Today we embark on a new thread which I hope you'll all find as
interesting as I do: a "Turn Back The Clock" series (as in 1977) for
every set of the 1970's.
For the very first entry I give you the 20th anniversary of the
Philadelphia Phillies, aka the "Whiz Kids", who took everyone by
surprise and took the National League pennant in 1950.
Take a look:
I'll be running this thread chronologically with the 20th
anniversaries first, that is, events from the 1950's, then on to the
10th anniversaries of baseball events from 1960 through 1969. So each
year will get both 20th and 10th anniversary milestones
by the time this is all done.
Anyway, led by star players like Richie Ashburn, Robin Roberts and
eventual National League Most Valuable Player Jim Konstanty, the young
team (who averaged only 26.4 years of age) were steamrolling their way
to the pennant before allowing the Brooklyn
Dodgers to make it all the way back in September because of a rough
patch, forcing a "winner-take-all" final game of the season.
With two stars starting in Robin Roberts for the Phillies and Don
Newcombe for the Dodgers, it was Dick Sisler who would end up being the
hero, hitting a game-winning, and pennant-winning, three-run home run in
the top of the 10th inning to set the stage
for a Phillies/New York Yankees World Series.
Besides the aforementioned stars above, the Phillies also had Del
Ennies, who led the team in all three triple crown stats that year,
Willie Jones and Eddie Waitkus who both scored over 100 runs and Curt
Simmons who contributed with his 17 wins.
But it was Konstanty who put together a year for the ages, as he
came out of the bullpen and set National League records for saves with
22 and relief wins with 16, posting a 16-7 record with a 2.66 ERA over
74 games and 152 innings of work.
Sadly the young team could not keep up the winning ways of 1950,
never seeing another postseason until the 1976 when guys like Mike
Schmidt and Greg Luzinski were suiting up in the city of "Brotherly
Love".
