The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. The Phillies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East Division. Since 2004, the team's home stadium has been Citizens Bank Park, located in the South Philadelphia Sports Complex."Experience baseball in the city of brotherly love", MLB.com, retrieved October 3, 2022"Philadelphia Phillies History" Baseball Almanac, retrieved October 3, 2022"Timeline 1800s", MLB.com, retrieved October 3, 2022"Reds vs. Phillies prediction" , Patriot News, August 25, 2022
The National League approved a new franchise for Philadelphia to begin play in 1883, at its annual meeting in Providence on December 7, 1882. The team has continuously been known as the Phillies since their founding. The Phillies have won two World Series championships (against the Kansas City Royals in and the Tampa Bay Rays in ) and eight National League pennants (the first of which came in 1915). The team has played 123 consecutive seasons since the first modern World Series and 143 seasons since its inaugural 1883 campaign. As of the end of the 2026 season, the Phillies have played 21,972 games, with a regular season record of ().
The resignation of the Worcester and Troy franchises from the National League after the 1882 season created openings in the eight-team circuit for two new franchises, which were granted to New York and Philadelphia. The team has played at several stadiums in the city, including Recreation Park (1883–1886), the Baker Bowl (1887–1938), Shibe Park (later renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953, in honor of longtime Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack) (1938–1970), Veterans Stadium (1971–2003), and now at Citizens Bank Park (2004–present). Partly because of the team's longevity, the Phillies were the first American sports franchise to amass over 10,000 losses. A plurality of those losses came in a 31-year period from 1918 to 1948 in which they managed only one winning season. Yet, the Phillies are one of only ten teams (the ninth team to reach the mark) to also have won over 10,000 games in their history.
With their first championship in 1980, the Phillies were the last of the 16 pre-expansion teams to win a World Series. Since the start of the divisional era in 1969, however, the Phillies have emerged as one of MLB's most successful teams, making 17 playoff appearances and winning 13 division titles (including five consecutive divisional titles between 2007 and 2011), six National League pennants, and two World Series championships.
Over the team's history since 1883, 33 Phillies players have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt is widely considered the franchise's greatest player of all time.
The Philadelphia Phillies' Triple-A affiliate is the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, who play at Coca-Cola Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The Double-A affiliate is the Reading Fightin Phils, who play in Reading, Pennsylvania. The Class-A affiliates are the Jersey Shore BlueClaws, who play in Lakewood Township, New Jersey; and the Clearwater Threshers, who play in Clearwater, Florida.
The team's spring training facilities are at BayCare Ballpark in Clearwater, Florida.
History
Early years (1883–1904)
In 1883, sporting goods manufacturer Al Reach, a pioneering professional baseball player, and attorney John Rogers won an expansion National League franchise for Philadelphia, one of what is now known as the "Classic Eight" of the league. They were awarded a spot to replace the Worcester baseball team, a franchise that had folded in 1882. The nickname "Phillies" first appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer on April 3, 1883, in the paper's coverage of an exhibition game and was the team's accepted nickname from the start. This name is one of the longest continually used nicknames in professional sports by a team in the same city. Although many sources (including the Phillies themselves) claim that Reach and Rogers bought the Worcester Brown Stockings and moved them to Philadelphia, all available evidence suggests this is not the case. Significantly, no players from Worcester ended up with the 1883 Phillies.
In 1884, Harry Wright, the former manager of the successful Cincinnati Red Stockings, was recruited as a manager in hopes of reversing the team's fortunes.
In 1887, the team began to play at the newly-constructed Philadelphia Base Ball Grounds (later renamed National League Park and the Baker Bowl). Despite a general improvement from their dismal beginnings, they never seriously contended for the title.The franchise's standout players in the era were Billy Hamilton, Sam Thompson, and Ed Delahanty, who in 1896 tied the major-league record (since tied by several others) with four home runs in a single game. Due to growing disagreements about the direction of the team, Al Reach sold his interest to John Rogers in 1899.
With the birth of the more lucrative American League (AL) in 1901, the Phillies saw many of their better players defect to the upstart league, with a number of players who ending up playing for their crosstown rivals, the Philadelphia Athletics, owned by former Phillies minority owner Ben Shibe. While their former teammates would thrive (the AL's first five batting champions were former Phillies), the remaining squad fared dismally, finishing 46 games out of first place in 1902—the first of three straight years finishing either seventh or eighth.
To add tragedy to folly, a balcony collapsed during a game at the Baker Bowl in 1903, killing 12 and injuring hundreds. Rogers was forced to sell the Phillies to avoid being ruined by an avalanche of lawsuits. In 1904, the team finished with a record of 52–100, making them the first team in franchise history to have lost 100 games.
