chicago rather than Philadelphia. By an odd coincidence, Roberts and Jenkins paths crossed in Chicago in 1966. It was Jenkins' first full season in the majors and Roberts' last.

In the spring of 1966, the Phillies were in "win now" mode, after falling disastrously just short of the pennant in 1964 and then plummeting to sixth place in 1965. In an attempt to add some veteran starting pitching, the Phillies sent the promising Jenkins (along with young outfielder Adolfo Phillips and first baseman John Herrnstein) to the Cubs for veteran pitchers Larry Jackson and Bob Buhl. Jackson pitched pretty well for the Phillies for three seasons. Buhl was washed up and gone after little more than one season. Meanwhile Ferguson Jenkins became the ace of the Chicago staff, reeling off six consecutive 20-win seasons from 1967-1972, just as Roberts had done for the Phillies form 1950-1955. As it turns out, Jenkins's career as a starter with the Cubs got a kickstart from none other than Robin Roberts.

The Jenkins trade happened early in the 1966 season, on April 21, but at first veteran Cubs' manager Leo Durocher didn’t seem to know how to use his new acquisition. Jenkins pitched almost exclusively out of the bullpen and was not pitching particularly well. After a poor relief outing on July 9 against the Phillies, Jenkins ERA stood at 4.25. Fate then intervened. On July 7, the Houston Astros waived the 39-year-old Roberts, and Durocher, dissatisfied with his starting pitching, hired him to be a player/coach.

Roberts reported to the Cubs just after the All-Star break. In his biography Throwing Hard Easy, Roberts tells what happened next. 

I joined the club during the All-Star break. The White Sox and Cubs used to play an exhibition game the day after the All-Star break, so that was my first day on the job. I was out in the bullpen in Comiskey Park...when a big lanky kid with the Cubs asked if he could throw for me. I said sure because I'd never seen him pitch before. He threw about 10 or 15 pitches and I told him, "You've got to be kidding."

He said, "What do you mean, Coach?"

I said, "I didn't know you threw like this." He had super wrist action and his ball really moved.

"Aw, but I'm not fast enough," the kid said.

I said, "Don't worry, you're plenty fast enough. I used to have that kind of stuff."

The "kid," of course, was Ferguson Jenkins. Roberts could see that Fergie was not yet confident in his stuff and Durocher's handling was not helping him gain confidence. Roberts got him to throw his fastball more, ditch the slider for a while, and go with his curve as a breaking pitch. After a month, Roberts convinced Durocher to give Jenkins a start. Here is Robbie again on what happened next.

Near the end of the year, we went to Atlanta to play the Braves. We started Fergie in that series, his first start in a long time. He beat the Braves 5 to 1, striking out nine and walking only one. He came over to my locker after the game and said, "Hey Coach, I am fast enough."

Roberts replied, "And the right guy [Durocher] knows it now."*

Durocher did indeed know it. After a few more excellent Jenkins starts, Durocher told the Chicago Tribune, "We've found ourselves a real starting pitcher."

They had. Over the next seven years, a confident Ferguson Jenkins won 147 games for the Cubs.

On August 29, Jenkins started against the Atlanta Braves. He pitched very well, allowing just two runs in 8 1/3 innings. He was relieved by Len Church in the ninth and the game eventually went into extra innings. George Altman singled in two runs to win the game for the Cubs in the 14th inning. Jenkins' coach, one Robin Roberts, pitched shutout ball over the last two innings to record the win. It was the 286th and final win of Roberts' great career.

Roberts did not return to the Cubs in 1967. He was invited back as a coach only, but he still wanted to pitch. In the spring, the 40-year-old Roberts hooked on with the Phillies minor league affiliate in Reading hoping to attract a major league offer. That offer never came. While Robbie toiled in the minor leagues, Fergie recorded his first 20 game win season.

Roberts and Jenkins had remarkably similar careers. Robbie won 286 games, while Fergie won 284. Roberts finished with a career ERA of 3.41, Jenkins 3.34. Roberts pitched 305 complete games, Jenkins 267. Both were masterful control pitchers. Roberts was perhaps the greatest control pitcher of all time, walking just 1.7 batters per nine innings over 4,500+ innings. Jenkins walked 2.0 per nine innings. Roberts has a Wins Above Replacement (WAR) score of 83, just a tick above Jenkins' 82.2. Both men were elected to the Hall of Fame.

Years later Roberts, owner of 286 wins, met up with Jenkins at a Hall of Fame function. Roberts said, "Fergie, it sure was nice of you to only win 284."

*Roberts memory here is a little faulty. Jenkins' first start after many months was on August 25 against the New York Mets. Jenkins did pitch very well, winning the game 3 to 2 and striking out six. Four days later came the start against Atlanta.