Although he was only 28 years old, at the time the youngest club president in National League history, with World War II at its height, Carpenter faced being drafted. He also spent 10 years as editor of the Cincinnati Times-Star and later owned the Cincinnati Post. When Waitkus was shot in 1950 by a deranged woman, Bob ordered the best available medical care. Costing some $52 million, the city-owned ballpark that seated 55,371 for baseball officially opened as Veterans Stadium in 1971. Starting in the late 1890s, the club became the residence of a number of future Hall of Fame players, including Ed Delahanty, Nap Lajoie, and Elmer Flick, who launched their careers with the Phillies, plus Sam Thompson, Billy Hamilton, Tim Keefe, Roger Connor, and Dan Brouthers, all of whom came from other teams. Their function was to make the club respectable until the youngsters arrived from the farms. The high point of Carpenters administration came in 1950 when the players he and Pennock had planted on the farms ripened to produce a National League pennant. He was born in Bronxville, New York, and was a graduate of Dickinson College. Klentak was only 35 years old at the time, the youngest GM in Phillies history. Fogel said that the umpires were told to favor the New York Giants, and that St. Louis Cardinals manager Roger Bresnahan always played his weakest lineup against his former team. Just imagine for a second how different things would be if someone like Pat Croce, Ed Rendell, or heck even Comcast-Spectacor was running the team. Baker also failed to endear himself to the loyal Phillies fans in 1925 when, in Common Pleas Court testifying in a suit contesting the ownership of shares of Phillies stock, Baker admitted that he was hoping to sell the team eventually. Reach and Rogers retained the title to Philadelphia Park, leasing it back to the new owners for $10,000 per year. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library). Locke and Baker were making a final attempt to arrange the sale. (Photo by Carl . Having handed over the daily operation of the club to David Montgomery, who had acquired a small piece of stock in 1994, Giles, at age 63, stepped down as president and chief executive officer of the team in 1997. Taft had contributed $15 million, good for a 47 percent ownership. Giles, who reportedly had put up only $50,000 for a 10 percent ownership, had partners that included Taft Broadcasting Company, which owned Channel 29 in Philadelphia and which was granted rights to the Phillies games for 10 years beginning in 1982. It was announced in November of 2007 that Middleton had sold his family cigar company to the Altria Group, owners of Phillip Morris, for $2.9 billion. For decades the Phillies had been hampered by the absence of Sunday baseball. His promotional skills and his ability to market a team and keep it popular despite less-than-satisfactory records on the field were hugely successful. They had been gobbled up by other teams as soon as it became apparent that the failing Worcester team would be folded. Tri-Play and Double Play are equal partners while Pat Gillick and the Montgomery family own the remaining interests. Bakers response was to fire Moran at the end of the 1918 season. But, if John Middleton could somehow grab a majority stake, he could have called the shots and told Montgomery to hit the road if he wanted. Before revealing these Phillies Phantoms, lets discuss how exactly they came to be the owners. At the age of 21 he was earning $15 a month on a farm, plus 50 cents for each cord of wood he cut. Born August 31, 1915, the year of the Phillies first pennant, Bob had been a football, basketball, and baseball star at Tower Hill School in Wilmington. In addition to that, World War II had decimated his team, leaving Nugent with no players left to sell. Born in 1840 in London, England, where his father was a prominent cricket player, Reach was brought to the United States at the age of one. In addition to building the team on the field, Montgomery played the lead role in making the Phillies a major part of the community, participating in and sponsoring numerous groups and events around the city that became enormously popular. Commissioner Landis was in no mood to play games with the floundering franchise. He was panned and pitied, admired and ridiculed. It was the greatest day of my life, more awesome, more emotional than I ever dreamed it would be, Carpenter said. When he died in 1903 in a mysterious accident that ended with his washing over Niagara Falls, he had compiled a lifetime batting average of .346, which ranks as the fourth highest in major-league history. The Phillies ownership group is worth close to $3.4 billion, but their offseason mentality has been utterly shameful. As a youth he worked full-time as a farmhand. But he refused $75,000 from one club, instead