Philadelphia Baseball

Since Richie Ashburn's death last September, numerous tributes have been paid to the man who graced the Philadelphia baseball scene as a player and broadcaster for 50 years. Yesterday, the Phillies announced a lasting memorial to Whitey in South Philadelphia: Richie Ashburn Fields. Work is under way on two baseball fields in Franklin D. Roosevelt Park near Veterans Stadium. One will be regulation-sized and one will conform to Little League dimensions. Completion is scheduled for late July.

Spring training should have been under way by now. But baseball owners and players are still haggling over the kind of numbers that only an accountant could love. It's enough to make a fan long for a simpler time - the pre- skybox, pre-Phanavision, pre-Astroturf days when .220 hitters made less than the president. That kind of nostalgia is right up the archival alley of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, which will host an all-day seminar on Philadelphia baseball history on Saturday.

Philadelphia baseball fans could be getting their last up-close look at one of the game's all-time greats this week. The Cincinnati Reds hold an option on Ken Griffey Jr.'s contract for next season, but it's difficult to imagine them picking up his $16 million price tag. The Reds seem committed to integrating some of their nice young talent - we're seeing some of it this week in outfielder Jay Bruce - into the lineup, and Griffey, who will be...

They never used to cheer when Darren Daulton caught the baseball. Heck, they never even noticed. The guy used to catch about 30,000 baseballs a year - sometimes in your average Mitch Williams outing alone - and did he get any standing ovations back then? Not a one. But he trades in those shin guards for a real glove, and look what happens. Darren Daulton catches a baseball last night, and pandemonium breaks out. (Well, either that or an attack of hypothermia.) It was 7:11 p.m. on that always-emotional occasion, "True Value Opening Day," the first Phillies opener ever sponsored by a hardware store.

On the brink of a rare Phillies World Series, Vernon Murray, a retired minister in Langhorne, was reflecting yesterday on his long devotion to the team. "Maybe I can take a lot of punishment," mused Murray, 85, and a staunch fan since age 11. In his time, Murray, who grew up in Northeast Philadelphia and who was pastor at many churches across the region, has seen great players from Chuck Klein to Chase Utley and great disappointments, from 1950 to 1964 to 1977 to 1993. This is a man who knows Philadelphia baseball and stayed with it anyway.

Dick Allen forced Philadelphia baseball and its fans to come to terms with the racism that existed in this city in the '60s and '70s. He may not have done it with the self-discipline or tact of Jackie Robinson, but he exemplified the emerging independence of major league baseball players as well as growing black consciousness. While his unexcused absences, candid opinions and pre-game beer drinking earned him some of the harshest press in Philadelphia's sport history, his tape-measure home runs and exceptional speed gained for him the tremendous admiration of fellow players - both black and white.

I've finally got it figured out. All that's required for baseball success in Philadelphia is for the economy to tank. Think about it. Who was baseball's best team when the Great Depression got rolling in 1929, 1930 and 1931? The Philadelphia Athletics. Connie Mack's clubs won the World Series in 1929 and 1930, then lost to St. Louis in the '31 Series. Then came the late 1970s, when inflation ran rampant, when there were gas shortages and long lines at gas stations, when interest rates rose like CC Sabathia's postseason ERA. Well, the Phillies took division titles in 1976, 1977 and 1978, winning a franchise-best 101 games in each of those first two seasons.

AS COMMISSIONER Bud Selig and the Hall of Fame's 58 living members contemplate the reinstatement of Pete Rose this off-season, there is another former Phillies' first baseman who mustn't be forgotten by the reconstituted Veterans Committee when they cast their votes for baseball immortality. Richie Allen, the Phillies' first black superstar, is once again on the ballot. Allen forced Philadelphia baseball and its fans to come to terms with the racism that existed in this city in the 1960s.

Raymond E. Kelly, 74, the stocky, cigar-smoking sportswriter who covered Philadelphia baseball for more than three decades and in later years was fondly known as the dean of American baseball writers, died yesterday at Nazareth Hospital. He lived in Winchester Park in the city's Northeast section. During a career of 50 years with the Philadelphia Bulletin, Mr. Kelly rose from a 16-year-old copy boy in the sports department to a veteran reporter who covered the Philadelphia Athletics from 1948 until 1955 and then the Phillies for much of the time until his 1979 retirement.

DURING THESE DARK days for diehards, the five Kosoy cousins - native Philadelphians who have gathered at Phillies spring training in Clearwater, Fla., for 20 years - remind us why we love our Fightin's and the game of baseball: AVRUM'S LEGACY: "Our family gathered every Sunday at my grandfather Avrum Kosoy's house on Columbia Avenue in what was once left field of Columbia Park, where the Philadelphia A's played from 1901 to 1908 before moving...

