Two New Books from Inter-Varsity Press on Paul, the Law, and Judaism

November is the month to which all biblical and theological scholars look forward with the greatest anticipation. It is the month of the annual convention of the Society of Biblical Literature—and, piggy-backing on it, the big gatherings of the Evangelical Theological Society and Institute for Biblical Research. And that means one thing: brand, spanking new books hot off the presses for perusal and purchase at the rows upon rows of tables set up by the various publishers. I have already written about this year's most anticipated new arrival, the massive, two-volume fourth installment of N. T. Wright's Christian Origins and the Question of God series, entitled Paul and the Faithfulness of God. My devouring of that work will have to wait until November. In the meantime, however, Inter-Varsity Press has done a good job whetting the appetite by publishing, in advance of the big conferences, two shorter volumes on the narrower subject of Paul, the Law, and Judaism: Preston Sprinkle's Paul and Judaism Revisited: A Study of Divine and Human Agency in Salvation, and Brian Rosner's Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God.

Preston Sprinkle
(image@patheos.com)

If there is one subject that has dominated Pauline studies, and at times New Testament studies as a discipline, over the past generation, it is that of Paul and the Law/Torah. This is due, of course, to E. P. Sanders's paradigm-busting 1977 tome, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, which immediately rendered obsolete, not only the Bultmannian and post-Bultmannian Pauls of the previous generations of German scholarship, but much "traditionalist" study of Paul as well, whether of the Lutheran or Reformed type. Exposing as he did the straw man Protestant scholars had erected of Judaism to be the foil for Paul, Sanders opened up what Jimmy Dunn referred to as the "New Perspective on Paul" now more than 30 years ago.

The "New Perspective" (or any of multiple variations of it that were proposed) never garnered unanimous assent, and it is now common to hear that we are now in a "post-New Perspective era" of Pauline scholarship. That may be, but that emphatically does not portend a triumphant return of the unreconstructed "Old Perpective," no matter how much many American confessionalist types might hope for such to happen. The New Perspective, it seems to me, simply has provided too many nonnegotiable insights that simply can't be jettisoned willy-nilly. But the last word has not been spoken on this subject, which is why these two fresh volumes are more than welcome.

Brian Rosner
(image@ridley.edu.au)

Both authors are well-suited to write on the subject. Sprinkle, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Eternity Bible College, Simi Valley, California, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Aberdeen under the direction of Simon Gathercole on the strength of a thesis later published as Law and Life: The Interpretation of Leviticus 18:5 in Early Judaism and in Paul (WUNT 2.241; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008). Rosner, an old friend of mine when we attended Dallas Seminary and Trinity Fellowship Church together back in the late 1980s, and now Principal of Ridley Melbourne Mission and Ministry College, has an extensive track record on the subject, dating back to his own brilliant Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, published as Paul, Scripture, and Ethics: A Study of 1 Corinthians 5-7 (AGAJU 22; Leiden: Brill, 1994). 

As the titles of their works indicate, their foci differ. Sprinkle takes aim at Sanders and his New Perspective allies and attempts to reexamine the Judaism of the Dead Sea Scrolls in particular to determine whether Sanders's broad-brush portrait of Judaism as "covenantal nomism" remains persuasive. The answer to that question has potentially serious implications for the study of Paul. 

Rosner, on the other hand, deals with the issue of "Paul and the Law" in more comprehensive fashion. Study of this subject has at times led to the conclusion that the problem is intractable because the apostle seems at times to talk out of both sides of his mouth. In perhaps his earliest letter, the Apostle tells the Galatians, "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that matters is a new creation!" (Gal 6:17, NET Bible). Yet he later writes to the Corinthians, "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Instead, keeping God's commandments is what counts" (1 Cor 7:19, NET Bible). Of course, Paul's opponents in Galatia could have retorted, "Isn't circumcision one of God's commandments?" Therein lies the puzzle. I have long believed that understanding these two texts provides the key to understanding the Apostle's multifarious teaching about the Law. I suspect Rosner agrees.

Over the next few weeks I hope to have the time and strength to read these works and discuss them briefly in this platform. Now on to reading them!

The Forty Greatest Philadelphia Phillies of All Time, Part 5: ##6-10

The 1993 National League Champion Phillies
(image@articles.philly.com)

Here are numbers 6-10 in my countdown of the greatest Phillies of all time. For previous posts in this series, see here, here, here, and here.


10. Bobby Abreu (RF, 1998-2006)

(image@articles.mcall.com)

Abreu's sweet stroke (image@philliesnation.com)

Bobby Abreu is the possessor of the sweetest swing of any Phillies player I have watched over the past half century. Yet, despite this and the formidable statistics he amassed over his 9 years in South Philly, Abreu remains a somewhat underappreciated player among the team's fans. The reason? The smooth and seemingly effortless way he played the game, Philadelphia fans being notoriously partial to gritty players who wear their emotions on their sleeves and the turf on their uniforms. From the time he was picked up from Houston after the 1997 season—a season in which he hit only .250 with 3 homers in 188 at bats—Abreu was touted as a sure bet with power potential. And he delivered immediately, hitting 17 homers and batting .312 in '98. Over the next 7 years, he scored more than 100 runs in 6 of them (the lone exception being 2003, when he scored a "mere" 99), hit 35+ doubles each year (leading the league with 50 in 2002), hit 20+ homers every year (topping out at 31 in 2001), drove in 100+ runs 4 times, walked 100+ times every year, stole 20+ bases every year (topping out at 40 in 2004), batted over .300 5 times (topping out at .335 in 1999), slugged over .500 5 times, and never failed to have an OPS under 126. He even won a Gold Glove in 2005. All told, for his Phillies career he hit .303 with an OBP of .416 (4th in team history) and slugging percentage of .513 (7th), with an OPS+ of 139 (10th). He hit 195 of his 287 career home runs in a Phillies uniform, and ranks 4th in OBP, 7th in slugging, 9th in runs scored (891), 8th in total bases (2491), 4th in doubles (348), 10th in RBIs (814), 2nd in walks (947), 7th in steals (254), and 6th in WAR for position players (47.0). In July of 2006 Abreu was basically given away to the Yankees by GM Pat Gillick before the team made an improbable, yet ultimately unsuccessful, run for the NL Wild Card spot. So he never experienced the glory years which were to follow. Still, good as he was, the nagging feeling remains—remember, I am a Philadelphian—that Abreu never quite reached the Cooperstown-level heights to which his natural talent should have led him. At the All Star break in 2005 (the last of his classic Phillies seasons), Abreu was on a pace to have his best season. Indeed, he rode the wave of a stellar May (11 HR, .396) to amass totals of 18 homers, 58 RBIs, 21 steals, and a .307 batting average heading into the break. And during the festivities he not only won the annual home run derby, he smashed the records previously held by Miguel Tejada to pieces. And Abreu was never the same. For the second half of '05, he hit only 6 homers and batted a pedestrian .260. The next season, before his trade to the Yanks he hit only 8 homers in 339 at bats, batting .277. Over the next 4 seasons with the Yankees and Angels, he would twice hit 20 homers (exactly) and drive in 100 runs 3 times. But never again would he bat .300, as his career averaged dropped to .292.


