Historical Trivia: Phillies Pinch Hitters — Late 1950’s
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Thinking back to when I first started following Baseball in 1958 back in Philadelphia, quite a few Phillies names stand out; Robin Roberts, Richie Ashburn, Wally Post, Stan Lopata to name a few.
But as bad as the Phillies were in the late 50’s, they seemed to have a knack of coming up with great pinch hitters. There are two which particularly come to mind from the late 50’s; Dave Philley and Gene Freese.
Dave Philley was journeyman player in the American League, signing with the Chicago White Sox, going to the then Philadelphia Athletics, to the Cleveland Indians, Baltimore Orioles until May, 1956 when he was traded back to the White Sox.
The Phils purchased Philley from the Detroit Tigers in December of 1957.
The Phils suffered through one of their run of terrible losing seasons in 1958, although there were personal highlights; Richie Ashburn’s last batting title; he won the title on the last day of the season beating out Willie Mays and finishing with a .350 average three percentage points ahead of Mays.
Also on the last day of the season, Dave Philley stepped in as a pinch hitter in the 7th inning of the game against Pittsburgh and doubled for his major league record 8th straight pinch hit; a double as the Phillies defeated the Pirates to close out the season.
As the 1959 season opened, Philley found himself pinch hitting in mid-April against Lew Burdette and the then Milwaukee Braves. Once again, Philley Doubled extending his major league record to 9 consecutive pinch hits.
Philley subsequently went to the Boston Red Sox and later was picked up in the expansion draft by the then Houston Colt 45s (later the Astros).
Dave Philley’s record of consecutive Pinch Hits holds to this very day although, in 1983 the Mets’ Rusty Staub tied Philley’s pinch hit record.
Gene Freese started his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, later going to the St. Louis Cardinals where he was traded Phillies at the end of the 1958 season in exchange for 2nd baseman Solly Hemus who would replace fired manager Fred Hutchinson and would be player/manager.
Freese compiled 23 home run, 70 rbi, .268 for the Phils in 1959. But what was truly remarkable is that between opening day and the end of May, Freese hit 5 pinch hit home runs, including a grand slam off of Don Newcombe as the Phils outslugged the Cincinnati Reds 14-9 on April 18.
On the 2nd of July, Freese hit his second Grand Slam, again against Cincinnati, this time off of Jim Brosnan. Seven days later, Freese got his 3rd Grand Slam as the Phils clobbered the St. Louis Cardinals 11-0. As a young baseball fan, I was incredulous. I couldn’t believe that Freese hit 3 grand slams in such a short period of time. It was like you expected something everytime Freese came to bat.
In December, 1959, the Phillies traded Freese to the Chicago White Sox straight up for Johnny Callison who was destined to play an important role for the Phillies, particularly in 1964 when they choked with a huge lead near the end of the season and lost the pennant on the final day to Bob Gibson and the St. Cardinals.
Although he was only with the Phils one season, Gene Freese was a deal that the Phils did right; both bringing him to Philly and trading him for Callison.
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