003_In_1883_National_League_president_Colonel_A_G_Mills_had_a_pr

In 1883, National League president Colonel A.G. Mills faced a problem of not having a team in New York or Philadelphia. He turned to his old friend Al Reach, a former player turned businessman, to form a team. Reach, along with partner Benjamin Scheib, created the Philadelphia Phillies, a team name that endured for over 140 years. In 1883, National League president, Colonel A.G. Mills, had a problem. His league had no team in either New York or Philadelphia, the two biggest cities in the country. So he called an old friend, Al Reach. Reach wasn't just any friend. He'd been one of professional baseball's first paid players back in the 1860s and 70s, a left-handed second baseman born in England. By the time Mills came calling, Reach had reinvented himself as a businessman, running a sporting goods company with his partner, a leather expert named Benjamin Scheib. Between the two of them, they were already getting rich off the sport Reach used to play. Mills didn't have to twist his arm. Reach teamed up with a Pennsylvania lawyer named John Rogers and put a team in the National League, taking the spot of a folded club from Worcester, Massachusetts. He named it after the city it played in, the Phillies, a name so plain, it would outlast every trend, every rebrand attempt, and every executive who tried to change it for the next 140 years.