9. Chase Utley (2B, 2003-13)

image@castefootball.us)

(image@thebaseballpage.com)

Chase Utley is the very incarnation of the Philly-friendly athlete: hard-nosed, blue collar, and unafraid to sacrifice himself for the good of the team. He is also the very best player of the second "golden era" of Phillies history. As is unfortunately the latter-day Phillies' custom, Utley progressed slowly through the Phils' system after playing college ball at USC, finally getting called up at the age of 25 in May of 2004. That rookie season he flashed his potential by hitting 13 homers and batting .266 in 96 games. But it was the next 5 seasons in which he became one of baseball's biggest stars. In those 5 seasons he scored 553 runs (110.6/yr., leading the league with 131 in '06), had 875 hits (175/yr.), 196 doubles (39.2/yr.), 23 triples (4.6/yr.), 146 home runs (29.2/yr.), 507 RBIs (101.4/yr.), batted .301, and slugged .535. His OPS+ numbers ranged from 125-146, and his cumulative offensive WAR was 29.1. His defensive prowess, more a function of determination and hard work than inherent smoothness a la Joe Morgan, enabled him to post WARs between 7.2 and 9.0, with a formidable total of 39.5 for those years. His "anything for the team" mentality also manifested itself in a willingness to sacrifice his body both in the field and at the plate, where he led the NL 3 consecutive years in being hit by pitches. But this willingness to sacrifice ultimately took its toll. In the Phils' 2008 championship season, Utley had a monumental first half of the season, hitting 25 homers, driving in 69 runs, and batting .291. The second half of the season saw his average remain steady (.292), but his power dropped off dramatically (8 HR, 35 RBI). The following season he likewise started strong, hitting 20 homes, driving in 61 runs, and batting .313 before the All Star game. But a degenerative hip injury (which characteristically was kept from the public, who could sense something was amiss) caused his production in the second half to plummet to 11 HR, 32 RBI, and a .246 average. He perked up in a losing cause by ripping 5 homers in the World Series against the Yankees, but Utley would never be the same. Since that year he has never played a full season due to his bad knees. In 2013 he had something of a comeback season, hitting 18 home runs and batting .284, with an OPS+ of 125, but he is still a mere shell of what he was in his prime. For his career, he is a .287 batter with 217 home runs and a .498 slugging percentage: good numbers indeed, but not really indicative of his value to the great Phillies teams of the late 2000s. Is it enough for him to be elected to Cooperstown? Probably not, but only due to injuries, not his performance when healthy. As I have often stated, Utley is his generation's Don Mattingly.


8. Dick Allen (3B, LF, 1B, 1963-69, 75-76)

Allen holding his 40-ounce bat
(image@baseballhistory,podcast.com)

Allen's classic 1966 Topps card
(from the author's personal collection)

"Crash" Allen (note the helmet in the field) doodling on
the dirt at first base in Connie Mack Stadium, 1969
(image@dickallenhof.blogspot.com)

Dick ("Don't Call Me Richie") Allen is the single greatest hitter I ever saw in a Phillies uniform. His prodigious home runs are the thing of legend, though, having seen some of them in person, I can attest the stories are not apocryphal: 18 blasts over the roof of Connie Mack Stadium's left field grandstand, one of them, in 1965, an estimated 529-footer over the massive Coke sign in left-center; 6 blasts over the 65' high scoreboard in right-center (!), itself 405' away from. home plate. In an era populated by such famous home run hitters as Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Frank Robinson, only Mantle could match Allen's sheer power. But Allen was no one trick pony. His rookie season of 1964, my first year of following the team, was one for the ages: a league-leading 125 runs, 201 hits, 38 doubles, 13 triples, 29 home runs, 91 RBIs, .318 batting average, .557 slugging percentage, 162 OPS+, 8.8 offensive WAR (second only to Mays's 9.0). For his efforts he was awarded the NL Rookie of the Year award. In '65, though he was less spectacular, he certainly avoided the dreaded sophomore jinx, as he hit 20 homers, drove in 85 runs, batted .302, slugged .494, was fourth in the league with a 7.3 offensive WAR, and had an OPS+ of  145, a very fine number indeed, but one which would prove his lowest until he returned to Philly at the end of his career in 1975. In 1966 he had perhaps his finest season (unless one would prefer his MVP season for the White Sox in 1972), scoring 112 runs, hitting 40 homers, driving in 110 runs, batting .317, slugging a league-leading .632, with a league-topping 181 OPS+ and 8.3 offensive WAR. In Allen's first 6 seasons in Philly, he scored 585 runs (97.5/yr.), had 959 hits (159.8/yr.), 165 doubles (27.5/yr.), 59 triples (9.8/yr.), 177 homers (29.5/yr.), 542 RBIs (90.3/yr.), batted .300, and slugged .555. In those years his OPS+ numbers ranged from 145-181 and his cumulative offensive WAR was a staggering 41.5. Yet controversy followed him wherever he went. In '65 he was involved in a fight with teammate (and inveterate race-baiter) Frank Thomas, resulting in Thomas's release and the enduring hostility of Philly's largely racist white fan base. In '67, he almost ruined his career when he injured his hand supposedly attempting to push his car up the street in the rain at his home in the hilly Mt. Airy section of the city. Then in '69 he failed to make the team bus for a trip to Queens to play a doubleheader against the Mets. He had been to the track, feeding his love of horses and horse racing. That year he took to wearing his helmet in the field to guard against potential aerial assaults from the restless, hostile fans at Connie Mack. After the season he was dealt to the Cardinals, who dealt him the following season to the Dodgers, who dealt him the next year to the White Sox. It was in Chicago that Allen had his last three years of sustained success. When the Phils reacquired him in 1975, the fans' hostility toward him had waned, but so had his abilities. For his career, Allen smashed 351 home runs, drove in 1119 runs, batted .292, and slugged .534 (better than any eligible non-Hall-of-Famer before the steroid scandal of the '90s and '00s), with an OPS+ of 156 (tied with Willie Mays for 19th in baseball history, and better than any other Phillie). Yet he has been snubbed by the Hall of Fame. In part that may be due to his lack of staggering accumulated numbers. I suspect, however, it is due more to his troublemaking reputation Let me put it this way: If Tony Perez is in the Hall of Fame, Dick Allen belongs. If Orlando Cepeda is in the Hall of Fame, Dick Allen belongs. If Ron Santo is in the Hall of Fame, Dick Allen belongs (btw, I believe both Santo and Cepeda, but not Perez, truly belong).


7. Richie Ashburn (CF, 1948-59)

Ashburn's 1956 Topps card
(from the author's personal collection)

The master of bat control in action
(image@90feetofperfection.com)

Last month The Sporting News named Don Richard "Whitey" Ashburn the most beloved athlete ever to play for the Philadelphia Phillies. Such a decision was a no-brainer. No only did Ashburn excel on the field for 12 years for the team. After his retirement he immediately joined the team's broadcast crew as a wry color commentator, a post he held for 35 years until his untimely death, of a heart attack, in September 1997. As a player, Ashburn is best known as the best player on the Phils' 1950 "Whiz Kid" pennant-winning club. That season he batted .303, led the NL with 14 triples, and famously preserved the Phils' pennant by gunning down Brooklyn's Cal Abrams at the plate in the bottom of the 9th inning of the 154th and final regular season game on 1 October, allowing for Dick Sisler's 3-run homer in the top of the 10th to secure their victory.
But Whitey had many more good years to follow. He hit over .300 8 times in his 12 years with the team, leading the league twice (.338 in '55, .350 in '58, beating out rival Willie Mays by three points and Stan Musial by 13). He led the league in hits 3 times (including a career-high 221 in '51), triples twice, stolen bases once (32 in his rookie year of 1948), walks 3 times, and OBP 3 times (including a staggering .449 mark in '55). For his Phillies career, Ashburn hit .311 and walked more than twice as often as he struck out (946/455). Yet it was defensively that Ashburn really shone. Playing in Shibe Park's cavernous center field (447') behind such fly ball pitchers as Robin Roberts and Curt Simmons, Ashburn was able to utilize his lightning speed (he was reputed to be, along with Mickey Mantle, one of the two fastest runners in the Major Leagues) to lead the league's outfielders in putouts 9 times in the ten years between 1949 and 1958. In 5 of those seasons he even surpassed 500 putouts, including 1951, when he recorded 538, only 9 fewer than Taylor Douthit's 1928 Major League record of 547.

1963 Salada coin
(from author's personal collection)

1959 Topps Card (from author's personal collection)

One must remember that Ashburn played at the same time as Willie Mays in 6 of those seasons. Though he didn't have Mays's rifle arm or raw athleticism, the records seem to indicate that Ashburn was at least the equal of the consensus greatest all-time outfielder in range. After playing 2 years in Chicago for the Cubs and batting .306 for the hapless expansion Mets in 1962, Ashburn hung up his spikes and traded them for a microphone. It wouldn't be until 1995 that Ashburn was finally elected to the Hall of Fame, and I count it to be one of my most treasured memories to have been there in Cooperstown to hear him deliver his acceptance speech. Why did it take so long? The only answer I can come up with is that singles hitters are undervalued in comparison with power hitters. Ashburn's heyday was the 1950s, also the heyday of that triumvirate of power-hitting New York centerfielders named Mays, Mantle, and Snider. In that company it is quite easy to get overlooked. But at least the Veterans' Committee finally rectified the Hall's oversight while Whitey was still alive.

