Cover - 1959 Philadelphia Phillies Story

I've recently started going through the "Phillies Collector Archives" (i.e. - Rubbermaid containers storing all my old junk) to rediscover things I put away over the years. This week's Collectible comes from those efforts...

The 1959 Philadelphia Phillies Story booklet was released by Phillies Cigars as a promotional item prior to the 1959 baseball season. It is one of a series produced that season for Major League clubs. The booklet is pretty small, measuring 5" x 6.5"and contains 63 information-packed pages. As the cover notes, it was "prepared" for Phillies by Sports Illustrated - and their writing work is as good as ever here. Inside there is a season preview for the team, individual player profiles and an interesting mini-biography of Hall of Famer, Grover Cleveland Alexander.

This is a great item for fans like me who are interested in the teams they didn't have an opportunity to watch, or those who want to remember. After buying the magazine, I took some time to read through the profiles and found several guys, like Johnny O'Brien, who I never knew played in Philly. And, you're sure to appreciate the old-time writing employed throughout - such as their reference to the team's annual losing campaigns as "merely a local scandal, like the man who drinks or beats his wife."

Richie Ashburn profile in the 1959 Phillies Story