Here are the Phillies who have taken on another field: The food business

Jimmy Rollins, the former Phillies shortstop, will come back to town this summer as a partner in Eleven Social, a restaurant and brewery in Old City.

Named after his longtime uniform number, it marks his first time in the restaurant business.

He is not, however, the first Phillie to go into food. Just ask slugger Greg Luzinski and former manager Charlie Manuel, whose names grace Bull’s BBQ and Uncle Charlie’s Steaks, respectively, at Citizens Bank Park. But as some former Phillies have discovered, on-field success does not always correlate to a hit restaurant: The team’s most resounding success story is a pizzeria in Florida owned by a former pitcher with a lifetime record of 111-118 with a 4.02 ERA, while a Hall of Fame third baseman backed a restaurant that was a swing and a miss.

After retiring to Sarasota, Fla., following the 1989 season, “I was looking for something to do,” Rawley said. He called on his upbringing in Wisconsin, north of Chicago, where the pizza specialty is a crispy, thin-crust pie cut into squares. “In Florida, they didn’t have anything like that, so I went from there.”

Shaner’s Pizza opened in 1991, and “we had some rough times,” Rawley said. His introduction to the business was soon fouled up by a long highway project.

But like getting out of a bases-loaded jam, the former pitcher survived. Business improved since the move to its current location about 10 years ago. Shaner’s dining room is decorated with mementos of the teams Rawley played for — Yankees, Phillies, Mariners, and Twins — plus photos of players from his era.

Customers seek him out for photos and autographs, and he’s revived his local celeb status after releasing a series of novels about a gifted ballplayer and Vietnam veteran.

“I actually get more fan mail now than when I played,” said Rawley, an All Star in 1986. “It’s mind-blowing.”

Retiring in 1989 after 18 seasons at third base, Schmidt joined investors, including sportscaster Howard Eskin, in a restaurant called Michael Jack’s. It opened in 1990 as part of an entertainment development beneath the former Lit Bros. department store called Market Street Live! The exclamation point was beside the point.

The food “doesn’t hit many home runs,” The Inquirer wrote in 1992. ”It’s basically a combination of Tex-Mex and the sort of items available at chains such as TGI Friday’s.” The memorabilia was extensive though, including bats from eight of the 11 All Star Games in which Schmidt played, a letter from Major League Baseball granting his request to retire, the bat used in his last major-league at bat, and a green uniform worn for a St. Patrick’s Day exhibition game.

In 1993, as the complex rebranded as the Main Event, the restaurant became Mike Schmidt’s. It closed in 1995.

While playing for the Washington Nationals, the follicularly blessed Harper was recruited to invest in Blind Barber, a string of hair salon/cocktail bars. Its Center City location opened in late 2019 — just after word of Harper’s signing by the Phillies, coincidentally — at Juniper and Sansom Streets.

How did Harper make the cut? Cofounder Jeff Laub explained: “We were just talking one day with our director of PR and we were just like, ‘It’d be nice to have a sports guy.’ I went online and Googled ‘best hair in sports,’ and David Beckham popped up. I said, ‘He’s probably hard to get.’ Then Bryce Harper came up and, obviously, he has a fantastic head of hair. He’s also going to be, probably, the best baseball player that ever exists. Then I started digging into the work that he does with charity, and it was immediate. It was like, ‘This guy is another one of us, who wants to do some good things in this world.’”

It’s still open.

Former Phillies relief pitcher Chad Durbin knew Michael and Craig Colby, who were opening a fried-chicken restaurant called Colbie’s Southern-Kissed Chicken in 2021 in Mount Holly. Durbin called Howard, the Phils’ slugging first baseman from 2004 to 2016, and set up a meeting. Howard agreed to an investment, which paid a dividend in 2022 when a Colbie’s stand opened at Citizens Bank Park. Fittingly, the stand is on the concourse on the first-base side. There are also locations in Delaware and Florida.

Kruk, a West Virginia native with a sardonic wit, also played for the Padres and Chicago White Sox during his career from 1986 through 1995. But his six seasons in Philadelphia helped guide his restaurant moves.

Now a broadcaster, his name is on Kruk’s Philly Steaks (“it’s not a sub, it’s a cheesesteak!”) in a shopping center in Naples, Fla. Menu specialty: the Mother Kruker, a two-foot cheesesteak with two pounds of meat and Cheez Whiz.

Ennis (1925-1996), a native Philadelphian and an outfielder on the 1950 Whiz Kids squad, owned Del Ennis Lanes, a bowling alley in Huntingdon Valley; it’s where the Giant supermarket is now. The bowling alley’s mezzanine bar was called the Eleventh Frame.

At age 98, Shantz is the oldest living Phillie. The Pottstown native started in the majors in 1949 for the Philadelphia Athletics, moving to Kansas City with the team for the 1954 and 1955 seasons before heading to the Yankees.

He returned to Philadelphia, pitching for the Phillies to end his career. He appeared in 14 games during the disastrous 1964 season.

Shantz, who lives in Montgomery County and is recovering from a broken hip, was a partner in Pit-Catcher Lanes in Chalfont, built in 1958. Among the partners was Joe Astroth, a catcher for the Athletics — explaining the name. According to a history by the Doylestown Historical Society, Shantz bought out his partners and in 1965, opened Bobby Shantz’s Bull-Pen Dairy Bar.