Phillies History Month at TBOH

The Philadelphia Phillies have a long, rich history stretching back 133 years to the 1883 National League season.

Here at TBOH we are beginning a new tradition that will become a hallmark of our coverage each winter. Beginning this month and every January from now on, our site will focus increasingly on the history of the franchise.

This increased historical coverage will come in a number of forms. There will be trivia questions in which you can participate. There will be factoid blurbs and accompanying pictures relating to the ball club’s past. And of course, there will be original articles.

The articles will come within a handful of categories: ‘Phillies Greatest Games‘ will cover some of the most interesting and important regular season games over those 133 seasons. Some will have included historically significant moments. Others will have been from a pennant chase. Still others will simply have something wild or wacky about them.

Other topics will include ‘Phillies Record Book‘, in which will be covered some outstanding franchise record, along with some of the important facts and moments involving the teams and players setting those records. ‘Phillies Leader Board‘ will similarly cover some of the statistical categories, and plough through the players making up the Top 10 franchise leader spots in each category.

More from That Balls Outta Here

Of course, there will be the continuation of what has become a TBOH fan favorite, the “Philography” series. I already presented the first of this off-season with a feature last month on iconic shortstop, analyst, manager, and coach Larry Bowa.

Last off-season, I presented Philography pieces on Greg Luzinski, Von Hayes, Placido Polanco, Jim Konstanty, Dick Allen, Dick Ruthven, Grover Cleveland Alexander, and Darren Daulton. If you Google the terms “Philography That Balls Outta Here” you should reach all of these items easily.

Philographies this month will include players from across the team’s history, including early 20th century outfielder Sherry Magee, ‘Whiz Kids’ shortstop Granny Hamner, ‘Macho Row’ shortstop Kevin Stocker, and 1970’s era starting pitcher Larry Christenson.

There will be a couple more individuals covered as well before the month is out. Please feel free to drop us suggestions on who you would like to see covered in those, or in future pieces for off-season’s to come.

Back in October, I presented a series called “Phillies Fall Classics“, recalling individual game victories by the club in the World Series. The Phillies have appeared in seven Fall Classics in their history, winning 14 games.

We covered the first 10 of those World Series game victories during October and November of 2015, and that series will return again in October of 2016. After concluding with the final four, we plan to move into coverage of NLDS and NLCS postseason victories in the future.

Baseball has a rich and storied history as America’s Pastime. The Philadelphia Phillies are an integral part of that history. It has been a specific goal of TBOH to include that history in our coverage beginning with the 2014-15 off-season, and that will now ramp up another notch as this month inaugurates our 1st annual Phillies History Month.

This doesn’t mean that we won’t be tossing in historical items outside of January. Keep in mind, almost every day throughout the year at our Twitter feed @FS_TBOH we include items from the club’s history as well, as do I at my individual feed @MatthewVeasey. You can always click into the “History” link at our home site for all of our Phils historical coverage. We hope you enjoy it all, and feel free to send us any suggestions.

And of course, January will not be all history. You can still expect coverage of important information and happenings surrounding the current Phillies as we draw ever closer to Spring Training in Clearwater, and the start of the 2016 Grapefruit League and MLB seasons.

Next: Our TBOH 2016 New Year Resolution

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