Career Phillie

[Lucky_Beagle]

I just saw an article by Kerry Kauffman on That Ball's Out of Here in which he list 5 players who played their entire careers with the Phillies and played in at least 10 seasons. For anyone who read the article is he attempting to say these are the 5 best players and there are more or was he trying to say there really are only these 5. Looking at the list him gave I would say the bar is not set very high.
My challenge to posters here is to name anyone who you believe qualifies. I will will list 2 of them for the reasons stated beside their name.

Mike Schmidt--I think everyone could have named him.
Ryan Howard-I list him because I guess the qualification he is using is they only appeared in the major leagues with the Phillies as we know Ryan spent time in the minor leagues with other teams after he left the Phillies. I guess this would make it possible for someone the Phillies received in a trade as a minor league player to have come up as a Phillie. I guess this would make O. Herrera eligible years from now.

I also believe based upon reading through his list of players the player would not have had to obtain 10 years of service time since I believe he used seasons in which a player only saw limited mlb time.

[BostonRoss]

Chris Short is the first one to come to mind.

[BostonRoss]

Larry Christenson?

[Lucky_Beagle]

Christenson was on his list of 5. I looked up Chris Short and he appears to have played with the Brewers in his final season 1973.

[bkox]

Seems there may only be 5.. or not many more than that. I used bbref and went back to even the old days of the 1900s and most players either started or finished their career with a different team.

[xogfog]

I thought Leiberthal was here his whole career, forgot he finished with a cup of coffee with the Dodgers.

[Purduke]

Off the top of my head, how about Bob Miller. RP, 1949-58?

Ok so I cheated and searched out a Phillies "games played" query and then hunted and pecked for 20 minutes. Most interesting tidbit? That Ruben Amaro (Sr) finished 21st in the MVP voting in 1964? Ahead of Chris Short and Bob Gibson? Wow. He might have been guess 38 if I had a 40 man roster from that year. That was the year Callison finished second of course.

[California_Dreamin]

Sadly, Chris Short did finish his career in Milwaukee. He was my favorite Phillie pitcher growing up and I actually cut his picture out of a Sporting News article and taped it on another baseball card that I had doubles on so I would have him in my team groups.

For those of you who wonder what I am talking about, both Short and Maury Wills had refused to sign up with Topps [not sure why?] for quite some time so Short didn't have a card till about 1965.

Short's story was a very sad one...he suffered a brain hemorrhage at a fairly young age and was in a coma for many years. One of the most poignant moments of the 25 year reunion of the 1964 Phillies in 1989 at Veterans Stadium was a screen shot of Short, who at the moment was lying comatose in a Philadelphia hospital.

Short's nickname was "Styles", not for how he pitched but for how he dressed. He was apparently one of the sloppiest dressers on the team!

[California_Dreamin]

One guy who might not get mentioned, but should be considered, is pitcher Charlie Ferguson. He only pitched 4 seasons with the early franchise before dying of typhoid fever in 1888 but was probably the team's first real star. He won 99 games in 4 seasons before dying unexpectedly at 25 years of age.

[Lucky_Beagle]

Bob Miller (1949 – 1958)
Terry Harmon

Are the other two mentioned along with Schmidt, Howard, and Christenson who have been mentioned previously.

[Philsmania]

Terry Harmon, I guess he was a classic good glove utility infielder. Interestingly, he preceded his Phillies teammate and phellow career Phillie Schmidt at Ohio U by a small handful of years.

[trenton]

As part of a promotional effort of some kind, Terry Harmon manned a ticket turnstile at The Vet one day in the early 2000s. He introduced himself with a handshake and said, “I bet you don’t know who I am.” He was wrong. “Of course I know who you are,” I said. We shared a laugh. Seemed like a nice guy.

[California_Dreamin]

Quickie quiz...who was a life time Phillie who started all but two games of his major league career? And is in the HOF?

Yep, Sparky Anderson actually was the starting 2nd baseman on the 1959 Phillies, a team that featured Richie Ashburn, Wally Post, Gene Freese, Joe Koppe, Ed Bouchee, Robin Roberts and Don Cardwell. He played in 152 of 154 games and never played another major league game.

But he did play for only the Phillies in his major league career.

[California_Dreamin]

Although he only played 3 years in the majors, a case could be made that Pancho Herrera was better than Terry Harmon. Herrera out homered him 31-4 and had only 1 less hit [262-261] even though Harmon lasted 7 years longer.

Herrera finished 2nd to Frank Howard in the Rookie of the Year voting in 1960, with 17 home runs. He was traded to Pittsburgh following the 1961 season but never played in another major league game.

[lonfident]

Wikipedia has this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_who_spent_their_entire_career_with_one_franchise that supposedly names all players that stayed with the same team for their whole careers (10 yrs. minimum)

[philsphan67]

I never knew this guy existed....pretty interesting....found this in his obituary thanks to NBLPA.com.

In 1960, Herrera lost the Rookie of the Year Award to the Los Angeles
Dodgers first baseman ... Frank Howard by 8 votes.

However, Herreta is best known for
setting (at that time) the National League record for striking 136
times during the 1960 season ... and for appearing on the rarest post
WWII single issue baseball card. The 1958 Topps card #433. Because
of a printing error the "a" at the end of his name was omitted or
blurred (depending upon the card). To many collectors this card is
more valuable than any Mantle, Mays or Williams. Less than ten are
known to exist ... and only one of those has been graded near-mint to
mint in condition.

[BostonRoss]

SABR has a biography of Herrera (and many other players).

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/6da969d5