This is the twenty-fifth in a series of examinations of baseball-related legends and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of all the previous baseball legends.

In honor of the opening of the 2010 baseball season, each legend installment the last two weeks (and the first two legends of this week) will be a baseball one, spotlighting legends from one of the eight playoff teams last year. Today we conclude with the reigning National League champions, the Philadelphia Phillies.

Let’s begin!

BASEBALL LEGEND: After a tragic stadium collapse, the owners of the Philadelphia Phillies were forced to sell the team.

STATUS: False

In 1903, perhaps the worst baseball stadium collapse ever occurred. During a Phillies doubleheader in August of 1903 at their fairly substandard stadium, Philadelphia Park (later known as the Baker Bowl), an altercation took place in one of the wooden stands.

Over 300 people rushed to the stands, which could not support the weight and collapsed.

Hundreds were injured and TWELVE people were killed! Can you imagine if something like that happened today?

In any event, there, naturally enough, was an onslaught of lawsuits by the victims and the families of the dead.

So in many histories of the Phillies, you will hear that that is why the owner of the Phillies, John Rogers, was forced to sell the team to James Potter.

Heck, here’s the Wikipedia page for the Phillies:

To add tragedy to folly, a balcony collapsed during a game at the Baker Bowl in 1903, killing twelve and injuring hundreds. Rogers was forced to sell the Phillies to avoid being ruined by an avalanche of lawsuits.

That’s a commonly told story.

Here’s the problem.

Rogers had already sold the team in 1902!!

You see, the confusion comes from the fact that while Rogers did sell the TEAM, he still, at the time, owned the stadium that the Phillies played in, so he was, in fact, sued over the collapse. However, he was not the owner of the team at the time. Potter had already taken control for the 1903 baseball season, well BEFORE the collapse in August.

And by the way, ultimately, all the lawsuits were thrown out, as the rush of people was blamed for the collapse, not the conditions of the park.

The park was still used well into the 1920s, when ANOTHER collapse happened (only one person was hurt) and the Phillies moved into Shibe Park, the home of the Philadelphia Athletics, for the 1927 season. The A’s wouldn’t let them stay permanently, though, until 1938, so until then, the Phillies had to make do with the Baker Bowl from 1928-1937.

BASEBALL LEGEND: For a few seasons, the Philadelphia Phillies were known as the Philadelphia Blue Jays.

STATUS: True

The Phillies were a bit of a hot potato, when it came to owners, in the first half of the 20th Century.

After Rogers sold to Potter, Potter sold it to the team’s business manager, Bill Shettsline, in 1905. Shettsline sold it to Horace Fogel in 1909, who was kicked out of baseball in 1912 (for claiming that the umps intentional ruled against his team). William Baker owned it from 1913 until his death in 1930. Baker left half of the team to his wife and half to his secretary. The secretary’s husband, Gerald Nugent, became the head of the team (a place he solidified when Baker’s widow passed away in 1932).

However, Nugent, being just a normal guy, did not have the money to keep the team afloat (as he was pretty much just stuck using box office receipts, and as this was the Great Depression and all, times were tough).

So he was forced to sell in 1942, and the team was purchased by lumber broker, William B. Cox. Cox was a hands-on owner who had a minor problem – he did not know that you were not allowed to, you know, bet on your own team. So when it turned out that he was doing so, he was banned from baseball. The team was then sold to Bob Carpenter, Sr., who let his son, Bob Jr., run the team.

The Carpenters owned the Phillies until 1981, finally adding some stability to the franchise.

But not before Carpenter Jr. put into place a rather odd idea.

He changed the name of the team!!!!!!

Carpenter Jr. felt that the team had been associated with incompetence and losing for SO long that they needed an image change. His idea was to try to incorporate the “scrappy qualities” of the Blue Jay!

And so the Phillies were known as the Philadelphia Blue Jays in 1943…

(the name was not an official change, but as you can see, the logo changed)

However, people did not appreciate the change, especially Johns Hopkins University, who used the name the Blue Jays, and did not appreciate the Phillies putting their particular stink on it.

The blue jay logo patch was dropped after 1945 and in 1949, when Carpenter Sr. passed away, the nickname was dropped completely.

Until decades later when an expansion team in Toronto began using it.

I don’t know how Johns Hopkins reacted to that news.

BASEBALL LEGEND: Garry Maddox’s hair style was due to an accident during his time fighting in the Vietnam War.

STATUS: True

Garry Maddox was one of the most acclaimed defensive center fielders of the late 1970s/early 1980s.

He won the Gold Glove Award (for fielding excellence) a remarkable EIGHT times!

He was a big part of the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies, who won the first championship in team history.

As you can see from above, Maddox was well known for his thick facial hair.

Oddly enough, his hair was not actually a fashion thing (although obviously there was SOME fashion involved).

You see, Maddox served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War in 1969 and 1970, when he was a 19 year old minor leaguer for the San Francisco Giants.

While there, Maddox was exposed to chemicals that he suffered a servere allergic reaction to, resulting in brutal skin rashes that made shaving basically impossible, hence the beard.

To Maddox’s credit, he has never let his experiences get him down, as he is well known as a cheerful guy well liked by all his teammates.

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

Tags: Baker Bowl, Bill Shettsline, Bob Carpenter Jr., Bob Carpenter Sr., Garry Maddox, Gerald Nugent, Gold Glove Award, Horace Fogel, James Potter, John Rogers, Johns Hopkins University, Philadelphia Athletics, Philadelphia Blue Jays, Philadelphia Phillies, Shibe Park, Vietnam War, William B. Cox, William Baker