Team history

[slacker2114]

Face it, if you're in this part of the forum you're either lost or you're a sports nut. For those who are lost, click the 'back' button twice. For the sports nut....

We all have our favorite teams, players, drivers, etc, but how much do you REALLY know about them? And how many others know those things? So here's a thread to post interesting little facts and stories you've heard about your favorite sports people. I don't expect all dates/times/names and such to be 100% accurate, but as long as the story is based in fact, post them here. Like this little nugget...

In the late 40's, after the Steelers split away from the Eagles again after WWII, they went back to their losing ways. Art Rooney had hired a coach, who's name eludes me at the moment, who was a raging alcoholic. This guy was so bad, he once made an appearance at a Chicago game in the announcer's booth, drunk off his ass, where a good friend of his worked. He sat and talked with his buddy about how he was going to turn the Steelers around and such when they began announcing football scores from other games. And one of them was...guess who......the Steelers game which was being played at Pittsburgh while their head coach was yukking it up with one of his buddies in Chicago.

Definitly not one of the Steelers better moments in time.

 

[Mitchell]

I know quite a bit about my Atlanta Braves. They started in Boston, in what year, I forget exactly. They moved to Milawaukee in 1953, and were there until 1966, when they moved to Atlanta. They played in a couple of World Series in the 1950s, beating the Yankees in seven games in 1957, and then losing to them in seven games in 1958.
After moving to Atlanta, they won a Western Division title in the first year of divisional play, and then weren't heard from much, except for a divisional title in 1982, until their current run began in 1991. Hank Aaron left the Braves in 1975, and they had the great knuckleballer Phil Niekro until he was released in 1983.
Their current manager, Bobby Cox, returned to the team as General Manager in 1985, after being fired by team owner Ted Turner in 1981, and remained as GM until he went back on the field in 1990.
In 1991, the Braves went from last place to first, winning the National League Championship Series in seven, before bowing to the Twins in the World Series, in seven games.
That year began the run of 14 straight divisional titles that has still yet to end. Here are Atlanta's records, place finishes, and what happened to them in the playoffs, since 1991.

1991- Won NL West by one game, beat Pirates in seven games in NLCS, lost to Twins in seven in World Series.

1992-Won NL West by eight games, beat Pirates in seven games in NLCS again, lost to Toronto in six in World Series.

1993- Won NL West by one game, lost to Phillies in six games in NLCS

1995- Won NL East by 21 games, beat Rockies in four in Division Series, Reds in four in NLCS, and Indians in six for World Series title.

1996- Won NL East by eight games, Won NLDS, beat Cards in seven games for NL championship. Lost to Yankees in six in World Series.

1997- Won NL East with 101 wins, Won NLDS, lost to Marlins in six in NLCS.

1998- Won NL East with 106 wins, won NLDS, lost to Padres in six in NLCS.

1999- Won NL East with 103 wins, beat Mets in six in NLCS, swept by Yankees in four in World Series.

2000- Won NL East with 95 wins, swept by Cardinals in NLDS

2001- Won NL East with 88 wins, Won NLDS, lost to Diamondbacks in six in NLCS.

2002- Won NL East with 101 Wins, lost in five in NLDS.

2003 Won NL East with 101 wins, lost in five in NLDS

2004 Won NL East with 96 wins, lost in five in NLDS.

2005- Won NL East by two games, with 90 wins, lost in NLDS in heartbreak fashion in eighteenth inning, with Chris Burke's homerun off Joey Devine, on the evening of October 9, 2005, my father's 65th bday.

While I do admit that I looked up some of the exact win totals in some of the years, I do know all about their history, and exactly what they did in the playoffs every year, as I remember those Octobers well. I consider myself pretty well versed on the history of my Braves. Sorry this is such a long post. End of post.

Mitch

 

[milagros317]

The Brooklyn Trolley-Dodgers (one of their nicknames at the time) joined the National League in 1890, and won the NL pennant in 1890. 😀

How many teams do you know that won the pennant the first year that they joined an existing league?