accepting $20,000 from the Yankees so that Roberts could play for a pennant contender. The first year under Moran, the Phillies won their first pennant. Finally, with Carpenter, the owners of the Philadelphia Eagles, and others prodding the city, a new site was selected at Broad Street and Pattison Avenue in South Philadelphia. John Middleton Announces New Changes in Phillies Ownership. In exchange, he received three lesser players and $25,000 in cash. Sally Buck, wife of the deceased James, had also become the owner of her husbands stock before she died in 2014, leaving the stock to their estate. During a game on August 6, 1903, the fans were attracted to a disturbance behind the left-field bleachers in which two drunks were taunting a group of young girls. In a rash of spending unparalleled in Phillies history, the club began issuing big long-term contracts to some of its better players, including Bobby Abreu, Pat Burrell, Randy Wolf, and Mike Lieberthal. . The relationship between Reach and Shibe couldnt have been better. He won one pennant, and finished last eight times. The Roaring Twenties were not accompanied by roaring crowds at Baker Bowl. In one deal, Baker sent outfielder George Whitted to the Pittsburgh Pirates for outfielder Casey Stengel. It was the continuation of a long climb from bottom to top for the then-51-year-old Roxborough native who had been a loyal follower of the Phillies since his days as a youthful fan at Connie Mack Stadium. Baker died in Montreal on December 4, 1930, a controversial figure in Philadelphia to the end. Located on the corner of Broad Street and Lehigh Avenue in North Philadelphia, it was built at a cost of $101,000 alongside a creek and over a dump that required 120,000 wagonloads of dirt to fill the pits and gullies and bring it to street level. He accused McGraw of tampering with players on other teams, making them dissatisfied with playing anywhere but for the Giants. Westcott, Rich. He paid $1,657,000 for a ballpark that in 1908 had been built for $315,248.69. He was dismissed after that season, and named the clubs business manager. His second team, in 1983, led by Paul Owens after the teams general manager had again appointed himself manager, had many of the 1980 players including Schmidt, Carlton, and Rose still on the team, plus new additions and future Hall of Famers Joe Morgan and Tony Perez, and the forthcoming 1983 Cy Young Award winner, John Denny. Sisler hit a 10th-inning game-winning home run to beat Brooklyn 4-1, and give the club the flag on the final day of the season. Some of the stars of the Whiz Kids never approximated their 1950 performances again. After a hunting accident in which Chicago White Sox pitcher Monty Stratton extinguished a budding career by shooting himself in the foot (ultimately resulting in the amputation of his leg), Nugent advocated placing a clause in contracts that would ban players from hunting. He moved Alexander and Bill Killefer to the Cubs for $60,000, pitcher Mike Pendergast, and catcher Pickles Dillhoefer. But we are going to start working for one systematically.. To get Simmons, Carpenter even sent the entire Phillies squad to Curts hometown of Egypt, Pennsylvania, to face the left-handers local team. She also oversees logistics for various game day and non-game day events that involve the Phillies Ownership Group. The Fightin Phils Oddities, Insights, and Untold Stories (Philadelphia: Camino Books, 2008). The only times the team could expect to attract much of a crowd were Saturday afternoons and holidays. Ruch, who had originally retired in 1920 because of declining health, was hauled reluctantly out of retirement to direct the team. Just like in the Marge Schott situation many years ago, if David Montgomery does not want to leave, he wont. But intrusions were part of Coxs style. He did it for 28 years, more than any president in Phillies history, pouring his energy and his familys fortune into a team that most of the time lost money and finished in the second division. The Phillies' ownership group has remained more of a mystery in this town than Bigfoot or the Bermuda Triangle. But he had attended nearly every Phillies home game since 1971 and almost never took summer vacations. In 1980, led by Rose and the provocative manager Dallas Green, the Phillies won the East Division, and the League Championship Series in a thrilling match with the Houston Astros. Shettsline returned to his position as the teams business manager. The stadium would be called Baker Bowl for the rest of its long life. The Phillies president fought back. When Claire passes away, the other partners will likely buy her shares. We wont get a new owner. Three years later, Giles was elevated to executive vice president. There was nothing bashful about Carpenter when it came to opening his checkbook. Thats when she took over his