Phillies Top 20 of All-Time (11-15)

The TBOH 20 Greatest Phillies of All-Time countdown continues with 11-15

Yesterday began a new year of 2015, and also began our TBOH countdown of the Top 20 Phillies of All-Time. We looked then at the #20-16 people to start the process.

Those 20-16 names were: Al Reach, one of the founding owners of the franchise; Harry Wright, the first winning manager and a Baseball Hall of Famer; Dan Baker, the longtime voice of the ballparks as the club P.A. announcer; John Vukovich, who went from 1st round draftee to player to manager to coach over a half-century; Ed Wade, the architect of the 2008 World Series champions as GM.

As you can see, not one of those first five Phillies is on the list because of what they did as a ballplayer. Even Vukovich, who won a World Series as a player in 1980, is here because of his coaching influence, not because of his playing career.

That lack of players in the countdown is all about to change. As we move through the next fifteen names, the overwhelming majority are players. Not just players, but winning players. Players who led Phillies ball clubs to championships, and provided fans with some of the most unforgettable moments of their lives.

There are four from the 2008 World Series champs, three from the 1980 World Series champs, a pair from the 1950 National League Pennant winners, and one from the 1993 National League Pennant winner.

Aside from those ten players, there are a pair each of legendary broadcasters and championship managers, and one man who filled a variety of roles both in and out of uniform. As we said yesterday, it’s all about the fans in the end. It takes more than just players to present the game. But of course, in the end, there is nothing without those players.

So let’s begin to move through the names in the 15-11 slots, which will be followed over the weekend by the Top 10:

Byrum ‘By’ Saam, Phillies radio/TV broadcaster in the mid-20th century

15. BY SAAM, TV/radio announcer

Byrum Saam was born in Forth Worth, Texas and began to get involved in radio broadcasts of sporting events while in high school and then in college at Texas Christian.

He was eventually hired in 1938 by Connie Mack to become the radio voice of the Philadelphia Athletics. The following year, the Phillies hired him to do the same. 

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Since both clubs played their home games at Baker Bowl and road games weren’t broadcast, he continued the double-duty for over a decade. Once road games were instituted, he left for strictly calling A’s games, but returned to the Phillies in 1955 after the A’s moved to Kansas City.

From that point until 1975, Saam broadcast radio and ultimately TV games with the Phils. For nearly four decades, it was Saam’s voice that Philadelphia baseball fans heard when they turned on their radios with his tag line that the game was “rolling along“, and most of that rolling was with the Phillies.

Known for his easy-going, down-home style in his slight Texas drawl, fans loved his steady game-calling even during lengthy losing stretches. His last partners in the booth, Richie Ashburn and Harry Kalas, invited Saam back to work with them in the 1976 division-clinching game and the NLCS.

Aside from this, calling the 1964 ‘Perfect Game’ by Jim Bunning was his main career highlight. Saam was awarded the Ford Frick Award by the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990. For two generations of Phillies fans in the middle of the 20th century, By Saam and the Phillies were one and the same.

Darren ‘Dutch’ Daulton, leader of the 1993 ‘Macho Row’ NL Pennant winners

14. DARREN DAULTON, Catcher

Darren Daulton was born and raised in Arkansas City, Kansas and was drafted by the Phillies out of high school in the 25th Round of the 1980 Draft. He got his first cup of coffee in the big leagues with the 1983 team that won the NL Pennant, and was with the club when it clinched the NL East in the final weeks of the season.

Through the 80’s, Daulton was back and forth between the minors and majors. Then when the team finally turned the page after Mike Schmidt retired and Juan Samuel was traded away in 1989, he began to get a more central playing role.

With a new generation of teammates like Lenny Dykstra, John Kruk, and Mitch Williams, Daulton became the clubhouse leader. Together they turned in a worst-to-first season in 1993, winning the NL Pennant before losing a hard-fought World Series to the star-studded Toronto Blue Jays. That team remains one of the most beloved in club history for the fans, an oasis in a mostly two-decade long desert of losing seasons.

He was a 3x All-Star between 1992-95, won the ’92 NL Silver Slugger at catcher, and twice finished in the top 7 of NL MVP voting. Daulton had become a fan favorite over the years with the female fan base because he was movie-star handsome, and with the male fan base because he fought through 7 knee surgeries to become the leader of a team that won against all odds.

Now in his low-50’s, Dutch has battled brain cancer over the last few years, the same condition that claimed the lives of former Phillies mates Tug McGraw and John Vukovich, prompting speculation that there may have been something in the environment at Veteran’s Stadium which caused the cases.  

