The Main Event

  • July 10, 1972 – GM Paul Owens fires manager Frank Lucchesi, and takes over field duties himself. Lucchesi’s career record as manager was 316-399. Owens had five years of minor-league managerial experience.
  • July 10, 1984 – The Paul Owens managed National League squad beat the American League team 3-1 in the All-Star Game played in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. The three previous Phillies managers to manage All-star games also won.

Paul Owens holds a unique place in Philadelphia Phillies history. Nicknamed “the Pope,” Owens spent 48 years with the organization as a player, minor-league manager, scout, farm director, general manager, and — twice — the Phillies’ field manager. While his legacy is often defined by his front-office genius in building the 1980 World Series champions, his managerial career, both in the minors and in the big leagues, tells its own compelling story of a baseball lifer who never stopped learning the game from the inside out.

From Player to Player-Manager

Owens broke into professional baseball late, debuting in 1951 at age 27 with the Olean Oilers of the Class-D PONY League. A right-handed-hitting first baseman, he was surprisingly productive for a “washed-up” prospect, twice batting .407 and setting a league record with a 38-game hitting streak. By 1955, Owens had transitioned into a player-manager role with Olean, marking the true beginning of his managerial career.

His first season at the helm was rocky — Olean finished eighth with a 46-80 record. But when the club became a Phillies affiliate in 1956, things improved: Owens guided the team to a 65-58 mark and third place, advancing to the playoffs before losing in the finals. In 1957, in the renamed New York-Pennsylvania League, Olean went 52-65 and finished fifth. Owens then moved to the California League to manage the Bakersfield Bears in 1958 and 1959, capping five years of minor-league managerial seasoning before he stepped away from uniformed duty to become a scout in 1960.

Owens’ baseball instincts were better suited to development than day-to-day dugout work, and the Phillies recognized it. He was named farm system and scouting director in 1965, a role in which he would spend the next several years identifying and cultivating talent like Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa, Bob Boone, and Greg Luzinski. That work laid the foundation for everything that came next.

Taking Over in 1972

When Owens was promoted to general manager in June 1972, replacing John Quinn, the Phillies were a moribund last-place club. Five weeks into the job, on July 10, 1972, Owens made a bold move: he fired manager and friend Frank Lucchesi and took over the on-field duties himself. Lucchesi’s record as Phillies skipper stood at 316-399. Owens later explained the decision simply: “I had to find out for myself who wanted to play and who would play.”

He guided the last-place Phillies to a 33-47 record over the remainder of the season — hardly spectacular, but instructive. On November 7, 1972, Owens handed the managerial reins to Danny Ozark and returned full-time to the front office, where his aggressive trades and scouting eye would soon turn the Phillies into perennial contenders.

Back in the Dugout: The 1983 Pennant

Eleven years later, Owens again blurred the line between executive and field manager. On July 18, 1983, with the Phillies sitting at 43-42 and tied for first place, he fired manager Pat Corrales and took over the club himself. The move paid off in dramatic fashion: Owens’ Phillies went 47-30 down the stretch, clinched the National League East, and knocked off the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS to capture the franchise’s fourth pennant. The “Wheeze Kids,” as that veteran-laden roster was affectionately known, fell to the Baltimore Orioles in five games in the World Series.

That October, Owens signed a one-year contract to continue managing in 1984, relinquishing his general manager title in the process. The results were far less magical. The 1984 Phillies played .500 baseball, finishing 81-81 in fourth place, 15½ games behind the division-champion Chicago Cubs. Owens was relieved of his managing duties after the season but remained with the organization as a senior advisor and special scout until his death in 2003.

Across his three managerial stints — 1972, 1983, and 1984 — Owens compiled a big-league record of 161-158, a .505 winning percentage. It’s a modest number on paper, but it includes a pennant-winning half-season that ranks among the more memorable managerial performances in franchise history.

The 1984 All-Star Game and Phillies Managerial History

Fittingly, exactly twelve years to the day after firing Lucchesi, Owens returned to Candlestick Park on July 10, 1984, to manage the National League All-Star team — a reward for guiding the Phillies to the 1983 pennant. The NL beat the American League 3-1 that day.

