The Main Event

  • Billy DeMars (born 1925) – Played 18 games as an infielder for the 1948 Athletics before later becoming the Phillies’ longtime hitting coach (1969-1981), mentoring Phillies hitters and helping the club win its first World Series title in 1980.

Billy DeMars appeared in only 80 major league games as a player, 18 of them for the 1948 Philadelphia Athletics. Judged purely on a stat line, he’d be a footnote. Judged on impact, he’s one of the most important behind the scenes figures in Phillies history as the hitting coach who helped build the only Phillies team of the 20th century to win a World Series, and a man Mike Schmidt once said he could talk about “for a whole day, a week” without running out of things to credit him for.

A Brooklyn Kid Signs for a Pair of Spikes

William Lester DeMars was born in Brooklyn on August 26, 1925, the son of a New York City fireman. A standout shortstop and basketball player at New Utrecht High School, he signed with his hometown Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943 at age 17. His signing bonus, as he told it decades later, was a pair of spikes — “They gave me the shoes because I didn’t have any of my own.” His fellow bonus baby that same day, Ralph Branca, got only a glove.

DeMars’ baseball career was interrupted almost immediately by World War II. He served two and a half years in the Navy as a radioman aboard a PBY Catalina flying boat, stationed at Jacksonville and Guantanamo Bay. While in the service he played baseball alongside future Hall of Famers Ted Williams and Charlie Gehringer on the Jacksonville Naval Air Station team — “Here I was, an 18-year-old kid, playing with guys who later made the Hall of Fame,” he recalled. It was also in the Navy that he met his wife, Katie, a machinist’s mate; they married the night they were discharged in 1946 and stayed married for 70 years.

A Brief Big-League Career with the Athletics and Browns

After two years back in the Dodgers’ system, where he was a teammate of Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe on one of organized baseball’s first integrated minor league clubs, DeMars was plucked away in the November 1947 Rule 5 draft by Connie Mack‘s Philadelphia Athletics. He made the Opening Day roster in 1948 and debuted on May 18 as a pinch-hitter in Cleveland, grounding out. With veteran Eddie Joost entrenched at shortstop, DeMars played sparingly and hit just .172 in 18 games before being optioned to the minors and later included as one of the “throw-ins” in a December 1949 trade that sent him to the St. Louis Browns.

He got a longer look with the Browns in 1950-51, hitting .247 and .245 across parts of two seasons, but a torn ankle ligament and a rookie named Tom Upton limited his opportunities. His final major league game came on September 28, 1951. DeMars then spent most of the 1950s as a well-regarded Triple-A infielder for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Buffalo Bisons, and Portland Beavers before a chance conversation after his release in 1958 nudged him toward managing.

DeMars managed 11 seasons in the Baltimore Orioles’ farm system, starting with a 1958 Aberdeen Pheasants team he inherited at 2-22. He developed a reputation as a stern but caring disciplinarian, who once said, “I get all the problem children.” DeMars managed one of the strangest games in baseball history, a 29-inning marathon his 1966 Miami Marlins won 5-4 over Sparky Anderson‘s St. Petersburg Cardinals, the longest game in organized baseball at the time. By 1968 he’d worked his way up to managing Triple-A Rochester.

Thirteen Years Shaping the Phillies’ Best Hitters

The Phillies hired DeMars as a coach in October 1968, and he held his job for 13 seasons — an unusual run, since incoming managers typically bring in their own staff. DeMars served under six different Phillies managers, including Bob Skinner, Frank Lucchesi, Danny Ozark, and Dallas Green, a testament to how much value each of them saw in him. Skinner, who hired him, wanted “another pair of eyes” on the bench; it was as hitting coach that DeMars made his name.

His signature project was Mike Schmidt, who called DeMars’ teaching almost intuitive: “He taught more by feel, if you know what that means. If you can’t feel it, then you can’t correct it. He made you feel a certain sense of contact; how it feels when your shoulder stays in and you cover the ball.” Fellow Phillies coach Dave Bristol put it more simply: “Look what he did for Schmidt. He evened him up, shortened his stroke and then Schmidty took off.”

DeMars spent weeks reworking Larry Bowa‘s entire approach at the plate, turning him from one of the easiest outs in baseball into a genuine contact hitter, and he once gave slugger Deron Johnson a simple tip about going the other way on outside pitches and Johnson responded by hitting three home runs in his next game against Montreal. Bob Boone, Greg Luzinski, and Pete Rose all leaned on his instruction as well.

Did He Help Any Pitchers? The Steve Rogers Story

DeMars’ legacy is overwhelmingly about hitting, but it did briefly cross into pitching as well. He was never a Phillies pitching coach, and none of Philadelphia’s staff aces from that era are typically linked to him. But there is one striking exception.

While moonlighting as a winter league manager in Caguas, Puerto Rico, in 1972-73, DeMars had a struggling young pitcher named Steve Rogers on his roster. Rather than let the team send him home, DeMars talked the owner into keeping Rogers around. Pitching under DeMars that winter, Rogers developed the slider that turned his career around, and he went on to become a five-time All-Star for the Montreal Expos. It’s a small footnote next to his work with hitters, but it’s a real one.

