The Main Event
- September 23, 2003 – An All-Vet team roster was announced ahead of the penultimate game at Veterans Stadium.
Veterans Stadium hosted Phillies baseball for 33 seasons, from 1971 through 2003, and when the team finally said goodbye to the concrete, multipurpose bowl in South Philadelphia, it did not let the moment pass quietly. The 2003 season was framed around a yearlong celebration called Field of Memories, built to honor everything the Vet had meant to the city. As part of that celebration, the Phillies put the question to the people who had actually filled the seats. Fans were asked to vote for an All-Vet Team, a roster made up of the best player at each position to ever call Veterans Stadium home. The results were unveiled shortly before the second-to-last game ever played there, just days ahead of the September 28, 2003 finale against the Atlanta Braves that closed the building for good.
Catcher and first base
Behind the plate, fans chose Darren Daulton, the gritty, injury-battered catcher who became the emotional center of the 1993 National League champions. Daulton spent parts of nine seasons at the Vet, made three All-Star teams, won a Silver Slugger in 1992 and led the National League in RBIs that same year with 109, all while playing through the knee problems that would eventually end his career behind the plate.
At first base, the winner was John Kruk, the self-deprecating slugger who once told a fan who questioned his fitness, “I ain’t an athlete, lady, I’m a baseball player.” Kruk played six seasons in Philadelphia, made three straight All-Star teams from 1991 through 1993, and hit .316 during that unforgettable 1993 pennant run. He and Daulton anchored the rowdy, mustachioed “Macho Row” clubhouse that remains one of the most beloved teams in franchise history, so it makes sense that both landed on the ballot’s winning list.
The infield: speed, grit and the franchise’s greatest player
Second base went to Juan Samuel, whose 1984 rookie season is still one of the most electric in club history. Samuel stole 72 bases that year, a rookie record at the time, tied for the league lead with 19 triples, and set the major league mark for at bats by a right-handed hitter in a season with 701. He made three All-Star teams across his career and gave the Vet some of its most exciting highlight-reel moments.
At shortstop, fans picked Larry Bowa, the fiery five-time All-Star and two-time Gold Glove winner who anchored the infield for the Phillies’ first World Series championship in 1980, batting .316 in that NLCS and .375 in the World Series itself. There is a fitting wrinkle to Bowa’s selection: he was the Phillies’ manager in 2003, meaning he was running the team from the dugout in the very season fans voted him onto the stadium’s all time roster.
Third base was never in doubt. Mike Schmidt spent his entire 18-year career with the Phillies, from 1972 to 1989, hitting 548 home runs, the most by any player who stayed with one club for his whole career. He won three National League MVP awards, ten Gold Gloves, made 12 All-Star teams, and was named MVP of the 1980 World Series after hitting two homers and driving in seven runs against Kansas City. Schmidt is generally regarded as the greatest player in franchise history, and no All-Vet ballot was going to end any other way at third.
The outfield
In left field, fans went with Greg Luzinski, known simply as “the Bull,” a four-time All-Star whose towering home runs were a signature of the Vet through the 1970s. Luzinski battled injuries in the 1980 regular season but delivered when it mattered most, hitting a go-ahead home run in the NLCS opener against Houston and putting together a stretch of thirteen consecutive league championship series games with a hit.
Center field belonged to Garry Maddox, whose defense inspired one of the most famous lines in Philadelphia sports history, credited in various tellings to broadcaster Ralph Kiner and to writers who used it even earlier: “Two-thirds of the Earth is covered by water, the other third is covered by Garry Maddox.” Maddox won eight consecutive Gold Gloves from 1975 to 1982 and drove in the pennant-winning run in the 1980 NLCS.
Right field went to Bobby Abreu, the most recent player on the ballot and a reminder that the Vet’s history did not end with the 1980 champions. Abreu played there from 1998 through 2003, made his first All-Star team in 2004, and became a 30-30 player twice over his Phillies career, showing that even the losing seasons of the Vet’s final years produced a genuine star.