share. Giles left no stone unturned. Actually, that view was badly mistaken as the team had signed its first African-American, a player named Ted Washington of the Philadelphia Stars, in 1952. Much of this came before Ruly Carpenter shocked the baseball world by announcing during spring training in 1981 that he was putting his world championship team up for sale. In 1954, although he wasnt anxious to do so, Bob bought Connie Mack Stadium when the Athletics left for Kansas City. Meanwhile, Carpenter lavished huge sums on young players. The firm was started in 1977 and primarily invests in small businesses. The combination of these formed a perpetually bleak financial picture in which Nugent struggled valiantly to make ends meet. Want to get rid of David Montgomery? Before retiring, Reach sold his company to the rival Spalding firm. The team that year was made up mostly of veteran players including Schoolboy Rowe, Emil Verban, Johnny Wyrostek, and Skeeter Newsome, who had been picked up from other teams. The Americans had signed Phillies star Nap Lajoie, who had won the ALs first batting crown with what would be the highest average (.426) in AL history. He ripped Baker for his manner of conducting business. Soon the men opened a plant in North Philadelphia. Relief pitcher Jim Konstanty won the leagues Most Valuable Player Award as a relief pitcher. In 1868 he was named first-team All-American by the New York Clipper. His work with newspapers ultimately became the focus of his career. Reach died on January 14, 1928. Many have tried, and none have succeeded. And he handed Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter OMalley a signed blank check for Duke Snider and Gil Hodges. After Potter pulled out, the remaining Phillies stockholders sold the team to Charles Phelps Taft, a native of Cincinnati and a graduate of Yale University and Columbia University Law School, and Charles Murphy, who was part-owner of the Chicago Cubs, thanks to money Taft had loaned him to purchase controlling interest in the team. These actions helped to rebuild the Phillies into a contender. Ruly was 3 when his father took over the team. The Champions of Philadelphia The Greatest Eagles, Phillies, Sixers, and Flyers Teams (New York: Sports Publishing, 2016). The players didnt. At his funeral in New York, Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis praised Baker as a pillar of the baseball community. In reality, his policies were a bitter pill for Phillies fans to swallow. Chris Wheeler had joined the Phillies PR staff in 1971, then became a broadcaster in 1977, holding that post until 2013. Twelve fans were killed and 232 were hospitalized. Would Reach be interested in taking over a new team in Philadelphia? When the team was sold in 1981, the detail-oriented Montgomery was named executive vice president, a job in which he ran the daily business operation of the club. One of the best kept secrets in Philadelphia is the phantom group of people we loosely call the Phillies owners. The Phillies Encyclopedia (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 3rd edition, 2004). The new owner appeared almost immediately. But once a player showed more than average ability, he was gone. However, the team that Giles predicted would be the team of the 80s ended the decade with an overall record of 783-780-3, two pennants, and one World Series championship. We have to do things in the community.. Accordingly, a few months later, the team was expelled from the league. Because I needed the money, he admitted.4. No matter what he did, though, financial problems always seemed to intrude. He was a strong supporter of interleague games. Manuel, a Montgomery hire, would go on to become the winningest manager in Phillies history (780 wins between 2005 and 2013). He had to cut overhead expenses and at the same time satisfy the stars.. More than 80 lawsuits against Reach and Rogers, still the owners of the ballpark, followed, and although they, as was Potter, were eventually absolved of blame, the two eventually sold the ballpark to the incoming Taft family. He held daily conferences with manager Dooin on ways to improve the team. Murphy was a former newspaper reporter who had become one of baseballs first publicity chiefs, first with the New York Giants and then with the Cubs. The teasing and criticism from my teammates and classmates in college convinced me that I wanted to do something about the Phillies. Mae, who had served under Ruch as treasurer and assistant secretary of the club, was added to the board of directors and named a vice president, the first woman to hold a position that high in the National League. From 1919 through 1930, the Phillies finished in eighth place seven times and in seventh place twice. Here's why: When it comes to their baseball team, the owners are as. When the senior Carpenter