Remembering Chris Short's Breakout 1964 Season For Philly

Chris ShortPhoto byUnknow author

By Russ Walsh

The year 2024 sees the Philadelphia Phillies riding high with, at this writing, the best record in baseball. Sixty years ago, the 1964 Phillies were also riding high, fielding a pennant-contending team for the first time in more than a decade. That 1964 team infamously built a 6 1/2 game lead by Sept. 20, only to collapse with a 10-game losing streak and cede the pennant on the final day of the season to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Many Phillies fans of a certain age are still devastated by that collapse. At the time I was a high school baseball player and die-hard Phillies fan. I was bereft. The perspective of 60 years, however, has allowed me to look at the year through a different lens. There were many highlights to what seemed to be a magical season for the Phillies. At this point it is better to celebrate those highlights rather than dwell on the disastrous ending.

On Father’s Day, June 21, 1964, Jim Bunning pitched the first perfect game in the National League in 42 years. It was at Shea Stadium in New York. My father and I watched the game on TV together and then watched Jim being interviewed that evening on the Ed Sullivan Show. The Phillies were in first place by two games over the San Francisco Giants. Then in July, everybody’s favorite Phillie, Johnny Callison, hit a home run off Boston's Dick Radatz to win the 1964 All-Star Game. The whole city celebrated. Also appearing successfully in that game was emerging star left-handed pitcher and local boy, Chris Short.

Short grew up in Milford, Del., an hour and a half south of Philadelphia, and completed his high school education at nearby Bordentown Military Academy in New Jersey. He had been with the Phillies for several seasons, but his inconsistency and bouts of wildness had prevented him from fulfilling his considerable potential. A frustrated manager, Gene Mauch, once said that he would be happy to trade Short for a “bale of hay.” But by 1964, Short combined with Bunning to become the most devastating left-right pitching combination in baseball besides the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax.

Short began 1964 in the Phillies’ bullpen, but when starter Ray Culp went down with an injury in mid-May, Short went into the starting rotation and did not come out, establishing himself as one of the premier left-handed pitchers of the decade. By the All-Star break he was 7-4 with a microscopic 1.59 ERA. Short won four consecutive starts in August as the Phillies built upon their league lead. His ERA was still below 2.00 in September, when, with his starting staff depleted by injuries, manager Mauch began using Short and Bunning on short rest.

Short pitched three times during the 10-game losing streak that cost the pennant. On Sept. 22, pitching on regular rest, he had his worst outing of the season, giving up six earned runs to the Cincinnati Reds in 4 2/3 innings in an eventual 9-2 Phillies loss. With the pennant slipping away, Mauch decided to bring Short back on two days’ rest instead of his usual three. Short responded well, yielding just two earned runs to the Milwaukee Braves in 7 1/3 innings on Sept. 25. The Phillies, however, lost the game in 12 innings, 7-5. Three days later, Short was on the mound again. This time he lasted 5 1/3 innings, allowing three runs in a 5-1 loss to Bob Gibson and the surging St. Louis Cardinals.

Short finished the season 17-9 with a 2.20 ERA. He struck out 181 in 220 2/3 innings. It was his breakout year, but it ended with broken hearts all around Philadelphia.

After the near miss of 1964, the Phillies failed to seriously challenge for the pennant again in Short’s tenure with the team, but that was hardly Short’s fault. He followed up his 1964 season with 18 wins in 1965 and his only 20-win season in 1966. After a down season marred by a freak knee injury in 1967, Short rebounded with a 19-win season in 1968. Eventually, a back injury slowed him and Short threw his final pitches in a Milwaukee Brewers uniform in 1973. He retired at age 35.

For his career, Short is arguably the second greatest left-handed pitcher in Phillies history after Steve Carlton. He is second to Carlton in victories with 132 to Carlton’s 241. Second in shutouts with 24 to Carlton’s 39. Third in strikeouts behind Carlton and Cole Hamels and third in ERA behind those same two lefty pitchers. Because he pitched frequently out of the bullpen early in his career, he also had 16 saves in his Philly tenure.

Short died at age 53 in 1991, three years after a ruptured brain aneurysm had put him in a coma from which he never awoke.

Russ Walsh is a retired teacher, baseball coach, and writer living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He is a lifelong and long-suffering Philadelphia Phillies fan. He writes for the Society for American Baseball Research and for MLBReport.com. You can contact him through X (formerly known as Twitter) at @faithofaphilli1.