 

[Knox The Hatter]

I believe that my favorite baseball team, the once and future Philadelphia National League Baseball Club, might be the losingest franchise in the history of professional sports on the North American Continent. This is not hyperbole. No sorry sacks of shit in any sport have been around longer, and have contributed more than the share of this team's uh...phutility.

By far, the team's worst period would be that stretch between the world wars. During that time, in particular between the years 1917 and 1949, the club only finished as high as fourth in an eight team league, with an above .500 record once (1932). During that stretch, they finished above one hundred losses for the season thirteen times, with such stellar numbers as 108 (1928), 109 (1942), and 111, the franchise record (1941).

The club's owner, up to his 1931 death, was former NYC Police Commissioner William F. Baker, probably one of the stingiest owners in baseball annals in the 20th Century. Older Eagles fans might remember Norman Braman; he made HIM look like Andrew Carnegie. He refused to spend a penny out of his own pocket to improve the club, as a result, you had dead last finishes every year. After he died, he willed the club to his private secretary, who gave the club presidency to her husband. Neither one of them had the financial wherewithal to run a Major League baseball club, as a result, Gerald Nugent and his wife constantly stayed one step ahead of the process servers. Throughout the Depression, the Philadelphia Phillies won a grand total of seven pennants- for other National League clubs. Whenever they developed talent, they then either traded or sold these players to other teams, who won pennants with these future stars. The Cubs in '35 (with Chuck Klein, Pinky Whitney, and others), the Giants in '36 and 37 (Dick Bartell), the Cubs again in '38 (Claude Passeau), the Reds in '39 and '40 (Bucky Walters, Morrie Arnovich), and the Dodgers in '41 (Dolph Camilli), all bought these indispensable players from the drowning Phillies. Finally, in 1942, the League stepped in and took the franchise away from Gerry Nugent. The other seven clubs were tired of losing gobs of money from road trips into Shibe Park, where games would be played in front of vendors and cops and ushers.

Until 1938, the Phillies played their home games at an ancient, tiny venue known as Baker Bowl. Main gate was at 15th and Huntingdon. It was built all the way back in 1887, and was the first modern concrete stadium in the country after it was rebuilt in 1894 after a fire. By the '20s, Baker Bowl came to resemble Baseball's version of the Munsters' mansion at 1313 Mockingbird Lane, since Bill Baker, the owner, refused to do routine maintenance. As a result, you'd go to the game, and foul balls that hit the framework on top of you would shower rust all over your clean clothes. If you weren't so lucky, the stands would collapse under you, as did a section of the left field seats did in 1927, resulting in fatalities.

The park had a capacity of 18,000...ridiculously small, especially after the completion of Shibe Park in '09. Distance to the right field wall was...275 feet! That's it, folks. The right field wall was Philadelphia's answer to Fenway's Green Monster. Much of the time, in the 1920s, it was covered by a mammoth ad, covered by a bar of soap, that read, "The Phillies Use Lifebuoy!" Someone, with a brush and paint, during the wee hours, scribbled under it, "and they still stink!" By the mid 30s, the ad was removed, and the wall was painted black. It made the right field corner the hottest part of the park...and on hot and humid days, like a pizza oven. There was a hole or two in the rust pocked wall from line drives hit by Chuck Klein, that went through, the balls bouncing happily down Broad Street afterwards. The Phillies had trouble breaking a long lease, which was why they stayed so long. Finally, in the middle of the 105 loss season of 1938, they abandoned the place, and moved into Shibe with the A's, who were doing a fair job of connecting 100 loss seasons in a chain themselves in those days.

There were other dry spells for the club too, in their 123 year history, but the fact that they survived this is simply amazing...

 

[leafstk]

I'll have to post the story of Bill Barilko, TML... good story, I'll post it tomorrow 😀