First successes (1905–1917) Beginning in 1905, the Phillies began to see winning seasons on a consistent basis, and the team won their first National League pennant in 1915 thanks to the pitching of Grover Cleveland Alexander and the batting prowess of Gavvy Cravath, who set the 20th century single-season record for home runs with 24. They finished the season with a record of 90–62, seven games ahead of the Boston Braves. The Phillies went up against the Boston Red Sox in the World Series, opening the series at home with a victory. However, the Phillies struggled against strong Red Sox pitching and surrendered the next four games, losing the series four games to one.
The team continued to dominate the National League in 1916 but fell short of capturing a second consecutive pennant as the team finished two and a half games out of first place with a record of 91–62. Alexander won his second consecutive pitching Triple Crown by posting 16 shutouts, which tied the single-season major league record.
In 1917, Alexander was traded to the Chicago Cubs for pitcher Mike Prendegrast and catcher Pickles Dillhoefer after owner William Baker refused to increase his salary. Baker was known for running the Phillies very cheaply; for instance, during much of his tenure, there was only one scout in the entire organization. The Phillies finished the 1917 season in second place with a record of 87–65, ten games behind the New York Giants.
Three decades of losing (1918–1948)
The effect of the Grover Cleveland Alexander trade was immediate. In 1918, only three years after winning the pennant, the Phillies finished sixth, 13 games under .500. It was the start of one of the longest streaks of futility in baseball history. From 1918 to 1948, the Phillies had only one winning record, which came in 1932. The team finished higher than sixth only twice, and were never a serious contender past June. During this stretch, they finished in last place a total of 17 times, and had 12 seasons in which they lost at least 100 games. This saddled the franchise with a reputation for failure that dogged it for many years. The team's primary stars during the 1920s and 1930s were outfielders Cy Williams, Lefty O'Doul, and Chuck Klein, who achieved the Triple Crown in 1933.
William Baker died in 1930. He left half his estate to his wife and the other half to longtime team secretary Mae Mallen. Five years earlier, Mallen had married a leather goods and shoe dealer, Gerald Nugent. With the support of Baker's widow, Nugent became team president. Baker's widow died in 1932, leaving Nugent in complete control. Unlike Baker, Nugent badly wanted to build a winning team, however, he did not have the financial means to do so. He was forced to trade what little talent the team had to make ends meet, and often had to use some creative financial methods to field a team at all.
Philadelphia's Baker Bowl proved to be a fertile hitting ground for Phillies opponents. In 1930, the team surrendered 1199 runs, a major-league record still standing today. Once considered one of the finest parks in baseball, it was not well maintained from the 1910s onward. For instance, until 1925, the Phillies used a flock of sheep to trim the grass. Fans were often showered with rust whenever one of Klein's home runs hit girders. The entire right field grandstand collapsed in 1926, forcing the Phillies to move to the Athletics' Shibe Park (five blocks west on Lehigh Avenue from Baker Bowl) for 1927. The Phillies tried to move to Shibe Park on a permanent basis as tenants of the Athletics. However, Baker Bowl owner Charles W. Murphy refused to let the Phillies out of their lease. He finally relented in 1938, and only then because the city had threatened to condemn the dilapidated park. Despite the move, attendance rarely topped 3,000 a game.
The lowest point came in 1941, when the Phillies finished with a 43–111 record, setting a franchise record for losses in a season. A year later, they needed an advance from the league just to go to spring training. Nugent realized he did not have enough money to operate the team in 1943, and put it up for sale.
After lumber baron William D. Cox purchased the team with a group of investors for $190,000 and a $50,000 note on March 15, 1943, the Phillies rose out of last place for the first time in five years. As a result, the fan base and attendance at home games increased. Eventually, Cox revealed that he had been betting on the Phillies, and he was banned from baseball by commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis on November 23, 1943. The new owner, Bob Carpenter Sr., scion of the Delaware-based duPont family, bought the team with his son for an estimated $400,000 that same day. Carpenter Sr. subsequently named his son, Bob Carpenter Jr., team president. The Carpenters sought to polish the team's image and way of doing business.
Philadelphia Blue Jays (1944–1949) Under the new Carpenter ownership, the team held a fan contest soliciting a new team nickname before the 1944 season. Management chose "Blue Jays", the fan submission of Elizabeth Crooks, who received a $100 war bond as compensation. The Phillies would later claim in the 2000s that the Blue Jays moniker was never official, however, news reports in 1944 note that Phillies management said that the Blue Jays name was as an official "additional nickname", meaning that the team had two official nicknames simultaneously, the Phillies and the Blue Jays.