Shibe Park - Baseball at The Park

Baseball At The Park

Over its 62 seasons of operation, Shibe Park was home to some of the best teams of their eras — and to some of the worst: the A's and the Phillies won eight of their leagues' pennants, bringing eight World Series to 21st and Lehigh. The two clubs also finished dead last in their leagues a combined 30 times, the A's 18 times between 1909 and 1954, and the Phillies 12 times between 1938 and 1970. In 1996, Sports Illustrated proclaimed on its cover: "The 1929 Philadelphia A's, not the '27 Yankees, may have been the greatest baseball club ever assembled."

Over their first six seasons in the park, the A's dominated the American League. They won four pennants those six years and were famed for their $100,000 Infield, said by statistician Bill James to be the greatest infield of all time. Baseball historians since have dubbed the 1910–1914 A's clubs "The First Dynasty"; it was "the sport's first championship dynasty ever." After the 1914 team lost the World Series in four games, Connie Mack sold off his top stars. If there was any doubt the dynasty had ended, A's teams finished last in the AL the next seven years in a row. The fire sale and subsequent cellar seasons earned Mack and the A's tremendous acrimony among Philadelphia fans.

Mack launched a rebuilding program in the mid-1920s, and his effort became "The Second Dynasty", which culminated in back-to-back-to-back AL pennants in 1929, 1930 and 1931. It was an ill-timed hegemony, though: the Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression, and hard times caused baseball attendance to plummet, winners or no. By October 1932, the second great sell-off, of The Second Dynasty, was underway; by 1935, the stars were gone and the franchise had picked up $545,000 cash for itself. The A's had won the last of their pennants, and goodwill with the fan base was in short supply indeed.

The highs and lows of the A's were matched by those of the Phillies — except for most of the highs. Their 1950 Whiz Kids team did win the franchise's sole NL pennant during their years at the park, and the 1964 Phillies came close to doing it again — until the infamous "Phold". The 1961 team managed to set an enduring record, though: their 23-losses-in-a-row mark (from July 29–August 20) has yet to be bested.