died a year later, Bob was strictly on his own. In 1963 he joined the Phillies in the accounting department. He worked at a freight transportation company, then an outdoor advertising company. Wright was given a small number of shares in the team from Reachs friends holdings. Neither Harris nor the players were particularly thrilled by the intrusion. When he wasnt working, Reach played baseball, first on vacant lots and then with some of the local teams in the Brooklyn area. The highlight of Fogels tenure came in 1911 when the Phillies bought a young pitcher named Grover Cleveland Alexander from a minor-league team in Syracuse for $750. The Phillies moved out of Baker Bowl in midseason in 1938, shifting seven blocks away to Shibe Park, home of the Philadelphia Athletics, at 21st Street and Lehigh Avenue. As of 2018 he was still serving in that post. He appointed the team's first general manager, Herb Pennock, during his tenure. Lets put it this way: The original group bought the team in 1981 for $30 million. But his manufacturing company continued to crank out new baseballs, using a special winding machine that Reach invented. On November 23, 1943, the franchise was officially awarded to the Carpenters. The Gang of Six, as it came to be called, was often criticized in the press and by fans for some of the moves it made. Starting the job just six weeks before the opening of Veterans Stadium, Montgomery plunged immediately into the hectic business of putting fans in the stands. Later, he became the teams manager for the 1874 and 1875 seasons. Baker was so impressed with Nugents knowledge of baseball that he offered him a job as his assistant. I really want to win, he said. Montgomery had begun his career with the Phillies in 1971 when he came to the team in search of a job and was given a spot in the sales department as a seller of season and group tickets at a salary of $600 a month. Potter, a socialite and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, was also a stockbroker whose clients had mostly not achieved the social status to which he was accustomed. After returning home, Nugent worked as a purchasing agent for a fastenings firm. He admitted that things had not been right in the past, but that now they had swung the other way. In 2004 the Phillies made their exit from Veterans Stadium to the fancy new Citizens Bank Park, built on one of the Vets parking lots just down Pattison Avenue from the ballpark that the Phillies had called home since 1971. Simmons put on a dazzling show, nearly beating the Phillies. He left an estate valued at $1,017,868. He believed the Phillies had developed the players and that they should enjoy the fruits of their labor. And public-address announcer Dan Baker would start in 1972 and after 46 years was still at work in 2018, the second-longest PA stint in baseball history. While winning the World Series in 2008 took a ton of heat off the Phillies owners, fans renewed their hatred for the faceless, nameless individuals who we never see or hear when the club dealt Cliff Lee for the likely reason of saving $9 million bucks. He had been friendly with the Carpenters for many years, even to the point of taking Bob as a youngster on a road trip with him when he played for the New York Yankees. At a press conference, Cox declared, The Phillies will not want for an all-out show of energy, alertness and winning spirit. He also said, Whoever the manager is, there will never be an attempt on my part to interfere. The statement would sound hollow a few months later. He tried unsuccessfully to change the teams nickname from Phillies to Live Wires. One night in 1912 Fogel was drinking with some writer friends, and at one point said the National League pennant race was fixed. For years, the Phillies treated the luxury tax threshold as a salary cap, but last year, Dave Dombrowski finally convinced ownership to exceed that limit. That proved to be a brilliant move. Former big leaguer has been in front office for several years with Phillies", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Philadelphia_Phillies_owners_and_executives&oldid=1128771592, This page was last edited on 21 December 2022, at 22:35. Carpenter, a wealthy resident of Wilmington, Delaware, where he had married the sister of Pierre S. du Pont, and later became the president and part-owner of the mammoth E.I. The company also produced a huge assortment of other sporting goods, and for a number of decades it published the official American League Reach Baseball Guide. The job as president was given to former general manager Pat Gillick, who was given a small block of stock and served in an interim capacity until Andy MacPhail became president in mid-2015. Carpenter was always somewhat preoccupied with big, strapping pitchers who could throw hard. 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