The Philadelphia Phillies are one of the oldest and most storied franchises, not just in baseball but in all of sports. In that time they have put together some great teams, and some not so great teams. Over the course of their history many important things have happened to the franchise and their players, but here are seven things you don’t know about the Philadelphia Phillies.

1. Having been established in 1883, no other team in American professional sports has existed continuously in one city, with one name as long as the Philadelphia Phillies.

2. Between 1918 and 1948, the Philadelphia Phillies only had one winning season.

3. In the late 1940s, team owner Bob Carpenter Jr. tried to change the image of the team by unofficially changing the team name to Blue Jays, the new name was not received well by fans and an official change was never made.

4. When the Phillies won the World Series in 1980, third baseman Mike Schmidt was both the regular season MVP as well as the World Series MVP.

5. 1992 would see the Phillies finish last in the National League East division, the very next year they would come three games short of winning 100 games and make it all the way to the World Series before being sent home by the Toronto Blue Jays.

6. Three Philadelphia Phillies have hit four home runs in one game: Ed Delahanty in 1896, Chuck Klein in 1936, and Mike Schmidt in 1976. Only fifteen players in Major League Baseball history have accomplished this feat.

7. In 1994, the Phillies briefly experimented with wearing blue hats for home day games only, these were dropped from use less than a month later.

The Philadelphia Phillies, due mainly to their longevity as a Major League Baseball franchise, have a wealth of history to examine. The team is on top of the world right now having just recently won the 2008 World Series over the Tampa Bay Rays. Phillies fans every where will hope their team stays at or near the top of the standings for quite some time.