Ashburn in 1958
(image@dataomaha.com)

6. Billy Hamilton (OF, 1890-95)

(image@entertainment.
howstuffworks.com)

(image@phillysportshistory.com)

The diminutive (5'6", 165 lbs.) "Sliding" Billy Hamilton was the Rickey Henderson of his day. His 914 stolen bases still rank 3rd all-time behind Henderson's 1406 and Lou Brock's 938. But he managed to amass his total in a mere 14 years (compared to Henderson's 25 and Brock's 10). The Phillies, in their first season known by that name, acquired the fleet-footed "human rocket" from the Kansas City Cowboys of the American Association after he had hit .301 and stolen a league-leading 111 bases in 1889. And for the next 6 seasons Hamilton distinguished himself as one of the very greatest to ever play for the franchise. In those 6 years he led the NL in steals 4 times, 3 times surpassing the 100 mark. He never scored less than 110 runs, and led the circuit 3 times, including 1894, when he set a record (which still stands) of 198. He led the league in walks 3 times, batting twice, OBP 3 times, and OPS+ once. His cumulative batting average with the Phillies of .360 and OBP of .468 are the highest in team history, and his adjusted OPS+ of 154 is second to only Elmer Flick's 156. In his transcendent 1894 season, Hamilton not only scored 198 runs, he had a combined 353 hits and walks, batted .403, and had an outrageous OBP of .521. Alas, in 1896 the Phillies made the first of the multitude of bad trades that have flummoxed the team's fans, when they dealt Hamilton to the Boston Beaneaters for a washed-up third baseman called Billy Nash. Hamilton, who ended his career with a .344 batting average, was selected for the Hall of Fame by the Veterans' Committee in 1961.

The Forty Greatest Philadelphia Phillies of All Time, Part 4: ##11-20

The 1892 Phillies
(image@fromdeeprightfield.com)

Larry Bowa and Mike Schmidt celebrating
in the Phils' 1980 World Series Championship
parade on South Broad Street
(image@lancasteronline.com)

We are now starting to reach the upper strata of the Phillies' greatest players. Here are numbers 11-20 in my ongoing list. For previous posts in this series, see here, here, and here.



20. Elmer Flick (OF, 1898-1901)

(image@sportsencyclopedia.com)

Elmer Flick, a .313 career hitter and 1963 inductee (via the Veterans' Committee) of the Hall of Fame, is best known as a Cleveland Indian, for whom he played the last nine years of his career, leading the league in hitting in 1905, three consecutive years in triples (1905-07), and twice in stolen bases (1904, 1906). But he played his first 4 seasons for the Phillies at the Baker Bowl on Broad and Huntingdon in North Philly, where he replaced future Hall-of-Famer Sam Thompson in the cozy confines of the Bowl's right field. During those 4 seasons he hit a cumulative .338, scored 400 runs, drove in 377 (one more than he would do in his 9 seasons in Cleveland), and stole 119 bases. His best season was 1900, when he led the National League with 110 RBIs, and almost won the Triple Crown: he finished second to Honus Wagner with a .367 batting average and second to the Boston Beaneaters' (later the Braves) Herman Long with 11 home runs. He also scored 106 runs (tied for 6th), hit 32 doubles (tied for 3rd), 16 triples (tied for 4th), stole 35 bases (9th), had 200 hits (4th), and a slugging percentage of .545 (2nd). After another fine season in 1901 (.333, 112 runs, 88 RBI), Flick jumped to the Philadelphia Athletics in the upstart American League in 1902. When the Peensylvania Supreme Court ruled that he could not play for Connie Mack's A's, he was placed on the Indians, where he would play for the rest of his career.


19. Sherry Magee (LF, 1904-14)

Library of Congress Image of Magee in 1911
(image@notinhalloffame.com)

The hotheaded Sherry Magee is one of the great, unappreciated players in Major League history. In his 11 years for the Phils, Magee scored 898 runs (leading the league with 110 in 1910), had 1647 hits (leading the league with 171 in 1914), 337 doubles (leading the league with 39 in '14), 127 triples, 75 home runs (hitting 15 in both '11 and '15, good enough for 3rd in the NL both seasons), drove in 886 runs (leading the league with 85 in '07, 123 in '10, and 103 in '14), stole 387 bases, batted .299 (leading the league at .331 in '10), and slugged .447 (leading the league at .509 in '10 and .507 in '14). During his career in Philly, Magee had a 142 OPS+ and a cumulative WAR of 47.9, leading the NL in offensive WAR in both '11 and '14. After the 1914 season, the 6th place Phils traded Magee to the pennant-winning Braves. Unfortunately for Magee, the Phils won their first pennant in 1915 by 7 games over the Braves. A good case can be made that Magee has been unfairly overlooked for the Hall of Fame. On merit he is a marginal case. But what has probably sealed the Irishman's fate as an outsider was his assault of umpire Bill Finneran after he struck out in a game in July of 1911. For his fit of rage, Magee was fined $200 (!) and suspended for the remainder of the season.


18. Scott Rolen (3B, 1996-2002)

(image@metsmerizedonline.com)

Scott Rolen is one of my least-favorite Phillies stars of the last 50 years. He is also, in my opinion, the greatest-fielding third baseman I have ever seen not named Brooks Robinson, which one would not guess when looking at his hulking (6'4", 245 lbs.) frame for the first time. He was also a pretty fair slugger who hit 316 home runs, drove in 1287 runs, and batted .281 in his career despite debilitating back problems that likely cost him a plaque in Cooperstown. For the Phils he started off with a bang, winning the NL Rookie of the Year award in 1997 on the merits of his 21 homers, 92 RBIs, and .283 batting average. In '98, he avoided the dreaded sophomore slump by having his best year as a Phillie, smashing 31 homers, driving in 110 runs, batting .290, and winning his first Gold Glove. During the next three seasons he continued his exemplary play despite missing 95 games due to injuries, never failing to hit at least 25 home runs, batting .298 in 2000, and driving in 107 runs in 2001. But the front office's niggardly ways and apparent failure to prioritize winning rubbed Rolen the wrong way, and he became more sullen by the year, ultimately forcing the team to deal him at the next season's trading deadline to St. Louis, where he would have his best season (2004) and play on the 2006 Cardinals' World Series championship team. Rolen was right about the Phillies' front office stinginess. But he handled it poorly, both with the media and a lack of appreciation for the team's fans. And both are a shame.


17. Jim Bunning (SP, 1964-67, 70-71)

Bunning's classic 1964 Topps card
(from the author's personal collection)

(image@pittsburghsportsreport.com)

When the Phillies traded the power-hitting Don Demeter to Detroit before the 1964 season for Jim Bunning, the 32 year old Kentuckian was already a star, winning 118 games and making 5 All Star teams while with the Tigers. What they didn't know is that the 6'3" Bunning's best years were still ahead. Indeed, his first 4 years in Philly propelled him to his election to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans' Committee in 1996. From 1964-67 Bunning had a record of 74-46, pitched 1191.2 innings (leading the pitching-stacked NL in '67 with 302.1), and struck out 992 batters (leading the league with 253 in '67). He won 19 games three straight seasons ('64-'66), led the NL in shutouts in '66 and '67, and had steadily-declining ERAs of 2.63, 2.60, 2.41 (ERA+ of 150), and 2.29 (ERA+ of 149). After the '67 season the Phils, deeming the 36 year old Bunning a safe bet to decline, dealt him to the Pirates for Woodie Fryman and Don Money. For once the team made the right decision. In the "Year of the Pitcher" (1968), Bunning slipped to 4-14 with a 3.88 ERA (his 75 ERA+ that year shows how dreadful that seemingly decent ERA was in that era). In 1970 the Phils reacquired Bunning, though he struggled mightily for two years on dreadful teams, going a combined 15-27. Nonetheless, his second tour of duty in Philly allowed him to become the first pitcher since the venerable Cy Young to win 100+ games in both the National and American Leagues. In his six years for the Phillies, Bunning went 89-73 with a 2.93 ERA (122 ERA+). For his career he won 224 games, success he later parlayed into a long career in the US Senate.


