A Philadelphia Phillies franchise milestone is coming soon

We love big, round numbers in sports, especially in baseball. 300 wins. 500 home runs. 3,000 hits. But those are just individual marks. Let’s not lose sight of the whole point of the thing: winning games. And the Philadelphia Phillies are mere days away from hitting a number that has gotten shockingly little discussion: 10,000 wins as a franchise.

It will be quite an achievement for the organization, although it’s fitting to temper it somewhat. First off, when you’ve been around since 1883, you’re going to hit the number at some point. Even for a franchise that has employed the likes of Michael Martinez and Chad Ogea over the years, you’ll eventually accrue enough victories to reach such a milestone.

The Philadelphia Phillies will hit 10,000 wins as a franchise sometime this month.

And then there is the flip side: the losses. While the Phillies will become the ninth major league club to hit the 10,000-win plateau, they are far and away the leader in losses. If you recall, the Phils suffered their 10,000th defeat way back on July 15, 2007 in an embarrassing 10-2 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. (Newsy note: Michael Bourn hit his only home run as a Phillie that night).

During that broadcast, ESPN took what seemed like a tailor-made opportunity to dump on the Phillies all game for being a bad team for a century. I spotted that game on the broadcast calendar weeks out, hoping that things would play out differently so that the “record” wasn’t on the table that night, but of course, it was. And even though the lion’s share of those losses happened before I was even born, it was enraging to me as a fan/defender of the team. But I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any different from the national media. Snowballs at Santa and all that.

In the years since, five other MLB franchises have gotten to 10,000 losses, but no one never heard boo about those. The Phillies were singled out for their ignominy of being the “most losing team ever”, and that was that. At least the Phils shoved it in everyone’s faces by immediately going on a five-year postseason run. But I digress, as the impending 10,000th win is something that should be feted as much as loss #10,000 was hung over everyone’s heads.

For every memorable Phillies win, there are plenty of run-of-the-mill ones that don’t particularly stick in anyone’s mind. Still, it’s fun to remember just a few that seemed like much more than a single win in a sea of 10,000 of them.

• Roy Halladay’s perfect game
• Mike Schmidt’s four-homer day
• Mitch Williams’ walkoff hit at 4:40 am
• Todd Pratt puts one in the win column for the Fightin’ Phils
• Cole Hamel’s no-hitter in his final Phillies appearance
• Bob Dernier’s mad dash around the bases
• Bryce Harper’s walkoff grand slam

And many, many more, some of which I kept meticulous records.

In the end, though, all wins are created equal in the standings column, in the regular season at least. If you want to get cute with it, you could add in the Phillies’ 49 postseason wins as a franchise, which means that they already hit the 10,000-win mark on May 13 of this year in a wild, 10-inning win over the Dodgers. That’s not how these things work, of course, but we remember the playoff triumphs even more despite the fact that they “don’t count” toward the win total.

I think that the appropriate lens to view this through is that, even though hitting an arbitrary number of victories was an eventuality, it’s a testament to the lasting love between this team and their loyal fans in Philadelphia, the rest of the Delaware Valley, and beyond. The Philadelphia Phillies pre-date the inventions of the screen door and the filling cabinet, and they are never going anywhere. Reaching 10,000 wins is a cross-generational accomplishment that we all share in.

Finally, a prediction: the Philadelphia Phillies will reach 10,000 regular season wins as a franchise on the afternoon of August 20, 2022, against the New York Mets, after which they will lose game 2 of that day’s doubleheader. Because, even after 10,000 wins, Phillies gonna Phillie.