A Streak To Forget
A young team under second-year manager Gene Mauch struggled through a 47–107 season in 1961 that included a major-league record 23-game losing streak. The best news, twitter didn’t exist.
Simply put, there were a lot more lumps than nuggets. For you lump lovers, here’s a recap of that streak that began on July 29 and ended on August 20.
**34-year-old Robin Roberts started opening day against the Dodgers in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, his 12th opening day assignment. LA won, 6–2, before 50,655, largest crowd ever to see the Phillies play. The season would be Robbie’s last in a Phillies uniform. His 234th and final Phillies win came against San Francisco on June 5.
**On Friday night, July 28, 2B Bobby Malkmus’ seventh-inning solo home run gave the Phillies a 4–3 win over the Giants in the second game of a doubleheader at Connie Mack Stadium. It ended a five-game losing streak. Little did anyone know that victory would be the last for nearly one month. RHP John Buzhardt (3–10) was the winner.
**From July 29 until the second game of a doubleheader in Milwaukee’s County Stadium on August 20, the Phillies dropped 23 in a row. They were outscored 133–54.
**Following the first two losses, the Phillies did win a game, 9–1, over the Minnesota Twins at Connie Mack Stadium in the benefit game for the Junior Baseball Federation.
**Phillies starting pitchers were 0–22 during the streak; the bullpen, 0–1 (Jack Baldschun in game 20).
**Game #20 broke the modern National League record shared by Boston (1906) and Cincinnati (1914). The overall record of 24 straight losses is held by the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.
**The Chicago White Sox this season challenged the Phillies major league record with 21 consecutive losses. “The White Sox are on a roll!” said 86-year-old Art Mahaffey earlier this month. “That’s good for them. What they went through, what we went through, it’s really hard. It’s great that they won.” Mahaffey led the Phillies in wins (11–19). He had more complete games (12) than wins. His 2.7 WAR also led the club according to Baseball-Reference.com.
**Mauch used a different lineup every day. The players who started the most games:
C Clay Dalrymple (15)
1B Pancho Herrera (11)
2B George Williams (10)
SS Ruben Amaro (20)
3B Charlie Smith (17)
LF Johnny Callison (16)
CF Tony Gonzalez (16)
RF Wes Covington (10)
**The streak ended on August 20 when the Phillies scored four runs in the eighth inning for a 7–4 win over the Braves. Winning pitcher John Buzhardt (4–13) tossed a complete game nine-hitter on the final game of an 11-game road trip. Buzhardt’s squeeze bunt drove in the second of the four runs.
**A crowd of about 500 cheering fans with signs and confetti greeted the Phillies when at the Philadelphia International Airport when the team arrived from Milwaukee at 1 a.m. during a drenching rain, according to the Daily News archives.
“They are selling rocks for $1.50 a pail,” pitcher Frank Sullivan declared on the airplane, as reported in the next day’s Daily News. “Leave the plane at five-minute intervals. That way, they can’t get us all with one burst.”
Mauch was carried on the shoulders of fans (Inquirer photo).
Other 1961 Notes
**A Philadelphia Inquirer story on April 21 said, “Construction on a $10,000,000 sports stadium in Torresdale will soon start.”
**Mahaffey fanned a club-record 17 Cubs earlier in the season, a record that hasn’t been matched. An All-Star in July, his season ended on September 18 when he suffered a cerebral concussion and fracture of the skull as a base runner when hit by a throw by Cincinnati shortstop Eddie Kasko while completing a double play.
**Don Demeter was a defensive replacement for the Dodgers (vs. Phillies) in their season opener. The Phillies acquired him in a May 4 four-player trade. During the losing streak he started at first, third, center and right. On September 12 in LA, he hit three homers and drove in seven in the Phillies biggest offensive game, 19–10. Four times during the streak they were shutout.
**Oh, the losing pitcher that night was Sandy Koufax who was 2–3 against the Phils during his 18–13 season. Milwaukee was the only other team to beat him three times that year.
**100-loss seasons dominated the Phillies decades of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. The 1961 season was their last reaching century defeats.
**The 1962 Phillies set a franchise record for most wins over a previous season, 34. The 81–80 record began a streak of six consecutive winning seasons, a franchise record at the time.