16. Cy Williams (CF, 1918-30)

(image@lonecadaver.com)

(image@phoulballz.com)

The tall (6'2"), lanky (180 lbs.) Cy Williams was the National League's premier power hitter in the 1920s, three times leading the Senior Circuit in home runs (15 in '20, 41 in '23, and 30 in '27). His dead-pull hitting style perfectly fit the cozy dimensions of the Baker Bowl (280' down the right field line and only 300 to the right-center power alley; the "saving grace," if one is to be sought, may have been the 60' high tin wall emblazoned with a huge Lifebuoy ad ["The Phillies use Lifebuoy"]), which somewhat mitigated the results of the shift defenses pioneered against him. In his eight prime seasons for the Phils ('20-'27), Williams hit better than .300 six times (ironically, the two years he didn't were his two best home run seasons, '23 and '27). For his Phillies career (5077 at bats over 13 seasons), Williams hit 217 home runs, drove in 795 runs, and batted .308, with a slugging percentage of .500 and an OPS+ of 131.

15. Curt Schilling (SP, 1992-2000)

(image@philly.com)

(image@bleacherreport.com)

Curt Schilling, in my opinion, should be a sure-fire Hall of Famer, despite the outrageously low 39% of the vote he got this year in his first year of eligibility [the fact that the decidedly inferior Jack Morris received 68% of the vote gets my dander up and demonstrates the incompetence of many of the writers who do the voting]. Unfortunately, he is best known for his remarkable 2001-02 seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks and 2004 season with the Boston Red Sox, in each of which he won more than 20 games, finished 2nd in his league's Cy Young voting, and distinguished himself with memorable postseason performances. But that is a shame, for he won 101 of his career 216 victories (against only 147 losses) while playing for the Phillies. In his first year for the Phils (1992) he came out of nowhere to post a 14-11 record with a 2.35 ERA (150 ERA+) and an NL-leading 0.990 WHIP. The next year he went 16-7 for the pennant-winning Phils and pitched admirably in both postseason series, memorably shutting out the Toronto Blue Jays in game 5 of the World Series, which turned out to be all for naught because of Mitch Williams's bookending meltdowns in games 4 and 6. Schilling came into his own in 1997-99, in each of which he was named to the NL All Star team, winning 47 games and posted ERA+ marks of 134, 143, and 134. In '98 he led the NL with 15 complete games and 268.2 innings pitched. Even more significantly, he proved himself to be the league's premier power pitcher, striking out a league-leading 319 batters in '97 and 300 in '98. However, Schilling, like Scott Rolen, became increasingly frustrated by the team's apparent lack of commitment to winning, and so forced the trade to the Diamondbacks during the 2000 season. The rest is history. Schilling still ranks 6th in Phillies history with 101 wins, 7th in WHIP (1.120), 4th in strikeouts (1554), and 4th in WAR for pitchers (36.8).


14. Chuck Klein (RF, 1928-33, 36-39, 40-44)

(image@dickallenhofblogspot.com)

Philly's Two Great Sluggers of the early 1930s:
Klein (l) with the A's Jimmie Foxx
(image@theworldsbestever.com)

Chuck Klein was, if you will, Philadelphia's Ryan Howard 80 years before the Big Piece: a powerful left-handed slugger who terrorized the NL for 5 or so years while playing in a very homer-friendly ballpark, but who, for various reasons, slipped from peak performance at a fairly early age. But Klein was better, arguably far better than Howard. In his first 5 full seasons in North Philly Klein led the NL in runs scored 3 times, hits twice, doubles twice, home runs 4 times, RBIs twice, stolen bases (!) once, batting once, total bases 4 times, and slugging twice. The line from his 1930 season is simply staggering: 250 hits, 158 runs (led league), 59 doubles (led league), 40 homers, 170 RBIs, .386 batting average, .687 slugging percentage. He was great that year, as his 6.9 offensive WAR (3rd in NL) and 159 OPS+ attest. But that was the year in which Bill Terry hit .401 for the Giants, fireplug Hack Wilson of the Cubs hit 56 homers and drove in 191 runs, and the league batting average was .303. His best season was to come three years later, when he won the Triple Crown—Jimmie Foxx of the Philadelphia A's won the AL's Triple Crown that season, the only time the rare feat was accomplished in both leagues the same season—with 28 homers, 120 RBIs, and a .368 batting average (along with a league-leading 7.8 offensive WAR an 176 OPS+). Ironically, having won the NL MVP in 1932, he lost out to Giant hurler Carl Hubbell in '33. In classic Philadelphia fashion, however, Klein was traded after the season to the Cubs for Mark Koenig, Ted Kleinhans, and Harvey Henrick (have never heard of them? Don't feel bad. No one else has either). The only saving grace, if there was one, is that Klein's production, while still good, dropped significantly in Chicago. After a little more than two years in the Windy City, he was traded back to the Phillies, but apart from one memorable game, he was not the Chuck Klein of old. That one game occurred on 10 July 1936 at Pittsburgh's Forbes Field. Klein that day hit 4 home runs, the last one a shot in the top of the 10th inning to carry the Phils to a 9-6 victory over the Bucs. He is one of only 16 players in the history of the game to accomplish this feat. Nonetheless, for the season he hit only 20 homers and batted .309. The next season he raised his average to .325, but he only hit 15 homers and his slugging slipped to .495, never to return again to the .500 mark. Evaluating Klein is somewhat difficult because of where he played. Perhaps no one in baseball history was more helped by the park in which he played (apart from Mel Ott?). The Baker Bowl, with its 280' right field fence and 300' right-center power alley, was a generator of doubles and cheap homers, and Klein obliged. In each of his prime seasons, Klein's home records far surpassed what he did on the road, but his last two are particularly striking. In '32, he hit 29 homers and batted .423 at home, 9 homers and .266 on the road. In '33, he hit 20 homers and batted .467 (!) at home, 8 homers and .280 away. What would he have done had he played his career a few blocks away at Shibe Park? One will never know.  As it was, he hit 243 of his 300 lifetime home runs for the Phillies, batting .326 and slugging .553. Klein was finally inducted into the Hall of Fame after being voted in by the Veterans' Committee in 1980.


13. Nap Lajoie (2B, 1B, 1896-1900)

(image@bleacherreport.com)

(image@philadelphiatale.wordpress.com)

Napoleon Lajoie is best known as a Cleveland Indian because of the 13 seasons he played there (1902-14). But his first 6 seasons were played in Philadelphia, the first 5 for the Phillies. In his first full season (1897) he drove in 127 runs, batted .361, and led the league in slugging with a .569 mark. In '98 he slipped a little (.324, .461), but still led the league with 43 doubles and 127 RBIs. After two more great seasons in which he batted .378 and .337. Lajoie defected to Connie Mack's A's in the fledgling American League, where he promptly had what is arguably his greatest season in 1901, winning the Triple Crown with 14 homers, 125 RBIs, and a .426 batting average (he also led the league in runs [145], hits [232], doubles [48], slugging [.643], and OPS+ [198]). The next year, following a ruling by the Pa. Supreme Court that Lajoie's defection to the AL violated the NL's reserve clause, he was sent to Cleveland, where he would lead the Al in batting three more times. For his career Lajoie amassed 3243 hits and batted .338, but for the Phillies he hit .345. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1937, in only the second year of balloting, along with Tris Speaker and Cy Young.



12. Sam Thompson (RF, 1889-98)

(image@atlantabraves.mlb.com)

(image@baseball-fever.com)

Big Sam (6'2", 207 lbs.) was the Phillies' earliest batting star. When the team bought his services from the Detroit Wolverines prior to the 1889 season, he had already established himself as one of the game's top players, having led the NL in hits (203), triples (23), RBIs (166), batting (.372), total bases (308), and slugging (.565) in 1887. When he came to Philly he picked up where he left off, becoming the first player to hit 20 homers in a season, scoring 103 runs, driving in 111, and batting .296 in '89. Over the next 7 seasons, Thompson drove in at least 100 runs in 6 of them. He reached his peak in the 3 years beginning in 1893, when he was already 33 years of age. In '93 he led the league in hits (222) and doubles (37), hit 11 homers, drove in 126 runs, batted .370, and slugged .530, with an OPS+ of 151. In '94 he hit 13 homers, drove in a league-leading 147 runs, batted .415, slugged a league-leading .696, with an OPS+ of 182, also tops in the league. In '95 he led the NL with 18 home runs, 165 RBIs, and a .654 slugging percentage, while batting .392 with an OPS+ of 177. For his Phillies career, Thompson batted .334, scored 930 runs, drove in 963 runs, and slugged .509, with an OPS+ of 144. With 127 career homers for the Wolverines and Phillies, Thompson hit more than any other player before the beginning of the 20th century. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1974 by the Veterans' Committee.


