Philadelphia Phillies

If you really think about it there are some very unique nicknames of sports teams out there that we don't even think twice about. They are just so accepted and common place we sports fans for the most part take them for granted. One such is the Phillies baseball club from Philadelphia. Just what exactly is a Phillie in this context and where did the name come from? That is what I wanted to know and what I learned was so much more.

The 1915 Philadelphia Phillies team photo, see credits below

There is a rich history of baseball around the City of Brotherly Love. The largest town in Pennsylvania is just sopping in good American history period as Philadelphia is one North America's oldest cities. Though other franchises in baseball have played home games there, including the Athletics, only one currently still resides in Eastern Pennsylvania and that is the Philadelphia Phillies. My research mission is to find out what exactly a "phillie" is and where did the origin of the name and the club for that matter come from?

As normal the best place to get an answer to a question is at the source, so I dug into the MLB's website in the Philadelphia section and came across a very informative post from Todd Zolecki who is a contributor to the MLB with expertise in Philadelphia. Zolecki's article from December of 2021 is titled How they came to be called the Phillies. 

According to the article the story of the Phillies interestingly enough starts with the Philadelphia Athletics franchise. The Athletics apparently ticked off the National League brass when they failed to travel to play a game the League wanted them to shortly after joining the newly formed NL in 1876. The NL got so upset with the refusal of the A's to go on the road trip late in that first year that they gave them a swift boot from the confines of the league membership. This created a void that the new league wanted to keep filled in the big market of Philadelphia.

The NL decided to take their Brown Stockings club, who are sometimes referred to as the Ruby Legs, from Worcester, Mass. and moved them to Philadelphia in 1883. Now the question as what to call them. The Ruby Legs and Brown Stockings monikers probably would not fly because of their connotation to their previous region they were head quartered in. There was some historic reference to hang their hats on as in 1873 in a League that only lasted for one year before it folded, called the National Association was a team called the Philadelphia Quakers. That name and the historic fact that the Quakers, with William Penn among them, were the ones that originally settled Philadelphia and even named it and the Commonwealth it sits in. Pennsylvania as a matter of record is tranlated to Penn's woods, as William Penn laid claim to the area.

Anyhow back to our story. While some liked the Quakers name others wanted to call the new team the Philadelphias. The MLB story by Mr. Zolecki adds further fact to this naming:

"Former Phillies vice president of communications Larry Shenk...flipped through “The Philadelphia Phillies,” a book written by Fred Leib and Stan Baumgartner and published in 1953. ... In the book, Leib and Baumgartner wrote, “By general consent, the new team (1883) came to be known as the Phillies, one of the most natural and spontaneous of all big league nicknames. It was easily understood, as any oaf could recognize a Phillie to be a player from Philadelphia. However, the nickname of the old National Association Philadelphias -- the Quakers -- persisted, and for years a number of Philadelphia dailies referred to the new ball team as the Quakers.”"

The official history book of the Phillies franchise, called Phillies: An Extraordinary Tradition, confirms this as it tells that the moniker of Philadelphian is indeed a unique one and tells the world where the team hails from. This name was ultimately the decision of the original owner Al Reach for this very reason. It was also a prety calculated move to endear the team to the residents of the city, because after all the Athletics were reincarnated in 1901 playing there too as they joined the new American League, and kept the franchise there through the 1954 season when they were sold and moved to Kansas City.

It is easy to see that having people say a long word of their team like Philadelphias, was not going to fly, so somewhere along the way it was abbreviated to "Phillies," to save the wear and tear on the tongue.

The logo and uniform of the Phillies has an interesting history as well.  A website called MLB Collectors.com is a great source for unveiling the progression of many a sports uni including the Phillies. They start the history of the Philadelphia jersey right around 1900 when a simple "P" was plastered on the front and sometimes was substitued on the road with the red colored letters "PHILA." The color scheme was a navy P for home games, gray fabric.

1901 and 1902 say the blue P turn red and it was displayed on both the home and away jerseys. In the next few seasons the home uniforms went to white with the red letter and the away unis stayed gray. In 1906 the P changed font style as the Serif style was dropped to a more simple design. This Serif font was in and out over the next few years.

Baseball card of George McQuillan, Philadelphia Phillies. T206 White Borders set. reverse See details below in credits, American Tobacco Company

The P pretty much stayed the same then but was moved from the front of the shirt to the sleeves and back again and pin stripes were expiramented with off and on too. In the 1920's the pinstripes were the standard and the red P would be surrounded with a blue circle on the logo. In 1925 that logo was abandoned and an old english script P was laid forth on the uniforms. In the 1930s the logo went to the cap only and the word Phillies appeared on the road jerseys.

An example of the Old English Phillies "P" Logo. See credits below for details

The franchise flirted with introducing new color schemes of blue and sometimes yellow to celebrate it Swedish roots, and the name sewn on the front bounced between Philles and Phils but eventually the red and white scheme held firm. In the 1970s the now familiar "stylized" P became the logo and that iconic swirly capital P  held serve as the symbol of ths Phillies until about 1992.

The 1970's Swirled 'P" Image cropped from a baseball card of Joe Hoerner

Right after that according to 1000 Logos, the logo of the franchise changed completely. The site claims:

"The new logo was created for the club in 1992. It was a solid blue badge with its upper part arched from the center, and the bottom one — sharpened and pointing down. The white silhouette of a Liberty bell was drawn in blue and had a red underlined “Phillies” inscription placed over it. The lettering was balanced by a thick red outline of the badge."

2017 version of the Phillies uniforms, see credits below

This version was tweaked just a bit in 2019 when the liberty Bell and the Phillies name stayed as the symbol of the squad from Philly.

Of course we also could not have done the above stat research without the assistance of Basketball-Reference.com and Stathead.com resources.

The photos above all came courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and include the following:

Banner and inset photo of Phillies Dodgers 2017 25.jpg, taken on 9/21/17 by user Peetlesnumber1

The 1915 Philadelphia Phillies team photo from the US Library of Congress

The 1910 uniform shown on the Baseball card of George McQuillan, Philadelphia Phillies. T206 White Borders set. of the American Tobacco Company

An example of the Old English Phillies "P" Logo via the picture titled: Retired number of Chuck Klein from the KV5 • Squawk box

An example of the encircled P Phillies logo via   picture titled: Retired number of  Grover Cleveland Alexander from the KV5 • Squawk box

The 1970's Swirled 'P" Image cropped from a baseball card of Joe Hoerner from the 1975 Philadelphia Phillies Photocards set.