Top-10 Phillies in Hits

Since Jimmy Rollins became the all time leader in hits for the Phillies, I thought I do a top-10 list.

#1 Jimmy Rollins

Rollins has played his entire 15-year career with the Phillies. He set the record for most hits as a Phillie in last Saturday's 7-3 win over the Cubs. He has 2,235 hits for his career with a career batting average of .268. How does his hit total compare? He is 168th on the all-time hit list. Jimmy is 36 and in good health. He could play another 4 years, but will it be for the Phillies?

#2 Mike Schmidt

Like Rollins, Schmidt spent his entire career, 18 years, with the Phillies. He had 2,234 career hits with a .267 career batting average. Of course, Schmidt was more known as a home run hitter, hitting 548 total. Schmidt was on hand to see his hits record broken on Saturday. I think it will be a long time before we see his home run record broken.

#3 Richie Ashburn

Ashburn had a 15-year career, 12 with the Phillies. He left the Phillies after the 1959 season with 2,217 hits and a .311 bating average. He finished his career with 2,574 hits total. These first three all played during my lifetime. For #4 we have to go a bit further back.

#4 Ed Delahanty

Big Ed played for the Phillies from 1888 to 1901, except for 1890, when he played for the Cleveland Infants of the Player's League. In 13 years with the Phillies he had 2,214 hits and a .348 average. In his 16-year career he had 2,297 hits. He was also a home run hitter, in the days when it was hard to hit a home run, with 101 for his career. He lead the league in homers in 1893 and 1886 with 19 and 13 respectively.

#5 Del Ennis

Ennis played 11 years of his 14-year career for the Phillies, getting 1,183 hits with a batting average of .286.

#6 Larry Bowa

Larry Bowa played 11 years with the Phillies (1970-1981) and had 1,798 hits. He was also in the ball park for Rollins' record breaking hit as he is now the Phillies bench coach.

#7 Chuck Klein

I would have guessed that Chuck Klein was a little higher on this list. He played 15 years of his 17-year career with the Phillies from 1928 to 1944. For part of 1934, all of 1935 and part of 1936 he was with the Cubs. He had 1,705 hits for the Phillies with a .326 batting average.

#8 Sherry Magee

MaGee is one of two players on this list I had never heard of. MaGee played for the Phillies from 1904 to 1914 with 1,647 hits and a .299 average. He played another 5 years for the Boston Braves and Cincinnati Reds.  Sherry was short for Sherwood.

#9 Cy Williams

The other guy I'd never heard of. Williams played for the Cubs from 1912 to 1917 and then the next 13 years with the Phillies. He had 1,553 hits for the Phillies with a .292 average. He was another big home run hitter with 251 for his career. He lead the league in 1923 with 41 homers.

#10 Granny Hamner

This is, by the way, a 1991 Topps Archives card. Hamner played for the Phillies from 1944 to 1959 with 1,529 hits and a .263 BA. Along with Ashburn, he was one of the Phillies Whiz Kids who took the Phillies to the 1950 World Series.