11. Gavvy Cravath (RF, 1912-20)

(image@baseballrealitytour.com)

(image@baseball-fever.com)

Gavvy Cravath was the greatest slugger of baseball's dead ball era. His 119 career home runs were more than anyone else in the first two decades of the 20th century. And he did it despite not becoming a regular player until he was 31 years old in 1912, when the Phillies brought him up from Minneapolis and promptly placed him in right field. Despite hitting only 2 home runs in 333 at bats for 3 AL teams in 1908-09, he immediately showed unexpected pop in his bat, hitting 11 home runs and slugging .470 his first year in Philly. Over the next 7 years he paced the NL in homers 6 times, RBIs twice, OBP twice, total bases twice, slugging twice, and OPS+ 3 times. Cravath had his best season in 1913, when he led the NL in hits (179), home runs (19), RBIs (128), total bases (298), slugging (.568), and OPS+ (172), while batting a career-high .341. In the Phils' 1915 pennant-winning season, he was almost as good, leading the league in runs (89), homers (24), RBIs (115), walks (86), OBP (.393), total bases (266), slugging (.510), and OPS+ (170), while hitting .285. In his nine years in Philadelphia, Cravath hit 117 home runs, drove in 676 runs, batted .291, slugged .489, and amassed a staggering cumulative OPS+ of 152. One can only imagine the numbers he would have put up had he played a decade or two later.

Henry Gerecke, Chaplain to the Nazis at Nuremberg

Pastor Henry Gerecke
(image@stjohnchester.com)

Facebook, despite its time-consuming capability and other sundry irritants—"vaguebooking," Seinfeld-worthy excursions into the banal minutiae of our daily lives, bitching and moaning about the vicissitudes of our favorite sports teams (of which I, in particular, am too often guilty; I am, after all, from "Negadelphia")—nevertheless serves a useful purpose, both in staying connected to old friends and relations who live far away and also in exchanging information about which we otherwise would remain ignorant. Just this past weekend I had this latter experience, as my old friend David Brandt posted a link to a blog post at the Gospel Coalition entitled "From Hitler's Wolves to Christ's Lambs," the story of an obscure Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor from the American Midwest called Henry Gerecke, who served as the chaplain to 15 high-ranking Nazi War Criminals on trial for crimes against humanity at Nuremberg from 1945-46.

Joachim von Ribbentrop
(image@dailymail.co.uk)

Reading the post (as well as the chapter on Gerecke in Don Stephens's War and Grace) was a tear-inducing experience, both in reflection on the heinous crimes these men perpetrated and in grateful rumination on the matchless grace of God who in and because of Christ rescued some of these men and me from the eternal consequences we all have earned. Some of the names are familiar to anyone even mildly conversant with the history of the 20th century: Rudolf Hess, Hermann Goering, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop. That some remained hardened (Hess) or deeply cynical (Goering) is hardly surprising. What did surprise me (though it shouldn't have) was the apparently genuine repentance worked in some of these men by God's Spirit. Most striking of all was the case of Ribbentrop, who initially was coolly indifferent to the claims of Christ and to Gerecke's services, but who gradually showed unmistakable signs of repentance and was finally admitted to communion after the final plea at his trial. When on the gallows the American executioner asked if he had any final words to speak, Ribbentrop responded in a way I could not better: "I place all my confidence in the Lamb who made atonement for my sins. May God have mercy on my soul."

To many in today's Postmodern West such deathbed conversions are suspicious. To others the very notion of such conversions, whether genuine or not—especially if "genuine"—is scandalous. How is it "fair" that such men as Ribbentrop get to "go to heaven" when they performed such unspeakable acts during their lives? Such an objection, though perhaps understandable from the standpoint of the wisdom of this age, nonetheless fails to reckon with the real scandal here. As Chad Bird writes in his TGC post, "The scandal of Christianity is not that these men went to heaven; it is that God loved them so much that he was willing to die to get them there. Had it been a human decision, many would have thrown these men, guilty of such atrocities, into the flames of hell." 

The rejection of the Christian message as "scandalous" is nothing new, of course, as St. Paul knew all too well (1 Cor 1:18-25). But, at least in this context, such a rejection is based on a massive misunderstanding, to wit, that some people are more innately "worthy" of "salvation" than others, and that others are lost causes and forever debarred from "heaven" because of their empirically horrific moral resumé. Moreover, this misunderstanding fails to take into consideration some quite famous New Testament examples. Primary, of course, among these is the case of the Jewish revolutionary guerrilla who was crucified at Jesus' side on Golgotha (Luke 23). But the list would also have to include the Apostle Paul himself, who considered himself the "worst of sinners" (1 Tim 1:15) and one not worthy to be called an apostle (1 Cor 15:9) because he persecuted the church, attempting, as his admirer and co-worker Luke put it, to "destroy" it (Acts 8:3) and "breathing out murderous threats" against the disciples (Acts 9:1). But God, in his gracious sovereignty, called and regenerated him on the road to Damascus, and the Apostle never got over it. As he wrote to the Corinthian church he had founded, "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect" (1 Cor 15:10). And reflection on that grace led, as it must do, to praise: "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." (1 Tim 1:17).

What the West's cultured objectors fail to appreciate is the simple fact that one can never "earn" God's grace. And that means conversely that no one is ever debarred in principle from being its recipient. Grace, by definition, is favor bestowed where such largess is undeserved. But, as my dad taught me so well when I was an undergraduate, grace, in the Pauline sense, is more than "undeserved favor." It is favor extended where wrath is deserved. And it is the whole world that needs such grace, including those moralists who imagine they have no such need. And the New Testament is unanimous in its testimony that God is sovereign to bestow that grace (and the mercy which is simply God's grace viewed from a different angle) when and to whomever he wills, and—most importantly—on the basis of the shed blood of his Son alone. St. Paul, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and I, Jimmy McGahey, all are sinners whose salvation is based solely on external grounds, namely, on what God in Christ did for us on the cross of Calvary. All of us can say a hearty "Amen" to the words of the great Charles Wesley, who wrote these immortal words back in 1749:

We have no other argument,
We need no other plea;
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.

Soli Deo Gloria. 

Are Evangelicalism and Rigorous Scholarship Mutually Exclusive (Part 3)?

Over the past month I have intermittently (see here and here) raised the question as to whether or not "evangelicalism" and academic scholarship are compatible. My conclusion has been a qualified "yes." There are indeed quite significant pitfalls along the path, to which many would-be scholars have succumbed. However, if one manages to avoid the Scylla of rigid and doctrinaire confessionalism, on the one hand, and the Charybdis of a presupposed notion of the "necessary" entailments of biblical "inerrancy," on the other, it can, and demonstrably, has been accomplished. 

At issue, of course, is the role of presuppositions in academic study—necessary, to be sure, but problematic if they are allowed, a priori, and whether consciously or not, to delimit interpretive options or even to determine conclusions. It is here, of course, that evangelicals, with their notoriously conservative "bias," are often accused, sometimes legitimately, of failing to abide by the accepted standards of academic rigor. But that begs the question: Are non-evangelicals likewise guilty, more often than is publicly recognized and more often than they are likely to admit, of the same scholarly misconduct? 

