Philadelphia Phillies Trivia
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This Phillies trivia quiz has 117 free questions with answers and covers the whole franchise, from the 1883 expansion club and the Baker Bowl's tiny right field to Bryce Harper's October home run in 2022 and the 2023 season that ended in the club's first-ever Game 7. In between you'll hit the 1950 Whiz Kids, the collapse of 1964, Steve Carlton's silent seasons, the 1980 and 2008 champions, the mullets of Macho Row and the Phanatic's mysterious origins. It's built for the fan who wants more than "who won in 2008?" — the questions get into trades, records, ballparks, broadcasters and the strange episodes that make this the oldest continuous one-name, one-city franchise in American sports. A block of 117 questions covers Trea Turner's $300 million deal and standing ovation, Kyle Schwarber's 47 homers, Bryson Stott's wild-card grand slam and the NLCS against Arizona. Roughly a third are easy, a third medium and the rest will test even season-ticket holders. Every answer was checked against a primary source, such as Wikipedia's franchise, player and season pages, before it was published, and each explanation adds one detail you may not know.
30 of 117 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which team did the Phillies beat for their first World Series championship in 1980?
Kansas City Royals
Kansas City Royals fell in six games, Tug McGraw striking out the final batter at 11:29 pm; until then the Phillies had been the only one of the 16 pre-expansion franchises never to win a World Series.
Q 02Who did the Phillies defeat in the 2008 World Series?
Tampa Bay Rays
Tampa Bay Rays had finished with the American League's worst record just a year earlier; the Phillies beat them in five games for Philadelphia's first major title since the 76ers in 1983.
Q 03Which pitcher was named MVP of the 2008 World Series?
Cole Hamels
Cole Hamels was also MVP of the NLCS that October; seven years later he no-hit the Cubs at Wrigley Field in what proved his final start for the Phillies, who traded him six days afterwards.
Q 04Which rival manager attacked the Phillie Phanatic in 1988?
Tommy Lasorda
Tommy Lasorda saw the Phanatic mocking him with a dummy dressed in his uniform, chased the mascot, shoved him over and beat him with it; years later he was still writing that he hated the Phanatic.
Q 05According to his official biography, where was the Phillie Phanatic born?
Galápagos Islands
Galápagos Islands is his official birthplace; the former club intern who first wore the suit, Dave Raymond, later founded the Mascot Hall of Fame and inducted the Phanatic in its first class.
Q 06Phanatic designer Bonnie Erickson had previously created which Muppet?
Miss Piggy
Miss Piggy and the grumpy hecklers Statler and Waldorf came first; Erickson then co-founded a design firm that built both the Phanatic and Youppi!, the mascot of the Montreal Expos.
Q 07Bill Giles saved $1,300 on the first Phanatic costume by declining to buy what?
The copyright
The copyright stayed with the designers because Giles paid $3,900 for the costume alone rather than $5,200 for both; he later called it his worst decision, and the club had to buy the rights back.
Q 08What now covers the Veterans Stadium site?
Parking lot
A parking lot for the sports complex covers it: the Vet was demolished in March 2004 once the Phillies and the Eagles each had a new stadium next door.
Q 09What did Philadelphia station inside Veterans Stadium on Eagles game days to deal with unruly fans?
A municipal court judge
A municipal court judge, Seamus McCaffery, held 'Eagles Court' inside the stadium after a 1997 Monday night game produced more than 60 fistfights, dealing with offenders on the spot.
Q 10Ashburn Alley at Citizens Bank Park honors a Hall of Famer who played which position?
Center field
Center field was Richie Ashburn's post for 12 Phillies seasons; Cooperstown passed him over for decades until a long fan campaign helped get him elected in 1995.
Q 11Who managed the Phillies during the infamous collapse of 1964?
Gene Mauch
Gene Mauch sent aces Jim Bunning and Chris Short to the mound on only two days' rest as the lead melted away, and the Phillies lost ten games in a row.
Q 12Which team overtook the collapsing Phillies to win the 1964 National League pennant?
St. Louis Cardinals
St. Louis Cardinals clinched on the final day, one game ahead of both the Phillies and the Reds, and went on to win the World Series.
Q 13The Phillies' 1964 September collapse began with a 1-0 loss when Cincinnati's Chico Ruiz did what?
Stole home plate
Q 21The 1950 Whiz Kids clinched the pennant on the final day by beating which team in ten innings?