Robin Roberts, Phillies pitcher 1948-61, Baseball Hall of Famer

13. ROBIN ROBERTS, Pitcher

An Illinois native, the Phillies signed Robin Roberts as a free agent out of Michigan State in 1948, and that same season he made 20 starts as a 21-year old rookie. Two years later, Roberts had the first of six consecutive 20-win seasons, and helped lead the ‘Whiz Kids’ to the National League Pennant.

Over 13 seasons with the Phillies from 1948-61, Roberts amassed 234 wins. He had 28 victories in 1952 alone, and then won 23 every year from 1953-55, leading the NL from 1952-55. He also led the NL in Strikeouts (1953-54), Innings Pitched (1951-55) and a number of other categories during the 1950’s.

Not a true power pitcher, Roberts still allowed fewer hits (3,661) than innings pitched (3,739.1) over his Phillies career. He was a National League All-Star every year from 1950-56, and finished in the top 7 of NL MVP voting five times as a Phillies pitcher, including as the runner-up in that great 1952 campaign.

He holds the record for most consecutive Opening Day starts for the same team as a pitcher (12), having toed the Phils rubber in their season opener every year from 1950-61. Roberts holds a handful of Phillies franchise pitching records, including for career Games, Innings, and Complete Games, and he is 27th on the all-time MLB Wins list with 286 victories despite pitching most of his career for losing teams.

He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976, the first player ever voted-in (non-Veteran’s Committee) after spending a majority of their career seasons with the Phillies. He also spent that 1976 season as a color commentator on Phillies radio broadcasts.

His uniform number 36 is one of just five Phillies players to have their numbers retired (not counting Jackie Robinson‘s 42), and in 1978 he became the first member of the team’s Wall of Fame.

In 2004, Roberts was inducted into the inaugural class of the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame, and when Citizens Bank Park opened that year it included a statue of Roberts at the 3rd base gate.

Dallas Green, Phillies manager 1979-81, including 1980 World Series champions

11. DALLAS GREEN, Manager

Dallas Green was born and raised in Delaware, and signed with the Phillies as a 20-year old free agent in 1955 out of the University of Delaware. A tall righthander, Green progressed incrementally through the Phils minor league system, debuting in the major leagues in 1960.

As a player from 1960-64, and then again in his final career stop in the 1967 season, Green went 20-22 for the Phillies in 185 games, 46 of them starts. He was a relief pitcher on the star-crossed 1964 Phillies, and made one appearance during their infamous late-season collapse.

In his final 1967 season, Green was a player/manager of the AA Reading Phillies, and then continued managing in the system with stops at the helm in Huron and Pulaski. At the latter, Green won the Rookie League championship and was co-Manager of the Year.

Well respected in his already long tenure with the club, Green wanted to pursue a career as a club executive. He was named as the assistant to Farm Director Paul Owens, and then in the middle of the 1972 season when Owens was elevated to the General Manager job, Green became the Director of the Phillies minor league system. This made him the first former Phillies player to hold a front office position with the team in decades.

Green set about making numerous changes to the way the club evaluated minor league prospects, and instituted a new scouting structure. These changes have been credited with greatly helping lay the foundation for the Phillies success from the mid-70’s through the early-80’s. In 1974 he added the responsibilities of Scouting Director, and he directed the Phillies drafts from that point until 1979.

During that 1979 season, with a team that had won 3 consecutive NL East crowns having collapsed in disappointment, Green was brought in by Owens to manage the club in place of the laid-back Danny Ozark. Green immediately began instilling discipline to a too-relaxed group of veterans, guiding the club to a 19-11 record over the final month.

That success carried over to the 1980 season when Green pushed and prodded and barked the team to a 4th NL East crown in 5 years. The players claimed to hate him, equating him to a military Drill Sergeant, and he had both public and private confrontations with a number of the veterans. But it worked. This time the team would finally kick down the postseason door.

Under Green’s direction the 1980 Phillies defeated the Houston Astros to win the first National League Pennant in 30 years, and then upended the Kansas City Royals to win the first-ever World Series championship in franchise history.

After guiding the team back to the playoffs in 1981, Green left to finally take his dream job as a General Manager. He served the Cubs in that capacity in the early 1980’s, then managed both the New York Yankees and Mets from the late-80’s through mid-90’s.

In late 1996, Green returned to the Phils as a Special Assistant to the GM under Ed Wade, and has continued serving a key advisory role for both Pat Gillick and Ruben Amaro Jr in that role into the present day.