To be sure, one rarely hears of such a possibility being seriously considered. It is "new" or "fresh" hypotheses, after all, that make academic careers and "radical" ones that catch the public eye. One thinks here of the late Robert Funk's infamous "Jesus Seminar," who democratically came to the conclusion that the real Jesus of history bore little resemblance to the church's "Christ of faith." Rather than claiming to be Israel's anticipated Messiah (let alone "Son of God"), Funk and company (inter alia, Dom Crossan and Burton Mack) painted a portrait of a wandering Cynic who spun ironic aphorisms about the lilies of the field, among other mundane things. For their efforts, the Seminar got what they wanted, viz., publicity, including feature spreads in Time and Newsweek, and instant credibility with a public tired of seemingly ossified and, it was widely thought, outdated Christian tradition. As a result, more "traditionalist" New Testament scholarship had to play on the defensive for a decade, never mind the fact that not only "conservatives" like N. T. Wright but non-evangelicals like Dale Allison and the agnostic Bart Ehrman demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Seminar's case had no leg on which to stand. But for many the Seminar represented "cutting edge" scholarship, never mind the fact that they prioritized their "fifth" Gospel, Thomas, for which there is no historical evidence prior to the second century, over the four canonical Gospels; never mind that they took an already hypothetical "document" ("Q," for which in some form there is somewhat compelling deductive evidence), posited a series of stages in its composition, and hypothesized various "Q communities" responsible for its message, none of whom supposedly were interested in Jesus' death and resurrection, and certainly not in any "saving" significance attached to them; and never mind the fact that Crossan invented a supposed "source" out of whole cloth, the so-called "Cross Gospel" (supposedly used as a source by the author of the late-2nd century pseudepigraphical Gospel of Peter), the secondary nature of which is obvious to all but the most inveterate lovers of fantasy. The point is an obvious one: the Jesus Seminar clearly failed to abide by the strictures of academic rigor, and yet became famous for it—one might even say because of that failure. Therein, it would seem, lies the temptation.

The situation is hardly different with regard to the letters of St. Paul. Back in 1985 I wrote my Master's thesis on the so-called "Christ hymn" of Colossians 1:15-20. One thing that struck me then, as it does still, was the reluctance of most scholars to attribute this remarkable text to the originality of Paul himself (assuming the apostle wrote Colossians, which is another matter to be discussed presently). Now, I am well aware that Paul more than once quoted confessional formulae that predated his ministry (or at least his letters). 1 Corinthians 15:3ff. comes to mind, as do shorter passages such as 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 and Romans 4:25. But the 20th century saw the development of a cottage industry of sorts concerning the detection of pre-Pauline formulae and the positing of the apostle's supposed redaction and, at times, correction of these formulae (Romans 3:24-26 is classic in this regard). My point is that the criteria for such judgments are rarely as definitive as the pronouncements made by Pauline scholars would suggest. In his magisterial Manchester Ph.D. thesis, Fuller Seminary Professor Seyoon Kim wrote:

We object ... to the application of wrong criteria in these searches and to the excessive zeal which leads critics to declare this or that passage non-Pauline all too lightly with little sound basis. The excessive zeal is perhaps only too natural in an atmosphere in which the dominant impression seems to be: the more Pauline passages one is able to declare pre-Pauline, the more critical (=the better) exegete one is ... There must be, in the language of v. Campenhausen ..., a Hercules who, taking heed to the plea of M. Hengel ('Christologie und neutestamentliche Christologie', NT und Geschichte, Cullmann FS (1972), pp.43ff.) and others, can burn off the formula-hungry (or pre-Pauline material hungry) Hydra of her ever increasing heads. Otherwise, before long Paul may be portrayed as nothing more than, to use another picture, the archetype of a modern salesman, who went about in the oecume selling the ready-made goods produced by the 'Hellenistic-Jewish' and 'Hellenistic' theologians in their factories back in Syria and was also engaged occasionally in take-over bids for the goods of his rivals (The Origin of Paul's Gospel [WUNT 2.4; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1981] 149-50 n.6 [emphasis mine]).

In today's Pauline scholarship it is generally believed that only seven (Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon) of the canonical thirteen letters that bear his name were actually written by Paul, the remaining six emanating in the later first century from a Pauline "school" of his followers. The reasons for such a judgment are complex, involving both linguistic and theological differences between those generally acknowledged and those that are disputed. Now the differences in both language/vocabulary and atmosphere between the major Paulines and the Pastorals (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus) are indeed striking and possibly significant, and I certainly don't condemn evangelicals like Howard Marshall (in his ICC volume) who hesitate to attribute them directly to the Apostle. Nevertheless, in the light of the widespread ancient use of amanuenses and the unique purpose and recipients of those letters, can one be so certain? The case is even thinner for the widely-challenged Ephesians, with regards to which F. F. Bruce hedged his bets when he referred to it as the "Quintessence of Paulinism." Yes, the differences are duly noted, but the difficulties for a Pauline attribution are far from insurmountable, as my late friend and mentor Harold Hoehner demonstrated quite impressively in his Ephesians commentary (Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002] 2-61). Hoehner, a year or so before his untimely death, told me he had written an article he one day hoped to publish entitled "Why Paul Didn't Write Galatians." Now, if there's one letter everybody these days acknowledges as Pauline, it is Galatians. But he argued, tongue-in-cheek, of course, using the same criteria often used to dispute the authenticity of Ephesians, that the Apostle didn't write Galatians either (see page 28 of his commentary for one argument along these lines; unfortunately he died before he could get the article published). The point, of course, is not to argue that Ephesians or the Pastorals must be Pauline because they bear his name (after all, they may not have been). It is rather that the criteria often used are not as definitive as they are often made out to be, and that the reluctance many scholars have to attributing them to Paul has less to do with "objective," rigorous scholarship than it does to acceptance in a guild in which skepticism is de rigeur and considered the mark of a "critical" scholar.

No one was more critical of the mindset of so-called "critical" New Testament scholars than the late Professor Martin Hengel of Tübingen, whom I consider to be the most learned scholar of my lifetime. Hengel was no "evangelical" in the Anglo-American sense—indeed, as a German, how could he be?—though he was a practicing Lutheran. Though "conservative" by the standards of the German academy, he certainly could be critical of Luke's historical accuracy at times and held to the standard attribution of only seven letters to Paul. Yet towards the end of his life he became increasingly vocal about the failures of German New Testament scholarship. Lately I have been rereading his stimulating Paul between Damascus and Antioch, co-authored with his student Anna Maria Schwemer (trans. John Bowden: London: SCM/Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), which is peppered with scathing comments such as the following: "The real danger in the interpretation of Acts (and the Gospels) is no longer an uncritical apologetic but the hypercritical ignorance and arrogance which—often combined with unbridled fantasy—has lost any understanding of living historical reality" (pp. 6-7). And the following: 

[Rainer Riesner's Die Frühzeit des Apostels Paulus] should become a standard work of Pauline scholarship; yet I fear that given the spreading inability within our unhappy 'New Testament scholarship' to study ancient sources and use them to argue historically, this learned work will not easily find recognition. In any case it is easier to keep hawking round scholastic clichés and old prejudices pseudo-critically and without closer examination, than to occupy oneself with the varied ancient sources which are often difficult to interpret and remote (p. 15).

Much more could be said, of course. This is certainly not to say that non-evangelicals are guilty of such scholarly malfeasance any more than evangelicals are. Indeed, I know firsthand that such is not the case. But it is to say that evangelical presuppositions are no more a barrier to first-rate scholarship than those that often lead more "liberal" scholars to their own proposals and conclusions. Everyone has presuppositions, and such presuppositions are decidedly not a nasty fact to be papered over, but a necessary factor that enables understanding in the first place. What matters is the nature of these presuppositions and the manner in which they are utilized to come to one's conclusions. When one encounters any bit of sensory data, one interprets that data within the storied worldview one presupposes. The question we must ask, however, is whether or not we are willing to allow that data to reconfigure the worldview we presuppose. It is that willingness that entitles a scholar to the label "critical." And, to bring the matter back to my evangelical readership: this is a willingness we must cultivate. Truth, after all, is more important than institutional or confessional affiliation.

Before I close there is one further matter that should be said. Integral to a responsible interpretation of an ancient author (or any author, for that matter), is a sympathetic respect for the author and empathy for his or her recipients in the situation they were facing historically. Here is one area where evangelicals should excel in comparison with their more "radical" colleagues who lack such sympathy. Believing the Bible to be the Word of God entails a respect for the author, both a willingness to listen to and learn from what he wrote and a predisposition to look for coherence in it (i.e., a tendency not to look for superficial "contradictions" between texts or authors and thereby drive a wedge between what they say via false disjunctions). But—this must unfortunately be repeated—such a presupposed belief in the Bible as God's Word does not mean that we must always interpret the text in ways we feel are plain and obvious. That is what scholarly historical and literary analysis are for.