  "Did I mention one of the ways a fringe pitcher can shorten his big-league career? Well, he can get his general manager arrested for disorderly conduct, which is what happened to Paul Owens after a 1981 cocktail-lounge altercation in Chicago . . . "After failing as an arbitrator during that stormy scene, I had to dash upstairs and write the story. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall make deadline. " - Bill Conlin   ON THE WAY to the 1988 Winter Olympics, the nation's sports editors arranged a splendid series of economical flights for us: Philadelphia to Chicago, Chicago to Spokane, Spokane to Calgary.

DURING THESE DARK days for diehards, the five Kosoy cousins - native Philadelphians who have gathered at Phillies spring training in Clearwater, Fla., for 20 years - remind us why we love our Fightin's and the game of baseball: AVRUM'S LEGACY: "Our family gathered every Sunday at my grandfather Avrum Kosoy's house on Columbia Avenue in what was once left field of Columbia Park, where the Philadelphia A's played from 1901 to 1908 before moving...

On the brink of a rare Phillies World Series, Vernon Murray, a retired minister in Langhorne, was reflecting yesterday on his long devotion to the team. "Maybe I can take a lot of punishment," mused Murray, 85, and a staunch fan since age 11. In his time, Murray, who grew up in Northeast Philadelphia and who was pastor at many churches across the region, has seen great players from Chuck Klein to Chase Utley and great disappointments, from 1950 to 1964 to 1977 to 1993. This is a man who knows Philadelphia baseball and stayed with it anyway.

I've finally got it figured out. All that's required for baseball success in Philadelphia is for the economy to tank. Think about it. Who was baseball's best team when the Great Depression got rolling in 1929, 1930 and 1931? The Philadelphia Athletics. Connie Mack's clubs won the World Series in 1929 and 1930, then lost to St. Louis in the '31 Series. Then came the late 1970s, when inflation ran rampant, when there were gas shortages and long lines at gas stations, when interest rates rose like CC Sabathia's postseason ERA. Well, the Phillies took division titles in 1976, 1977 and 1978, winning a franchise-best 101 games in each of those first two seasons.

Philadelphia baseball fans could be getting their last up-close look at one of the game's all-time greats this week. The Cincinnati Reds hold an option on Ken Griffey Jr.'s contract for next season, but it's difficult to imagine them picking up his $16 million price tag. The Reds seem committed to integrating some of their nice young talent - we're seeing some of it this week in outfielder Jay Bruce - into the lineup, and Griffey, who will be...

Baseball has been around since at least the 1840s, yet it's still a game largely reserved for men and boys. But a new area league plays with a twist. It's just for the girls. The Philadelphia Women's Baseball League, now in its second season, features three teams playing every Sunday during the summer. (On Saturdays there are exhibition games against local men's teams.) And while the players aren't professional, the action is still intense. There is no corporate sponsorship - players provide their own equipment and pay the field and umpires' fees - but the Phillies donate catching equipment, balls and bats.

AS COMMISSIONER Bud Selig and the Hall of Fame's 58 living members contemplate the reinstatement of Pete Rose this off-season, there is another former Phillies' first baseman who mustn't be forgotten by the reconstituted Veterans Committee when they cast their votes for baseball immortality. Richie Allen, the Phillies' first black superstar, is once again on the ballot. Allen forced Philadelphia baseball and its fans to come to terms with the racism that existed in this city in the 1960s.

Since Richie Ashburn's death last September, numerous tributes have been paid to the man who graced the Philadelphia baseball scene as a player and broadcaster for 50 years. Yesterday, the Phillies announced a lasting memorial to Whitey in South Philadelphia: Richie Ashburn Fields. Work is under way on two baseball fields in Franklin D. Roosevelt Park near Veterans Stadium. One will be regulation-sized and one will conform to Little League dimensions. Completion is scheduled for late July.

Bill Giles says he's on a mission: He wants a new baseball-only stadium for his Phillies. Mayor Rendell would like to see one, too, if the price is right for taxpayers, and Gov. Ridge has indicated some support. Many dream of a Camden Yards right here. Developers have even picked sites and sketched plans. But the enthusiasm has led to little real action - and quite a bit of criticism. So we asked readers: Does Philadelphia need a new baseball stadium? Where should it be built?

It is the team most of Philadelphia has long forgotten. But in their half-century here, the Philadelphia Athletics won more world championships than any other professional franchise in the city's history. Their five world titles are as many as the Flyers and Eagles combined; and more than the Phillies and Sixers put together, with a couple of championship rings to spare. The team of Mr. Mack, Double X, the $100,000 infield and the town's first stylish southpaw called Lefty is forgotten largely because it has been gone now for 43 seasons.