Friday night the Phillies welcomed the 30th player into their Wall of Fame when Juan Samuel joined the likes of Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton and Tony Taylor in having his likelihood enshrined in Citizen Bank Park’s centerfield. The success of the night has caused the team to rethink their previous initiative of honoring great Phillies players and instead intend on canonizing mediocre to poor players starting with Steve Jeltz in 2009.
John Brazer, publicity director for the Phillies, said the team was shocked by the public support given to Samuel on Friday night and said the decision to honor Jeltz stems from what he called Philadelphia’s “love of losers.”
“If you had told me a year ago that almost 44,000 people would show up to honor Juan Samuel I would have told you you were nuts,” said Brazer. “But that’s what happened. And you can say it was because it was a Friday night, or because the team’s in first place, but the truth is 44,000 people came out to honor a mediocre second baseman and we feel they’ll come out to support Steve Jeltz, who quite frankly was a pretty bad shortstop.”
While players with the pedigree of Jeltz and Samuel would be out of place on many teams’ Walls of Fame, it seems appropriate for the Phillies who have already honored Tony Taylor, a career .261 hitter, and Willie “Puddin’ Head” Jones who hit 180 home runs in 12 seasons with the Phils. With that in mind, and following the success of Juan Samuel night, the Phillies have their honorees picked for the next few years. According to Brazer, here are the upcoming players selected to the Wall of Fame:
- 2009 Steve Jeltz – Jeltz holds the records for most games played, at bats, runs, hits, doubles, triples, runs batted in, walks and strikeouts … for players born in France.
- 2010 Bruce Ruffin – Ruffin was a second round draft pick for the Phillies in 1985 and finished seventh in 1986’s Rookie of the Year voting. He was also 42-58 with a 4.02 ERA in six seasons with the Phillies.
- 2011 Kevin Stocker – Stocker’s first game for the Phillies was the infamous 20-inning game against the Dodgers in 1993. He finished with a career .261 average with the Phillies and was traded for Bobby Abreu in 1998.
- 2012 Charlie “I’m not Von” Hayes – In two stints with the Phillies, Hayes batted .256 and committed 71 errors. In a defining moment in 1990, Hayes broke up Phillies’ teammate Terry Mulholland’s perfect game against the Giants with a throwing error.
- 2013 Wes Chamberlain – At 6′2″ 210lbs Chamberlain looked to be the next great home run hitter for the Phillies. In parts of five years with the team he batted .260 and belted 38 home runs.
2 Comments
August 12, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Me gusta el béisbol.
August 16, 2008 at 7:02 pm
What can you say this is the Phillies, I think we should honor a whole team of awful players. I’ll start the suggestions.
C- Lance Parrish- Truly awful as Phillie. He’s the prototype free agent an all-star somewhere else and a stone cold nightmare here.
1B- Travis Lee- This is a tough one there are so many bad firstbasemen over the years. Travis Lee beat out the likes of Ricky Jordan and Rico Brogna shearly due to the absolute lack of effort the Lee Provided during his Philly tenure.
2B-Marlon Anderson- Someone forgot to tell the Phillies that a 2B is supposed to be a good defensive player. Not only did Marlon not field well, he went to the Pedro Feliz school of taking pitches when he first came up. He’s typical of a hot shot Phillies prospect. All fizzle and no steak.
3B- David Bell- This was a tough one because this is one position that the Phillies have been good at over the years. David Bell was great because a stiff wind could have knocked him over and when that would happen he probably would go on the DL with a bad back. Great sign.
SS-Juan Bell- No relation to David Bell, but they both had the same right around .200 batting average. That would be a good year for Juan, Steve Jeltz would have made this list, but he actually hit homeruns from both sides of the plate in Montreal. Juan Bell never did anything productive, he was truly the worst.
OF-Greg Jefferies- What more can you say he stinks. This is what you get when you sign a Met. Thank God the Phillies gave him a ton of money.
OF-Wendell Magee Jr.- A poor man’s Marlon Byrd, and that is saying something. This guy actually was the team’s leadoff hitter to start a season. He would be better off playing a baseball player in the next major league movie.
OF-Sil Campusano- There’s a reason why you can get players in a rule 5 draft, they stink! Sil was no exception. He was really truly awful.
RP-LHP-Wally Ritchie-The highlight of his career was getting spiked by Otis Nixon after he hit him with a pitch, which spared a bench clearing brawl. We all know he didn’t mean it because putting the ball where he wanted to wasn’t part of his game.
RP-RHP-Marvin Freeman-Awful on so many levels. Terrible starter turned terrible reliever. The most significant part of his Phillie career was he was traded for Joe Boever the Saver, which is a pretty cool nickname.
CP-Jose Mesa-Was this even a doubt. He stinks with the red glove, or the blue glove. In true Phillie fashion this stiff was brought back after his first stint with the club. There was no lead that he couldn’t fritter away. Thankfully he was put in those crucial situations so we all know we could turn the TV off and go to bed.
SP-Bruce Ruffin, Pat Combs, Adam Eaton, Andy Ashby, Charles Hudson.- As a starting staff this is as bad as it gets. This was the toughest position to fill because of all the truly qualified candidates to fill these position. These five truly don’t dissapoint.
That’s my team “Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio”, that’s right this is the Phillies we had Vince DiMaggio. We always get the awful brother, Ken Brett instead of George, Mike Maddux instead of Greg, and Jeremy Giambi instead of Jason. As a true Phil’s fan I will keep on rooting for them, by the way THE METS SUCK!!!!!