The Forty Greatest Philadelphia Phillies of All Time, Part 3: ##21-30

The 1950 National League Champion "Whiz Kid" Phils at Shibe Park, 21st St. and W. Lehigh Ave., North Philadelphia
(image@eveningthescore.wordpress.com)

Here are numbers 21-30 in my list of the greatest players who ever played for the Philadelphia Phillies. For previous posts in this series, see here and here.

30. Jayson Werth (OF, 2007-10)

(image@newsday.com)

Jayson Werth left the Phillies somewhat acrimoniously via free agency after the 2010 season to sign with the then-lowly Washington Nationals. Needless to say, he is not the most popular player on the Nats with the South Philly faithful. But this is not a popularity contest. What Jayson Werth was was a great outfielder, an irreplaceable cog in the Phils' batting order protecting Ryan Howard and keeping opposing pitchers honest. Since he left the offense has never been the same. He came to the team in 2007 with little fanfare, having hit just .234 with 7 home runs in 2005 before a wrist injury ended that season and caused him to miss the entire 2006 campaign. In 2007 he flashed his potential, hitting .298 with 8 homers in just 255 at-bats. But it was the next three seasons that Werth finally came into his own and showed steady improvement. In 2008 he hit 24 homers in only 418 at-bats, stole 20 bases, batted .273, and slugged .498 before hitting .444 in the World Series against the Rays. In 2009 he upped his power production, slamming 36 homers, creating 161 runs (98 runs, 99 RBI), and, despite his .268 batting average, had a .373 OBP due to his 91 walks and slugged .506. In 9 postseason games, he hit 5 homers and drove in 10 runs as the team failed to make the World Series for the first time in three years. In 2010, he led the league with 46 doubles, hit 27 homers, produced 164 runs (106 runs, 85 RBI), batted .296 with a .388 OBP and .532 slugging percentage. And GM Ruben Amaro, Jr. just let him go, imagining that Ben Francisco could take over RF in his place ...

29. Darren Daulton (C, 1983, 85-97)

(image@astropix.com)

Dutch Daulton is unquestionably the greatest leader to have played for the Phillies in the past 50 years. He was the glue who kept the 1993 pennant winners in line and together throughout their unlikely run to the World Series. Early in his career Daulton showed little promise. From 2005-09 he never hit more than 8 homers or higher than .225. He had a good season in 1990 (12 HR, .268) before slipping back to .196 in '91. But his next three years were remarkable. In '92 he came out of nowhere to hit a career-high 27 home runs, bat .270, drive in a league-high 109 runs, and slug .524. In '93 he picked up where he left off, hitting 24 homers, driving in 105 runs, and slugging .482. Despite his .257 batting average, his 117 walks led him to a career-high .392 OBP. In 1994, a knee injury robbed Daulton of what was shaping up to be his best season. In just 67 games, he hit 15 home runs, drove in 56 runs, hit .300, and slugged .549. He would never be the same. But 1993 was enough to cement his reputation and place in any list of the Phillies' greatest players.


28. Garry Maddox (CF, 1975-86)

Maddox's 1980 Topps Card
(from the author's personal collection)

Maddox's nickname, "The Secretary of Defense," coined by columnist Bill Conlin, says all one needs to know. The winner of a Gold Glove in his first 8 seasons for the Phils ('75-'82), Maddox is by far the greatest fielding outfielder I have seen in a Phillies' uniform, patrolling Veterans Stadium's (relatively) vast acres with an equine grace that belied his speed and uncanny ability to get good jumps on balls hit in the allies. And in his early years after being acquired in 1975 from the Giants for my favorite Phillie, Willie Montanez, he could hit too. In 1976, the first of two consecutive 101-win seasons for the Phils, Maddox hit .330. The next year he hit .292 while upping his homer total to 14 and hitting 27 doubles and 10 triples. In each of his first 6 seasons with the club he stole between 22 and 33 bases, finishing his Phillies career with 189. His cumulative batting average in his 12 seasons in South Philly was .284. But it is his defense for which he will be remembered.









27. Del Ennis (LF, 1946-56)

(image@articles.philly.com)

Del Ennis was a hometown hero, a native of the Olney section of Philadelphia, who lived in the area till the day he died in 1996 at the age of 70. He was also a slugger of the utmost consistency. In his ten prime years (1948-57), all but the last with the Phils, Ennis hit 20+ home runs 9 times and drove in more than 100 runs 7 times. But his three best seasons were 1948-50. In '48, he hit 40 doubles, 30 homers, drove in 95 runs, batted .290, and slugged .525. In '49 he hit 39 doubles, 11 triples, 25 home runs, drove in 110 runs, batted .302, and once again slugged .525. In '50 he was the prime offensive force for the pennant-winning Whiz Kids, hitting 34 doubles, 8 triples, a career-high 31 home runs, a league-leading 126 RBIs, a career-high .311 batting average and .551 slugging percentage. For his efforts he finished 4th in the voting for the National League's MVP award. He ranks high in a number of career batting categories for the Phillies: 9th in runs (891), 5th in hits (1812), 7th in doubles (310), 10th in triples (65), 3rd in home runs (259), 3rd in RBIs (1124), 7th in runs created (1031), and 4th in total bases (3029) [he is also 1st in grounding into double plays, with 171, but we won't hold that against him]. For his Phillies career, he hit .286 and slugged .479, making up for his lumbering defensive presence in leftfield, for which he served as an anticipation for Greg Luzinski and Pat Burrell.


26. Chris Short (SP, 1959-72)

Short's classic 1967 Topps Card
(from the author's personal collection)

Short, ironically a towering 6'4'' lefty out of Milford, Delaware, was one of the best starting pitchers in the National League between 1964-68, until back problems rendered him a marginal player at best his final five seasons ('69-'73, when he sported a decidedly substandard 20-36 record). In his five peak seasons, Short went 83-45, won 20 games in 1966, and struck out 931 batters in 1259 innings. In the ill-fated 1964 season, Short had perhaps his finest season, going 17-9 with a microscopic 2.20 ERA (good enough for 3rd in the league behind Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, and better than Juan Marichal, Bob Gibson, and teammate Jim Bunning), striking out 181 batters in 220.2 innings. In 1965 he proved his success in '64 was no fluke, going 18-11 with a 2.82 ERA and striking out 237 batters in a career-high 297.1 innings. For his Phillies career he posted a 132-127 record with a good 3.38 ERA. He ranks fourth in wins (132), 4th in innings pitched (2253), 3rd in strikeouts (1585), 4th in shutouts (24), and 6th in WAR for pitchers (32.2) in Phillies history. Unfortunately, Short died young, suffering a ruptured aneurysm at the age of 50, and dying three years later in 1991 in Wilmington, Delaware, never having regained consciousness.








25. Lenny Dykstra (CF, 1989-96)

(image@astropix.com)

Dykstra watching one of his 2 homers in
 game 4 of the 1993 World Series
(image@nbcnewyork.com)

Lenny "Nails" Dykstra, in many respects, is a failed human being. But he was a great baseball player. In particular, he was a great big game baseball player, perhaps the greatest clutch hitter I have ever seen in my 50 years of following the game. When the Phils traded for the diminutive (5'10", 160 lbs.) Dykstra, I was overjoyed despite the fact that he had never hit more than 10 home runs or batted higher than .295 in his 4+ seasons with the Mets. I remembered his memorable 1986 postseason, when he hit .300 with 3 homers in 50 at-bats, including 2 in the Mets' victory over the Red Sox in the World Series. Little did I know that he would more than replicate his heroics for the Phillies 7 years later. In his first full season with the Phillies, Nails flirted with the .400 mark for much of the summer before cooling down and ending at "only" .325. He scored 106 runs and led the NL in both hits (192) and OBP (.418). The next two seasons he was limited to only 148 total games due to injuries both self-inflicted (smashing a car on the Main Line while drunk and breaking his collarbone) and in action (broken wrist via a HBP). Yet he hit .297 and .301 those two seasons. Nothing could have predicted his 1993 season, however, one of the greatest ever by a Phillies player. That year he led the league in at-bats (637), runs (143), hits (194), and walks (129). He also hit 44 doubles, 6 triples, a career-high 19 homers, batted .305, and had a career-high .420 OBP. For his efforts he came in second in the league's MVP balloting. But he saved his best, as usual, for the postseason. He batted .280 with 2 homers against the Braves in the NLCS, and .348 with 4 homers and 8 RBIs in the losing effort against the Blue Jays. The diminutive Dykstra never played a playoff series in which he failed to homer. For his career, he played in 32 postseason games, scoring 27 runs, hitting 10 home runs, driving in 19 runs, batting .321, and slugging .661. Unfortunately, injuries plagued Dykstra the remainder of his career, never playing more than 84 games in any of his final 3 seasons.


