The "Barons Beat the Phils" Story

It was an ordinary day.  The 2015 major league baseball season has begun and my beloved Philadelphia Phillies are not picked to win the National League East Division.  I realized that was a possibility since they have lost quite a few of their best players to age and trades.  They have a few good prospects, but expecting them to win the division is rather unrealistic for this year.  A few weeks ago there was a photo in the Sunday News in Lancaster, PA that showed a local amateur team from nearby Manheim, PA that played an exhibition game against the Phillies on a warm July evening at Stumpf Field on the Fruitville Pike in 1939.  I wasn't born at the time, believe it or not, but did get to see many Lancaster Red Roses minor league games at Stumpf Field which was about a half-mile walk from my childhood home on North Queen Street.  

The 1939 Manheim Barons amateur baseball team.
Click on photo to enlarge.

At the time, Manheim played in what was known as the Lebanon Valley Baseball League.  It was an amateur league when it began in 1931, but did start to pay players in 1935 and eventually folded at the end of the year after Manheim played the Phillies.  At the time of the game it was reported that Manheim's record in league play was 13-15 while the Phillies record in the National League was 45-106.  Not sure how they could have played 151 games by the end of July, but that doesn't impact the story except to show you they were probably as bad as this year's team is going to be.  Well, the game saw 3,400 fans in the stadium who came to see the Phil's All-Star Morrie Arnovich who was batting .378 at the time.  Manheim pitched Glenn Horst who only gave up five hits to the Phillies that night as they beat the Phillies 1-0.  I hope that isn't what is going to happen this year with an amateur team being able to beat my Phillies.  Time will tell, and with 162 games scheduled until they finish in September, I'll probably have many frustrating evenings in front of my TV set.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.