So it's hard today to imagine the team achieving anything so inglorious as the longest losing streak in post-1900 baseball.
But it did. Starting on July 29, 1961, when the San Francisco Giants defeated them, 4-3, the Phillies lost every game they played for three weeks.
Six of the losses were at Connie Mack Stadium, while 17 were on the road. Eleven were by two runs or fewer; the biggest were to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 10-2 and 13-4. They played 11 innings against the Milwaukee Braves before losing, 7-6.
Chris Short and Jim Owens were the losing pitchers four times each. Art Mahaffey, John Buzhardt, Frank Sullivan, and Don Ferrarese lost three apiece. Even the legendary Robin Roberts, then in his final year with the Phillies, lost one.
"It was awful," Mahaffey recalled recently. "We were all just crushed. Can you imagine losing 23 games in a row? That's just unbelievable. We played hard every time out, but we just couldn't win."
Gene Mauch was then in his second year as the Phillies' manager, on his way to becoming the winningest (and losingest) manager in Phils history (for now). The Little General had some good position players, including Johnny Callison, Tony Taylor, Tony Gonzalez, Don Demeter, and Ruben Amaro Sr. But the squad also included long-forgotten names - such as Pancho Herrera, Choo-Choo Coleman, and the Bahamas native Tony Curry - who ranged from mediocre to downright bad.
The streak finally ended on Aug. 20, in the second game of a doubleheader in Milwaukee. Buzhardt, who won only six games all season - including the last victory before the streak began - ended it with a 7-4 win over the Braves at County Stadium. He also snapped a 10-game Braves winning streak.