24. Johnny Callison (RF, 1960-69)

My 3 Favorite Players after the 1964 All-Star Game:
Willie Mays, Juan Marichal, and Johnny Callison
(image@nydailynews.com)

Callison watching his walk-off homer at Shea Stadium
in the 1964 All-Star Game
(image@nydailynews.com)

Callison, a smallish (5'10", 175 lbs.) power hitter out of Qualls, Oklahoma and Bakersfield, was the face of the Phillies in the 1960s. He came to the Phillies in 1960 in a trade with the Chicago White Sox. But it was in 1962 that the young (23) Callison hit his stride, and for the next 4 years was one of the premier players in the Senior Circuit. In those 4 years he scored 395 runs, hit 117 doubles, 47 triples (leading the league in '62 and '65), 112 home runs, and drove in 366 runs. His signature season was 1964, when he had 101 runs, 31 homers, 104 RBI, batted .274, and came in second behind Ken Boyer in the NL MVP voting only because of the team's historic collapse out of first place in the season's final two weeks. Callison was also a fine fielder, a master at playing Connie Mack Stadium's infamous corrugated "spite fence" in rightfield along 21st Street, and possessing a rifle arm (his assist totals in 1962-65 were 24, 26, 20, and 21). After 1965, despite his being only 27 years old, Callison's production mysteriously tailed off (despite his leading the league with 40 doubles in 1966). Upon further reflection, his declining statistics were probably largely due to the nature of the game during those years. Callison's OPS+ during his 4 peak seasons ranged from 125 to 140. From 1966 to 1969 they ranged from 109 to 120—a decline, to be sure, but not nearly as precipitous as it then appeared. Indeed, his 1968 season seemed like a disaster at the time (14 HR, .244). But his OPS+ was 120 that season, a mere 5 points below his classic 1964 campaign. That, of course, was the year of Bob Gibson's historic 1.12 ERA, a year in which only 5 players, none of them power hitters, hit .300, and only 3 batters (Willie McCovey, the Phils' Richie Allen, and Billy Williams) slugged .500 (Hank Aaron "only" slugged .498 and the 37-year old Willie Mays .488, coming in fourth and 5th, respectively). Nonetheless, after the season Callison was dealt to the Chicago Cubs, where he had his final productive season, hitting 19 homers in 1969. For his Phillies career, Callison hit 185 homers and batted .271. He ranks 8th among Phillies position players with a cumulative 39.5 WAR.


23. Ryan Howard (1B, 2004-13)

(image@thetrendingreport.com)

Ryan Howard, in his prime in the early part of his career, was one of the most feared sluggers in the game. after winning the NL's Rookie of the Year at the age of 25 in 2005 when he smashed 22 homers and hit .288 in just 88 games (making mockery of the Phils' longstanding practice of bringing players up from the minors only when they reach their mid-20s, the "Big Piece"—certainly not an ironic nickname for the hulking 6'4", 240 lb. slugger—had one of the greatest offensive seasons ever produced by a Phils' player in his first full year. In that 2006 season Howard won the NL's MVP award on the strength of his league-leading 58 home runs and 149 RBIs, while batting .313 and slugging .659, with an offensive WAR of 6.1. In each of the next 3 seasons Howard hit at least 45 homers (leading the league with 48 in 2008) and drove in at least 135 runs (leading the league with 146 in 2008 and 141 in 2009), though his batting average slipped to between .251 and .279, his strikeouts peaked at 199 in both 2007-8, and his walks steadily decreased from 108 in 2006 to 75 in 2009. Then came the 2009 World Series against the Yankees. After going 2-5 with 2 doubles in the game 1 victory, the Yanks shut Howard down, holding him to 2 hits in 18 at-bats the rest of the series, including 11 more strikeouts. The rest of the NL was watching, and Howard's production slipped considerably (even more than the general trend toward better pitching the past few years). In each of the next 2 years Howard hit more than 30 homers and drove in more than 100 runs, but his slugging percentage dropped to .488 by 2011. The reason? His steadily increasing inability to hit lefthanded pitching, particularly offspeed pitches (indeed, there are few things more pathetic in sports than Howard attempting to hit a southpaw's slider), which was exposed for all the world to see by the Yanks in 2009 (for a statistical evaluation, see my post here). Nowhere was his ineptitude made more evident than in his last two playoff series, both Phillies losses. In the 2010 NLCS against the Giants, Howard was superficially fine: a .318 average with 4 doubles. But he failed to drive in a run and struck out 12 times (surpassed only by his 13 Ks against the Yankees the previous year). Then, in the 2011 NLDS against the Cards, Howard went only 2-19, striking out 6 times in 5 games. And, of course, his season and probably his career went crashing when he tore his Achilles' tendon on the series' last play. Howard's fairly low ranking on this list may be somewhat surprising to those who know his HR and RBI titles, not to mention his second place rank on the Phils' career HR list (311). But his very poor defense and slowness of foot on the basepaths have to be taken into consideration, not to mention the highly offensive era in which he amassed his numbers. All told, his career WAR is a mere 18.8 (oWAR 23.1), less than half that of Johnny Callison and less even than the notoriously slow Greg Luzinski (19.1). As it stands, his number is only 0.4 more than that of John Kruk despite having 2017 more plate appearances than the Krukker. The lesson: superficial, decontextualized statistics can be very misleading.


22. Cole Hamels (SP, 2006-13)

(image@colehamels.tumblr.com)

Research has led me to a greater appreciation for Cole Hamels. Yes, he's not as good as either Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee in their prime. Nevertheless, he has been one of the NL's best starting pitchers since he posted a 15-5 record and 3.39 ERA (135 ERA+) for the 2007 division-winning Phillies. In 2008 he actually improved, going a misleading 14-10 with a 3.09 ERA (ERA+ a career-high 141) and a league-leading 1.082 WHIP. In 2012 he was one of the few bright spots on the team, going 17-6 with a 3.05 ERA, striking out a career-high 216 in only 215.1 innings. As I write, his career record is 99-74, with a 3.38 ERA (123 ERA+). The 3-time All Star has struck out 8.5 batters per 9 innings for his career with his deadly changeup, and his 33.4 WAR ranks 5th on the team's all-time list. He has a 7-4 lifetime record in the playoffs with a 3.09 ERA, winning the 2008 World eries MVP along the way.










21. Jimmy Rollins (SS, 2000-2013)

(image@arthurkade.com)

Jimmy Rollins, despite his frustrating qualities (failure to run out ground balls, reluctance to take bases on balls, swinging for the fences out of the lead-off position, etc.), is the greatest shortstop ever to play for the Phillies. He is a 4-time Gold Glover, was the 2000 NL Rookie of the Year, and the 2007 NL MVP. Six times he has scored more than 100 runs in a season, 5 times he has led the league in triples, four times hit more than 20 homers, a ten times stolen 30+ bases, leading the league with 46 in 2000. In his MVP season of 2007, "J-Roll" put it all together, scoring 139 runs, amassing 212 hits, with 38 doubles, 20 triples, and 30 homers, driving in 94 runs out of the lead-off spot, hitting .296, and slugging .531. As of this writing, Rollins ranks 3rd all-time among Phillies in runs scored (1245), 4th in hits (2170), 2nd in total bases (3436), 1st in doubles (455), 3rd in triples (107), 10th in home runs (199) 8th in RBIs (832), and 2nd in stolen bases (425). His offensive WAR of 38.3 ranks 9th in club history, whereas his defensive WAR of 12.7 ranks 5th, with only Larry Bowa bettering him as a shortstop.