Owens was the fourth Phillies manager to lead an All-Star squad, and all three before him had also won: Eddie Sawyer (1951, an 8-3 win at Briggs Stadium), Gene Mauch (1965, a 6-4 win at Metropolitan Stadium), and Dallas Green (1981, a 5-4 win at Municipal Stadium).

Since Owens, three more Phillies managers have taken the All-Star helm: Jim Fregosi (1994, an 8-7 win at Three Rivers Stadium), Charlie Manuel — twice, first in a 4-3 loss at Busch Stadium in 2009, then a 3-1 win at Angel Stadium in 2010 — and most recently Rob Thomson, who guided the NL to a 3-2 victory at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park in 2023, snapping an 11-year NL losing streak in the process.

That gives Phillies managers a combined 7-1 record in All-Star Game competition across eight games, with Manuel’s 2009 defeat standing as the only blemish. It’s a remarkable mark of success, and one that speaks to the quality of managerial talent the Phillies have sent to the Midsummer Classic — with Paul Owens squarely at the center of that streak.

Philadelphia Baseball Events for July 10

  • July 10, 1911 – Sherry Magee is called out on strikes on a high pitch, then is tossed from the game for throwing his bat. Magee then punches the umpire, and winds up getting a 36-day suspension and a $200 fine.
  • July 10, 1932 – Indians outfielder Johnny Burnett collects a record nine hits in 11 at-bats in an 18-inning game in which the A’s outscore the Tribe, 18-17. Jimmie Foxx hits three home runs, and has 16 total bases and eight RBI for the A’s. After Philadelphia starter Lew Krausse is knocked out in the first inning, Eddie Rommel is forced to hurl 17 innings in relief as manager/owner Connie Mack, trying to save train fare, has brought only two pitchers; Rommel gives up a record 29 hits.
  • July 10, 1936 – Phillies Hall of Famer Chuck Klein hit four home runs in a 10-inning, 9-6 win over the Pirates at Forbes Field, tying a major league record.
  • July 10, 1965 – Traded Frank Thomas to Houston for cash. Thomas was born in Pittsburgh and started his career with the Pirates, but played for the 1964 and 1965 Phillies. The first baseman/outfielder hit .282 in 74 games with the Phillies.
  • July 10, 1974 – Traded Billy Grabarkewitz to the Cubs for cash. Grabarkewitz had been acquired from the California Angels less than a year earlier and hit .240 in 59 games as a utility infielder with the Phillies.
  • July 10, 1979 – Mike Schmidt ties Dick Allen‘s team record by hitting a homer in his fifth consecutive game. Del Unser also homers, setting a major-league record by going deep in three consecutive pinch-hitting at bats. The Phillies beat San Diego 6-5.
  • July 10, 1979 – Sent utility infielder Jim Morrison to the White Sox to complete an earlier trade for Jack Kucek. The Phillies had drafted Morrison in the fifth round of the 1974 Draft.
  • July 10, 2006 – Ryan Howard won the All-Star home run derby at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, sending several balls into the Allegheny River.
  • July 10, 2009 – Lost catcher Chris Coste on waivers to Houston. Coste debuted with the Phillies in May of 2006 at the age of 33 and played four seasons in Philadelphia. He retired following the 2009 season.
  • July 10, 2010 – Cincinnati’s Travis Wood, making just his third major league start and opposing Roy Halladay, has a perfect game after eight innings, but Carlos Ruiz leads off the ninth with a double. He’s stranded and the game remains scoreless until the bottom of the 11th, when Jimmy Rollins drives in Ruiz for a 1-0 walk-off win over Cincinnati. It was the third night in a row that the Phillies won in walk-off fashion in extra innings, setting a team record.
  • July 10, 2011 – The Phillies outfield of Raul Ibanez (6) John Mayberry Jr. (4) and Domonic Brown (2) combine to drive in 12 runs in a 14-1 win over Atlanta. It was the most runs driven in by a Phillies outfield since 1923.

ICYMI

Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for July 10

  • Bob Allen (born 1867) – Played shortstop for the Phillies from 1890-1894, hitting .237 in 568 games with the Phillies.
  • Ad Liska (born 1906) – Pitched in 53 games for the 1932 and 1933 Phillies. Led the NL in games finished (26) in 1933.

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