A Dubious Record

Posted on Saturday July 14th, 2007 by Jim Lynch

It’s a sports record that’s sure to be broken sooner rather than later. No, not the home run record being chased by Barry Bonds.

In their defense, my Philadelphia Phillies are, “the oldest, continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional sports.” [source] So it’s not surprising that a team that has been playing for 124 years is approaching a rather dubious record — 10,000 losses. They put off the inevitable today.

The six-run cushion was enough for Hamels. Ryan Madson and Antonio Alfonseca finished up and delayed Philadelphia’s inevitable 10,000th loss for at least one more game. If they win the series finale, the Phillies could reach the mark on their seven-game West Coast trip.

Philadelphia would be the first professional sports team to lose 10,000 games.

On the other hand, it was their 8,810th win.

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5 Responses to A Dubious Record

  1. The Florida Masochist says:
    Sunday July 15th, 2007 at 7:37 am

    Jim,

    That continuous name claim is disputed. From the wikipedia entry on the Phillies-

    Carpenter’s first act was to try to change the team’s name to “Blue Jays.” However, “Phillies” continued to appear on the team’s jerseys. Students at Johns Hopkins University, whose teams have long been known as the Blue Jays, vehemently protested the change. They claimed that the Phillies’ attempt to use the name was an insult to their school, given the team’s reputation as a chronic loser. The experiment was dropped after only two seasons.

    For two years in the 40′s the team’s owner renamed the NL Philadelphia team.

    Only a hardcore baseball nut like me would even know that. LOL.

    Bill

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  2. Jim Lynch says:
    Sunday July 15th, 2007 at 7:48 am

    I only wish the 10,000 loses were in dispute as well!

    Thanks.

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  3. Pingback: The road to 10,000 » OTB Sports

  4. Pingback: The Florida Masochist » Blog Archive » The road to 10,000

  5. Jim Lynch says:
    Sunday July 15th, 2007 at 10:08 am

    After further research (Hey, you made me curious) I found that the name Blue Birds was never official.

    To stimulate interest in the club, Robert Carpenter conducted a contest to rename the club, and although it was never official, in the years 1944-45 the team was known as the Blue Jays.

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