A World Championship and a Managerial Job That Never Came

The 1980 Phillies, with DeMars in the third-base coaching box and running batting practice, beat the Kansas City Royals in six games for the franchise’s first World Series title. It capped a run that also included NL East titles in 1976, 1977, and 1978. Ironically, DeMars’ skill may have cost him a chance to manage in the majors himself. As one Rochester sportswriter put it, DeMars believed he’d become “labeled as such a great hitting coach that nobody wanted me as the manager because they were afraid they’d lose me as hitting coach.”

Life After Philadelphia

After the Phillies were sold following the 1981 season and the coaching staff was let go, DeMars worked hitting coach jobs with the Montreal Expos (1982-84), helping develop Tim Wallach and Gary Carter, and then the Cincinnati Reds (1985-87) under old friend Pete Rose. When Rose collected his 4,000th career hit, he handed the ball to DeMars on the spot; when he broke Ty Cobb‘s singles record, he gave DeMars the bat.

DeMars’ most stubborn reclamation project in Cincinnati was a talented but resistant young outfielder named Eric Davis, who eventually came to him and asked for help. DeMars resigned after the 1987 season rather than share hitting-coach duties, following a public dispute with famously frugal owner Marge Schott over an $105 physical exam bill.

Final Years

DeMars retired from the dugout after cancer surgery in early 1988, moved to Clearwater, Florida, and continued working informally with young Phillies hitters at spring training into the 1990s and as late as 2001. He died on December 10, 2020, at age 95 — at the time, the oldest living member of both the Philadelphia Athletics and the 1980 World Series champion Phillies. His wife, Katie, who died in 2017, was recognized at her death as the oldest living female U.S. Navy veteran of World War II.

Philadelphia Baseball Events for August 26

  • August 26, 1916 – Bullet Joe Bush pitched a no-hitter for the Philadelphia Athletics, beating the Cleveland Indians 5-0 at Shibe Park.
  • August 26, 1921 – Manager Kaiser Wilhelm made his final playing appearance, pitching at age 45 in a 7-2 loss.
  • August 26, 1979 – The Phillies signed minor league free agent Jeff Stone.
  • August 26, 1988 – Ron Jones flied out in his first career at-bat, then homered in his second.
  • August 26, 2005 – Bobby Abreu hit his third grand slam of the year, the sixth of his career, in an 11-3 win over Arizona.
  • August 26, 2008 – The Phillies beat the Mets 8-7 in 13 innings; Chris Coste, who entered in the eighth, went 4-for-4 and drove in the winning run.
  • August 26, 2022 – Bryce Harper returned from a 52-game absence due to a broken thumb and drove in two runs as the Phillies beat Pittsburgh 7-4.
  • August 26, 2023 – The Phillies hit three home runs in a 12-1 win over St. Louis, pushing their monthly total to 48 and breaking the franchise record of 46 set in September 2019.
  • August 26, 2024 – Bryce Harper lined a walk-off RBI single in the 10th inning off Josh Hader to beat the Astros 3-2.

ICYMI

Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for August 26

  • Chick Fraser (born 1873) – A workhorse right-hander who pitched for the Phillies in 1899-1900 and again in 1902-1904, sandwiched around a season with the crosstown Athletics.
  • Chick Fraser (born 1873) – Jumped from the Phillies to the brand-new Philadelphia Athletics for their inaugural 1901 season, leading the club with 22 wins and 331 innings as the franchise’s first 20-game winner.
  • Axel Lindstrom (born 1895) – His entire major league career was a single relief appearance for the 1916 Athletics, throwing 4 scoreless innings and picking up a save.
  • Alex Kellner (born 1924) – A workhorse right-hander who anchored the Athletics’ rotation from 1948-1954, making the 1949 All-Star team and finishing runner-up for AL Rookie of the Year that season, before the franchise moved to Kansas City.
  • Fred Wenz (born 1941) – A hard-throwing reliever who closed out his three-year career with the Phillies in 1970, going 3-0 in 31 appearances before retiring rather than take a pay cut.
  • Jeff Parrett (born 1961) – A journeyman reliever who pitched for the Phillies in 1989-90 and again in 1996, part of an 11-year career split among six teams.
  • Ricky Bottalico (born 1969) – The Phillies’ closer in the mid-1990s, he made the 1996 NL All-Star team as the host team’s lone representative and posted back-to-back 34-save seasons in 1996-97.
  • Geoff Geary (born 1976) – A right-handed reliever for the Phillies from 2003-2007 who helped set up the bullpen as the team rose toward postseason contention.
  • Jayson Nix (born 1982) – A veteran utility infielder who joined the Phillies in a March 2014 trade with Tampa Bay, playing briefly before being outrighted to the minors that May.
  • Kyle Kendrick (born 1984) – A durable starter for the Phillies from 2007-2014, he was the club’s steady fourth starter behind Halladay, Lee, and Hamels and won a ring with the 2008 World Series champions.
  • Maikel Franco (born 1992) – The Phillies’ primary third baseman from 2014-2019, he won NL Rookie of the Month in June 2015 while emerging as a middle-of-the-order power threat.
  • Ranger Suarez (born 1995) – A Phillies starter from 2018-2025, he made his first All-Star team in 2024 after winning his first nine decisions of that season.

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