So today I wanted to break down the whole manager history for the Phillies. Seemed straightforward, right? Famous last words.
It started simple enough. I figured, hey, let’s just list ’em all out. Pull up the big names like Charlie Manuel, Dallas Green, Danny Ozark, maybe dig into some real old-timers. Names and dates, piece of cake.
Ha. Nope. The minute I dove deeper, it got messy. Really messy.
- First problem? Finding complete info. Older stuff? Records are fuzzy or just plain missing sometimes. You’d think for a team this old, it’d all be perfectly documented. Think again.
- Then came spelling! Man, some of these names are wild, especially the managers from the 1800s and early 1900s. Double-checking every single letter became a must.
- And the durations! Managers come and go, sometimes mid-season. Trying to pin down exact start and end dates? Yeah, that took way longer than anticipated.
My desk quickly became a disaster zone. Notes everywhere. Random scraps of paper with scribbles like “Schuster 1947? Partial season?!” or “Who managed after Sawyer quit? Oh yeah, Mauch… but when exactly?”. It looked like a paperwork bomb went off.
The wins and losses were the next level of fun. I thought just listing the total wins would be enough. But then I started thinking, “People might wanna see the record too.” So I ended up compiling both the total number of wins and the win-loss record for each manager’s entire Phillies stint.
Let me tell ya, doing that manually is a slog. Double-checking countless numbers against multiple sources. My calculator app got a serious workout. Simple addition ain’t so simple when you’re dealing with decades of baseball seasons.
Then came the actual writing it up for the post. How to present it so it wasn’t just a massive, boring list? I settled on going chronologically, splitting it into eras – pre-1950s, 50s-70s, etc. – made it feel less overwhelming.
Formatting the dang thing cleanly for the web was its own little battle. Making sure all those dates aligned, the win totals looked right, the names were spelled correctly. Even with basic HTML like
- lists and for emphasis, you gotta be careful. Typos are sneaky little monsters.
Finished it eventually, wiped the virtual sweat off my brow. Phew. It looks clean now, simple even. But man, pulling all that history together, confirming every little detail… that was a helluva job. Makes you appreciate just how much history a long-standing team like the Phillies carries.
So yeah, that’s the story behind today’s post. Looks easy. Wasn’t. Learned a ton doing it, though. And hopefully, anyone reading it finds it useful. Now, excuse me while I go clean up my actual desk.