Road To 10,000 Losses: Phillies Make Fans Look Good

Road to 10,000 Losses is a countdown to the Phillies’ 10,000th Loss, coming sometime later this year. Currently, the Phillies stand at 9960 losses, only 40 away from 10,000.

It’s no doubt the Phillies are one of the worst teams in professional sports history. But what if they deserve it?

The Inquirer is running a series on Jackie Robinson’s 60th birthday; today Frank Fitzpatrick recounts the treatment the Phillies game Robinson on his first trip to the City of Brotherly Love. Sadly — but naturally — people chanted racial slurs at the rookie, but it wasn’t the fans. It was the players, goaded on by the manager.

Racist manager Ben Chapman decided the best way to welcome Robinson to Philadelphia would be to make it as unpleasant to him as possible. And so, when Robinson came up to bat, Jonathan Eig said, “[h]is accounts in later years, and accounts by others who were there, say the Phillies mentioned Robinson’s thick lips, thick skull, and sores and diseases his teammates and their wives would likely contract by associating with him.” (Sadly enough, Robinson also wasn’t allowed to stay at the hotel the rest of the Brooklyn Dodgers stayed at.)

Here’s how bad it was:

This time, the vitriol from the Phils was so intensely unrelenting that several fans seated near their dugout wrote commissioner Happy Chandler to complain.

The racism from the manager and the players was so bad even Philadelphia sports fans were pissed. To this day, Ben Chapman remains the only man to make us look good.

Part 2: Phils hurled insults at the ‘noble experiment’ [Inquirer]