Brooklyn Dodgers
Brooklyn Dodgers nearly won it in the ninth, but Richie Ashburn threw out Cal Abrams at the plate, and Dick Sisler's three-run homer in the tenth gave the Phillies their first pennant in 35 years.
Q 22What nickname did Richie Ashburn's minor-league teammates give him because of his light blond hair?
Whitey
Whitey stuck for life: Ashburn went on to call Phillies games from 1963 until September 1997, when he died in a New York hotel hours after working a broadcast.
Q 23What hit fan Alice Roth on her stretcher after Richie Ashburn's batted ball broke her nose?
A second foul
Ruiz stole home plate with Frank Robinson, the Reds' best hitter, at bat; the startled pitcher threw wide, the run was the game's only one, and nine more defeats followed.
Q 14Jim Bunning threw a perfect game on Father's Day 1964 against which team?
New York Mets
New York Mets hitters went 27 up, 27 down at Shea Stadium, the National League's first perfect game since 1880; three months later Bunning was being sent out on two days' rest as the pennant slipped away.
Q 15Which 1964 NL Rookie of the Year had his number 15 retired by the Phillies in 2020?
Dick Allen
Dick Allen took to wearing his batting helmet in the field after fans threw objects at him, which earned him the nickname 'Crash'; he was inducted at Cooperstown in 2025, nearly five years after his death.
Q 16Which Phillies closer gave up Joe Carter's Series-ending home run in Game 6 of the 1993 World Series?
Mitch Williams
Mitch Williams had already received death threats after losing Game 4 of that Series, and the Phillies traded him to Houston before the next season began.
Q 17What was the nickname of the Phillies' 1993 closer, who saved a career-high 43 games that year?
Wild Thing
Wild Thing was also the nickname of the erratic reliever in the 1989 film Major League; in 1993 the Phillies closer switched his uniform number to that character's 99.
Q 18What nickname did the scruffy, mullet-wearing 1993 Phillies earn?
Macho Row
Macho Row went from last place in 1992 to the pennant, with Lenny Dykstra leading the league in both hits and runs.
Q 19The 1950 'Whiz Kids' were swept in the World Series by which team?
New York Yankees
New York Yankees pitching made the difference in a sweep closer than it sounds: the first three games were each decided by one run, and the Phillies then waited 30 years to reach another World Series.
Q 20Which relief pitcher won the 1950 NL MVP and started Game 1 of that World Series?
Jim Konstanty
Jim Konstanty, the first reliever ever voted MVP, got the surprise start because the staff ace had started three of the last five games of the pennant race; he allowed one run and lost 1-0.
A second foul hit her, again off Ashburn's bat and in the same at-bat; the two became friends, and her son later worked as a Phillies batboy.
Q 24Which Phillies ace won 28 games in 1952, the most in the National League since 1935?
Robin Roberts
Robin Roberts went 28-7, but the control that made him great cut both ways: he gave up 505 career home runs, a record until another Phillie, Jamie Moyer, passed it in 2010.
Q 25Which pitcher, who homered twice during his own 1971 no-hitter, did the Phillies trade away to get Steve Carlton?
Rick Wise
Rick Wise went to St. Louis because the owner there ordered Carlton traded after a salary dispute; Carlton then won 27 games for a last-place Phillies team that won only 59.
Q 26Four-time Cy Young winner Steve Carlton was known throughout baseball by what nickname?
Lefty
Lefty was the first pitcher to win four Cy Young Awards, helped by a martial-arts training regime that had him working his pitching arm down through a bucket of rice.
Q 27What did Steve Carlton famously do for most of his Phillies career?
Refused to speak to the press
Carlton refused to speak to the press after reporters questioned his unusual training; by 1981 the joke ran that the league's two best pitchers, he and Mexican rookie Fernando Valenzuela, didn't speak English.
Q 28Which Phillies slugger finished his career with 548 home runs?
Mike Schmidt
Mike Schmidt hit every one of them for the Phillies, then retired abruptly in May 1989, giving a tearful speech in San Diego barely two months into the season.
Q 29Which slugger did the Phillies trade in 2005 to make room for Ryan Howard?
Jim Thome
Jim Thome had hit 47 homers for the Phillies in 2003, but an elbow injury in 2005 let Howard win Rookie of the Year in his place, and Thome was dealt to the White Sox after the season.
Q 30What was Ryan Howard's nickname?
The Big Piece
The Big Piece tore his Achilles tendon running out the final out of the 2011 NLDS and did not play again until July 2012, though he stayed with the Phillies for the rest of his major-league career.