Don’t forget the other Philly champs
The Philadelphia area was the center of a wild celebration last week that was certainly one of the most memorable ever held here or anywhere else. The reason, of course, was the Eagles sensational victory in the Super Bowl.
It was one of the greatest games ever played in the 52-year history of the Super Bowl, one that was filled with special achievements that had never happened before. From a local standpoint, it was truly a sensational game with a spectacular outcome as the Birds captured their first championship in what is America’s most prodigious postseason game.
By beating the New England Patriots, a team that was seeking its third Super Bowl title in the last four years, the “underdogs,” as they were nicknamed, were immediately installed by their passionate followers and dozens in the media as the greatest team ever to perform in a Philadelphia uniform.
Not to take anything away from these magnificent Eagles and their remarkable season, but that description is subject to some debate. Let’s not forget that Philadelphia has been the home of many great teams, some of which have had incredibly memorable seasons that also put them among the top local champions.
Since the start of the 20th century, Philadelphia has now fielded 18 professional teams that have won major league championships. True, that number ranks just sixth among the American cities with pro teams in the top four sports that have won titles. New York is way ahead of everybody with 52 championships, followed by Boston with 35, Chicago with 24, Detroit with 22, and Los Angeles with 19.
Among our winners, were Eagles teams that captured championships in 1948, 1949, and 1960, and Phillies, Flyers, and 76ers teams that each had two title-winners. And to go way back, the Athletics had five World Series winners, and the Warriors won two crowns. All in this group were without a doubt exceptionally good teams that like the current Eagles played in what may be the most enthusiastic sports city in the nation.
Foremost among these pre-2018 teams are certainly the 1980 Phillies, a star-studded club that won the first World Series in the team’s 97-year history, and the 2008 Phils, one of the best and most popular teams ever to play in Philadelphia. Also holding a special place on this extraordinary list are the 1974 and 1975 Flyers, the city’s first and only Stanley Cup winners and the ones who
elevated the local interest in ice hockey to levels never before reached, despite the presence of 10 pro teams in the area before their arrival.
Philly titlists have been led by great players such as Steve Van Buren, Al Wistert, Norm VanBrocklin, Tommy McDonald, and Chuck Bednarik in football, Eddie Collins, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard in baseball, Bobby Clark, Bernie Parent, Bill Barber, and Joe Watson in ice hockey, and Joe Fulks, Paul Arizin, Neil Johnston, Wilt Chamberlain, Moses Malone, and Julius Erving in basketball.
Great coaches and managers, such as Connie Mack, Eddie Gottlieb, Greasy Neale, Buck Shaw, Fred Shero, Alex Hannum, Dallas Green, and Charlie Manuel, have led their teams to championships.
Unknown to many is the fact that the first local team to win an NFL championship was the Frankford Yellow Jackets in 1926. Originally a sandlot team formed by a men’s organization, the Yellow Jackets joined the NFL in 1924, then two years later, won 14 games, including 10 that were shutouts, to capture the league title. The Jackets were led by fullback Houston Stockton, whose grandson, John, was a star NBA player with the Utah Jazz.
In the early years, the Athletics won World Series in 1910,1911, 1913 with future Hall of Famers Collins, Frank Baker, Eddie Plank, and Chief Bender on those squads. With four more Hall of Famers, including Foxx, Grove, Mickey Cochrane, and Al Simmons garnishing the rosters, the A’s again won titles in 1929, and 1930.
The 1910 A’s, playing in Shibe Park one year after it opened, became the first American League team to win 100 or more games with 102 victories. The 1929 Athletics had one of the most memorable games in World Series history when they overcame an 8-0 lead by the Chicago Cubs with a 10-run seventh inning in what became a 10-8 victory.
The Warriors won their first title in 1947 in the first season of major league pro basketball (then called the National Basketball League) with ex-Marine Fulks, called “The Father
of the Jump Shot,” becoming the first player to win the league scoring title. They captured their second crown in 1956 in what had become the National Basketball Association with future Hall of Famers Arizin, a long-time Springfield resident, Johnston, a former Phillies minor league pitcher, and Tom Gola leading the charge. At the time, one of the greatest teams in NBA history, the Warriors walloped the Fort Wayne Pistons in five games.
The Eagles won their first championship in 1948 at Shibe Park in a blizzard before a frozen crowd of 28,864. Van Buren, who had to travel by public transportation from his home in Lansdowne to Broad Street and Lehigh Avenue, then walk seven blocks through blinding snow to the ballpark, arriving just one-half hour before gametime, scored the game’s only touchdown in a memorable 7-0 Eagles victory over the Chicago Cardinals.
The following year, the Eagles, with Van Buren, Tommy Thompson, and Pete Pihos again leading the pack, won, 14-0, in a driving rainstorm against the host Los Angeles Rams. Then, behind the standout play of stars such as VanBrocklin, McDonald, and Pete Retzlaff, they captured the title in 1960 with a 17-13 victory over the Green Bay Packers. With nine seconds left in the fourth quarter, Bednarik, the last of the great two-way players and also a member of the 1949 team, pulled off one of the most famous plays in NFL history when he tackled Jim Taylor on the Eagles nine-yard line, then sat on him as the clock ran out to end the game.
The 76ers won championships in 1967 and 1983. The enormously popular ’67 team, led by Chamberlain, one of the NBA’s alltime greats, Chet Walker, and Hal Greer, posted a 6813 record during the regular season, the best mark to that point in NBA history. Then they whipped the former Philadelphia, now San Francisco Warriors in six exciting games.
Sixteen seasons later, after reaching the finals in three of the previous five years, the ’83 Sixers, starring Erving and Malone, along with Mo Cheeks and Andrew Toney, blanked the Los Angeles Lakers, led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, in four games in one of the most stunning championship series of all time.
By then, the Flyers had also become a major part of Philadelphia’s championship landscape with their two Stanley Cup wins. Following Rick MacLeish’s goal in a 1-0 victory in the deciding game in 1974, the city held its first victory parade. An amazing crowd, said to be about two-million, lined the route as the team rode up Broad Street from the Spectrum to City Hall.
The Flyers, again featuring skaters such as Clarke, Parent, Barber, Ed Van Impe, and Dave Schultz, won again the following year with a spectacular 13-1 record during the final month of the season. They then beat the Buffalo Sabres in four of six games in the finals, and were feted in another memorable parade on Broad Street.
The hugely popular ’80 Phils, with Schmidt, Carlton, and Greg Luzinski leading the way, won the World Series with a four games to two victory over the Kansas City Royals. In a memorable finish, Tug McGraw struck out the final batter with the bases loaded to preserve the victory for the Phillies. In what has been called the largest of Philly sports parades, an estimated crowd of more than two-million celebrated the victory as the Phillies rode from the Art Museum to the old Municipal Stadium at the South Philly sports complex.
Twenty-eight years later, the Phillies won their second World Series in a sixgame set with the Tampa Bay Rays. Howard, Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Cole Hamels and Brad Lidge led the team to victory. Another memorable parade came down Broad Street from north of City Hall to Citizens Bank Park, with some two-million fans paying tribute to one of the city’s greatest teams of all time on a day that had never before been equaled.
As these teams and their ensuing celebrations all suggest, there have been some amazing success stories in Philadelphia sports, many of which have resulted in performances and produced memories that for those who were there will last forever.
These stories, of course, conspicuously demonstrate that in sports there is nothing as good as a team winning a championship. And in Philadelphia, everybody loves a winner. That is certainly true of the current Eagles, surely one of the great and most popular teams in Philly history. But they are not alone in fielding amazingly talented teams that have had incredible seasons.