Philadelphia vs. Kansas City: A Sports History

As the Philadelphia Phillies start a series with the Kansas City Royals on Friday night to conclude their round trip of the Show-Me State, it gives us a chance to look back on the sports connections that the two cities have shared over the past half-century.

If we’re being honest, Philly-KC is never going to have the potential rivalry implications of something like Philly-New York or Philly-Pittsburgh, but the cities do share some interesting links for being half a country apart. And if you’re any kind of Philadelphia fan, there are probably two things that immediately jump to mind for you.

First, with the Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals renewing acquaintances tonight, the teams’ meeting in the 1980 World Series is bound to come up. Yes, that series that you were basically forced to learn everything about when you were growing up because it represented the only high point in over 100 years of Phillies baseball.

Now, with it well in the rear view thanks to 2008 (although that’s getting awfully old at this point as well,) even those of us who weren’t born yet can look back at that Fall Classic and smile about the heroics of Phillies legends like Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton and Tug McGraw as they delivered the greatest moment in the franchise’s first century. That, and George Brett‘s hemorrhoids. We can all smile about that.

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But the teams also share another historical link, one that comes in the form of the Royals’ Class A minor league affiliate Wilmington Blue Rocks, and not only because of Wilmington’s close proximity to Philadelphia. I mean, you can practically stand in one and hear the gunshots from the other.

The Blue Rocks have served as part of the feeder system to the Royals for much of their history, which dates back to 1993 in its current incarnation. In fact, almost all of the Royals’ best players in recent decades, many of whom helped the team capture the World Series in 2015, came through Wilmington.

The current Blue Rocks franchise was named in honor of the original team that existed in Wilmington from 1940 through 1952, one that began as an affiliate of the Philadelphia Athletics before the Phillies bought out some guy named Connie Mack. During the time that the Rocks were part of the Phils’ system, a young pitcher named Robin Roberts spent a brief stint in Wilmington. Let’s just say he was ready for the big show pretty quickly.

Nowadays, the Phillies and Royals only play each other once every three or four years, certainly not enough to make any waves. But we’ll always have 1980 and the Blue Rocks as baseball links between Philadelphia and Kansas City. And, of course, they stole the Athletics from us before Oakland did the same to them.

The other main connection that people are likely to make between the cities is Kansas City Chiefs Head Coach Andy Reid. Like it or not, “Big Red” was the most successful coach in Philadelphia Eagles history (at least by winning percentage,) and so the Eagles and Chiefs will always share him in common. Maybe that’s not so good for Andy, who got the reputation of not being able to win the big one in Philly. But you have to give him credit for consistency, as he’s also failed to capture a Super Bowl so far in Kansas City.

At least Andy managed to steer the Eagles to four NFC Championship Games in his first six years at the helm in Philly. This past season, his sixth with the Chiefs, was his first time getting them to the AFC Championship Game, which of course he lost at home to the New England Patriots. His teams simply continue to stall out in the playoffs despite Reid having an even higher winning percentage in KC than he did in Philadelphia.

Still, we probably all owe a debt of gratitude to Andy for apparently teaching disciple Doug Pederson the ins and outs of “how not to coach” and preparing him to lead the Eagles to Super Bowl glory. Also, Big Red did a nice job with Matt Nagy, who really helped the Eagles out in 2018 by first allowing them to make the playoffs thanks to the Chicago Bears‘ Week 17 win over the Minnesota Vikings, and then partnered with former Eagle Cody Parkey to gift a postseason win to the Birds at Soldier Field.

As it stands, the Eagles and Chiefs have met only eight times in the NFL regular season, with each team winning four of those games. The tie-breaking contest won’t come until the 2021 NFL season in Philadelphia (assuming the league’s schedule format remains the same.) And you just know that Andy Reid will have the game circled. If he still has a job.

We’ve covered baseball and football, but the Philly-KC relationship gets a bit murkier as we take a quick look at the other two of the “four major sports” (if hockey even still fits the bill around here.) Many people may not even realize that the Sacramento Kings, the team that you only ever think about when you want to get retroactively angry about Chris Webber‘s performance when he came to the Philadelphia 76ers, used to play their home games in Kansas City.

Actually, the Kansas City-Omaha Kings split their games between those two cities from 1972 to 1975 before moving to just KC, residing there until their relocation to Sacramento in 1985. Hey, that’s ok, some towns can only support two pro teams. Not a big deal, Kansas City. As for the connection between the Sixers and those Kings? Well, they played in the same league for a decade. That’s about it.

The most notable link could be former center La Salle Thompson, who played for the Kings during their final three seasons in Kansas City and then found himself on the Sixers over a decade later. This marks the first and only time in the history of professional sports that a player’s first name was also the name of a college in the city in which he was playing. I have about 99.9% confidence in that statement, and I challenge anyone to call me on it.

Then there are the Philadelphia Flyers. What’s that, you say? Kansas City never had a hockey team? You forgot all about the Kansas City Scouts! Entering the NHL in 1974, they were…awful. But they did receive some nice contributions from former Flyer Simon Nolet, who they nabbed from the Flyers in the expansion draft.

It was tough luck for Nolet, who went from a Stanley Cup Champion to a trainwreck expansion team, which is basically the equivalent of going from an actually good team to the Flyers today. Still, Nolet did his best as the Scouts’ captain and leading scorer, though he was traded halfway through his second season in KC.

For the Scouts, that second season would be their last in Kansas City, as they moved and became the Colorado Rockies beginning in 1976. Also, Nolet was weirdly traded back to Colorado before that season began, and it ended up being his last year in the NHL. In the end, the Rockies exist as another footnote in NHL history, as they too relocated a few years later. But that team, the New Jersey Devils, is all too familiar to the Flyers and their fans. Ugh.

And so, we can say that the sports history between Philadelphia and Kansas City, while not especially intense, still has some roots that reach far back. It will always have the Blue Rocks. And Tug striking out Willie Wilson in 1980. And Andy Reid, for better or worse.

And those hemorrhoids.