Phillies World Series history, from Grover Cleveland Alexander to Brad Lidge

This will be the Phillies’ eighth World Series appearance and the Astros are probably their strongest opponent ever. Houston won 106 games in the regular season and is 7-0 in the postseason.

The 1950 Yankees were a dynasty in the making, transitioning from Joe DiMaggio to the Mickey Mantle era. The 2009 Yankees won 103 games and weren’t too bad, either. The 1915 Red Sox won 101 games (out of 155) and didn’t need precocious relief pitcher Babe Ruth to do anything beyond make an appearance as a pinch-hitter in Game 1.

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The wildest World Series game in Phillies history took more than 50 hours to complete from first pitch to glorious final out. Game 5 of the 2008 World Series began on a Monday but was suspended because of rain with the Phillies coming to bat in the sixth inning and the score tied. The weather was biblical, and the game could not resume until Wednesday. When it did, Geoff Jenkins and Pat Burrell each hit clutch doubles and Brad Lidge completed a perfect statistical season with his 48th consecutive save as the Phillies won their second championship in 125 years.

The most infamous World Series game in club history has to be Game 4 against the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993.

The Phillies blew leads of 6-3, 12-7, and (worst of all) 14-9 with six outs to go. Instead of the series being tied at two games apiece with Curt Schilling set to pitch Game 5, the Phillies gave up six runs in the top of the eighth and lost, 15-14, in the highest-scoring World Series game in history. Schilling, indeed, did throw a five-hit shutout the next night, but all that really did was delay the inevitable. Joe Carter ended things with his historic walk-off dinger in Game 6.

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World Series batting averages for notable Phillies:

Richie Ashburn, .176 (3-for-17)

Gavvy Cravath, .125 (2-for-16)

Darren Daulton, .217 (5-for-23)

Lenny Dykstra, .348 (8-for-23)

Del Ennis, .143 (2-for-14)

Ryan Howard, .227 (10-for-44)

John Kruk, .348 (8-for-23)

Jimmy Rollins, .222 (10-for-45)

Pete Rose, .282 (11-for-39)

Mike Schmidt, 9-for-41 (.220)

Chase Utley, 9-for-39 (.231)

Fred Luderus was the first Phillie to hit a home run in the World Series when he slugged a shot into the right-field bleachers at the Baker Bowl (Broad & Huntingdon) in the Game 5 loss to Boston in 1915. Here’s the list of the Phillies’ World Series home runs:

1915: Fred Luderus 1.

1950: None.

1980: Mike Schmidt 2, Bake McBride 1.

1983: Joe Morgan 2, Garry Maddox 2, Gary Matthews 1.

1993: Lenny Dykstra 4, Darren Daulton 1, Jim Eisenreich 1, Milt Thompson 1.

2008: Ryan Howard 3, Chase Utley 2, Joe Blanton 1, Eric Bruntlett 1, Carlos Ruiz 1, Jayson Werth 1.

2009: Chase Utley 5, Jayson Werth 2, Pedro Feliz 1, Ryan Howard 1, Raul Ibañez 1, Carlos Ruiz 1.

Woodrow Wilson, in 1915, was the first U.S. president to throw out the first pitch at the World Series. It was Game 2 in Philadelphia, which turned out to be the first World Series game the Phillies ever lost. Wilson taught history and politics at Bryn Mawr College from 1885-88, and was the governor of New Jersey before he was elected president in 1912.

Phillies’ pitching decisions in World Series games:

1915: Grover Cleveland Alexander (W), Erskine Mayer (L), Alexander (L), George Chalmers (L), Eppa Rixey (L).

1950: Jim Konstanty (L), Robin Roberts (L), Russ Meyer (L), Bob Miller (L).

1980: Bob Walk (W), Steve Carlton (W), Tug McGraw (L), Larry Christenson (L), Tug McGraw (W), Steve Carlton (W).

1983: John Denny (W), Charles Hudson (L), Steve Carlton (L), Denny (L), Hudson (L).

1993: Curt Schilling (L), Terry Mulholland (W), Danny Jackson (L), Mitch Williams (L), Schilling (W), Williams (L).

2008: Cole Hamels (W), Brett Myers (L), J.C. Romero (W), Joe Blanton (W), Romero (W).

2009: Cliff Lee (W), Pedro Martinez (L), Cole Hamels (L), Brad Lidge (L), Cliff Lee (W), Pedro Martinez (L).

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Thirteen years before the 1993 Game 4 collapse, the fourth game was similarly the turning point of the 1980 World Series.

After the Phillies won the first two games, Kansas City grabbed Game 3 and jumped out to a 5-1 lead in Game 4 as the series was starting to slip away from Philadelphia. That’s when reliever Dickie Noles threw a fastball at the head of Royals star George Brett after Brett, Noles felt, took too much time to get back in the batter’s box following a foul ball. Noles, then 23, was a notorious hothead, and had already decided he wanted to hit Royals first baseman Willie Aikens, who had homered twice in the game and was batting behind Brett. Aikens also was a bit of a showman, which wasn’t tolerated much in those days.

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“I didn’t want to drill [Brett],” Noles told The Inquirer in 2004. “I wanted to drill the next guy.”

The Royals held on to win Game 4, but didn’t win again in the series. The fiery Phillies woke up and finally won the franchise’s first championship.

“What he did was huge,” Larry Bowa, the Phillies shortstop in 1980, said of Noles. “I mean huge.”

The loss to the Red Sox in the 1915 World Series was Philadelphia’s first sports heartbreak. The Phillies won the opener, and then lost the next four games each by one run. Boston’s Harry Hooper (sort of) homered in the top of the ninth to break a 4-4 tie in the final game. He actually hit a ball that bounced and then over the center-field wall at the Baker Bowl. Today we call that a ground-rule double. In 1915, that was enough for a home run.

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“Even after the last out had been made the crowd could not understand fully that the supreme baseball struggle of the year had ended,” wrote The Inquirer’s Jim Nasium. “They lingered in the park, filling every part of the field. Plays after plays were discussed that might have had some bearing on the outcome of the game. The fans simply did not know what to do with themselves, so keen was their disappointment.”

The Phillies won Game 1 of the 1915 World Series and would not win another postseason game for 62 years.

But that was last century. There are more chapters to be written. Starting Friday.