The Phillies Are Playing a Real, Olde-Timey Doubleheader Tonight

Shibe Park (Connie Mack Stadium) and Grover Cleveland Alexander photos via the Library of Congress’ George Grantham Bain collection

Put on your finest suit and your new hat from Lit Brothers. Get to Shibe Park at 5:05 sharp today, because the Phillies are playing an honest-to-goodness old-timey doubleheader! Grover Cleveland Alexander is starting both ends for the local baseball nine. Hopefully, Gavvy Cravath will hit a couple of dingers! You all know Sherry Magee is quite reliable!

Okay, the Phillies this year are much worse than they’ve been in ages. The teams with Alexander, Cravath and Magee from more than a century ago were better, relatively, than the 2015 Phillies. (With today’s modern conditioning and sports science, of course, the 2015 Phillies would wipe the floor with the mid-1910s Phils. Ryan Howard would hit like five home runs.) But things are going to be a bit like old-timey baseball at CBP tonight.

Thanks to last night’s rainout against the Cubs, the Phillies will play an honest to goodness two-games-for-the-price-of-one doubleheader against Chicago tonight. The first game starts at 5. Then the teams will take a 20- to 30-minute break and play another one! You might not get home until midnight! (Doubleheaders in the 1910s started in the afternoon; stadiums didn’t have lights until the late 1930s.)

That's not rain, son. That's the baseball gods shedding tears of joy on Philadelphia.

— Enrico (@The700Level) September 10, 2015

The day off gave Phillies fans a chance to bask in the ouster of Ruben Amaro Jr. — as much as you can celebrate a man losing his job. (This is an acceptable thing to do as a sports fan, but less so in other fields.)

Adam Morgan starts the first half of the doubleheader for the Phillies. Alec Asher, who came over in the Cole Hamels trade, starts the nightcap.

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