The pitching staff and the manager
The left-handed rotation spot went to Steve Carlton, whose 1972 season stands as one of the greatest in baseball history: 27 wins, a 1.97 ERA and 310 strikeouts for a Phillies team that won only 59 games all year, meaning Lefty accounted for nearly half the club’s victories. Carlton won four Cy Young Awards in Philadelphia and anchored the 1980 championship rotation as well.
The right-handed spot belonged to Curt Schilling, the ace of the 1993 pennant winners, who threw a five-hit shutout in a must-win World Series game against Toronto and earned NLCS MVP honors that October. Schilling set the club’s single-season strikeout record with 319 in 1997 before asking out of Philadelphia in 2000.
Out of the bullpen came Tug McGraw, whose leaping, fist-pumping strikeout of Willie Wilson secured the 1980 World Series. McGraw’s selection carried extra weight given the timing. He made his final public appearance at the Vet’s closing ceremony that September, reenacting his famous final out one more time, and died of brain cancer the following January.
Running the whole operation, in an honorary sense, was Dallas Green, who managed the 1980 champions with a famously blunt, profane style that rubbed some of his own stars the wrong way but got results when October arrived. Green’s own Phillies career had come full circle by then. He had pitched for the club in the 1960s before his playing days ended, and by 2003 he was back in the organization, watching a roster of players he once managed get honored by the fans who never forgot them.
Philadelphia Baseball Events for September 23
- September 23, 1913 – The A’s officially clinched the American League pennant (having effectively secured it a day earlier) and celebrated with a 21-8 rout of the Detroit Tigers at Shibe Park, scoring 10 runs in the second inning alone. Nineteen-year-old Herb Pennock went the distance, and the famed “$100,000 infield” of Baker, Collins, Barry and McInnis combined for 12 hits. Philadelphia went on to beat the New York Giants in the World Series.
- September 23, 1916 – Pete Alexander pitched complete-game victories in both ends of a doubleheader against Cincinnati, winning 7-3 and 4-0 while allowing only one walk.
- September 23, 1924 – The Phillies lost to St. Louis 8-7, their 34th one-run loss of the season.
- September 23, 1930 – The Phillies dropped a 19-16 slugfest to the Cardinals, with the two teams combining for 42 hits.
- September 23, 1956 – Stan Lopata hit two home runs against New York, raising his season total to 32.
- September 23, 1965 – Jim Bunning struck out nine batters in an 11-5 win over Chicago, part of a season that finished with 268 strikeouts.
- September 23, 1983 – Steve Carlton earned his 300th career win, beating the Cardinals 6-2 to become the 16th pitcher in MLB history to reach the milestone.
- September 23, 1988 – GM Lee Thomas fired manager Lee Elia, whose tenure record stood at 111-142.
- September 23, 2005 – Jimmy Rollins extended his hitting streak to 28 games, a post-1900 franchise record, during an 11-10 win over the Cincinnati Reds. The streak reached 38 games before ending in April 2006, the eighth-longest in MLB history.
- September 23, 2011 – Traded Mike Zagurski to Arizona for a player to be named later or cash, and released pitcher Drew Naylor.
Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for September 23
- Johnny Mokan (born 1895) – Outfielder for the Phillies from 1923–1927; his best season came in 1926, when he hit .303 with career highs in RBI, hits, triples and games played.
- Pete Sivess (born 1913) – Right-handed pitcher who spent his entire three-year MLB career with the Phillies (1936–1938), compiling a 7-11 record.
- Marcelino Lopez (born 1943) – Cuban-born pitcher who signed with the Phillies at 16 and made his MLB debut with them in 1963, but was traded to the Angels the following year, where he later finished runner-up for AL Rookie of the Year.
- Jim Morrison (born 1952) – Infielder who made his MLB debut with the Phillies in 1977 and played for the club through 1978, before a 12-year career that took him to four more teams.
- Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez (born 1983) – Cuban defector who signed a three-year, $12 million contract with the Phillies in 2013; he made a brief MLB debut with the club in September 2014 before being released in 2016.
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