100 Greatest Phillies: 78 – Tully Sparks

Tully Sparks
Starting Pitcher
1897, 1903-1910

Career w/Phillies: 1697 IP / 95-79 / 2.43 ERA / 586 K

A 2.43 ERA might get you in the Hall of Fame, but Tully Sparks pitched in baseball’s earliest days, a time when hitting was as poor as the players themselves. Sparks began his career with the Phillies, before jumping around the league posting mediocre-to-poor numbers. He finally returned to Philadelphia in 1903, and ran off a nice set of seasons, capped by a 22-8 performance in 1907. Sparks won 15 games or more three times in his Phillie career, and reached the National League leaderboards a few times during that run.

Comment: Forgotten for sure, Sparks had a nice run in Philly, but overall was a little better than a mediocre pitcher.

Tim Malcolm

Tim first found the Phillies as a little infant at Veteran’s Stadium, cheering on a Juan Samuel game-winning home run in his very first game. With the pinstripes in his blood, he witnessed Terry Mulholland’s 1990 no-hitter, “Steve Carlton Night” at the Vet, game three of the 1993 World Series, countless games during the charmed 2008 championship season and various road excursions. Since November 2007 Tim’s been writing about them daily at Phillies Nation, becoming one of the world’s most popular Phillies scribes. You can catch him on Twitter and Facebook, as well. When he’s not talking about the Phils he’s relaxing with a St. Bernardus ABT 12 or one of his many favored brews.