The uniforms take the Phillies back to 1939.
For Thursday night’s Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa, Philadelphia will wear gray road uniforms inspired by the ones the franchise wore from 1939 through 1941. On the sleeve is a replica of the patch the Phillies wore in 1939, when baseball was celebrating what was then believed to be the 100th anniversary of the sport.
It is an invitation to look backward.
So let’s actually go there.
Because baseball in Philadelphia in 1939 was bigger than the Phillies.
The Phillies went 45-106-1, finished last in the National League and were outscored by 303 runs. Across the same ballpark, the Athletics went 55-97-1 and finished seventh in the American League. Both played their home games at Shibe Park.
But by Major League Baseball’s current historical record, Philadelphia had another major-league team that summer.
The Philadelphia Stars.
MLB recognized seven Negro Leagues from 1920 through 1948 as major leagues in 2020, then incorporated their available statistics into the official major-league record in 2024. The second Negro National League, in which the Stars competed, is one of those recognized leagues.
That means a trip back to Philadelphia baseball in 1939 cannot stop at Shibe Park.
It has to include 44th and Parkside.
The Stars had moved there in 1936, playing at a park known at various times as Penmar Park, the Pennsylvania Railroad YMCA Athletic Field and simply 44th and Parkside. The grandstands generally held between 5,000 and 6,000, according to the Phillies’ history of the club, although crowds could swell beyond 10,000.
And there was nothing manufactured about the setting.
A Pennsylvania Railroad roundhouse sat beyond the left-field fence. At times, soot drifting from the locomotives became thick enough to interrupt games because players struggled to see through it.
That was one of Philadelphia’s baseball neighborhoods in 1939.
And the Stars were seven years into building their own history.
Ed Bolden had founded the club in 1933. One year later, the Stars defeated the Chicago American Giants for the Negro National League championship. By 1939, that championship core had changed, and these Stars were no juggernaut.
But they could play.
The Seamheads Negro Leagues Database reconstructs Philadelphia’s 1939 record at 30-31-1 in official Negro National League games and 32-32-1 against the broader collection of top Black clubs in its database. The Stars finished fourth in the seven-team NNL, 9½ games behind the Homestead Grays, then went 2-3 in the league playoffs.
And at third base stood one of the greatest hitters Philadelphia ever had.
Jud Wilson was 43.
This would be his final season with the Stars.
He was still crushing baseballs.
Across 39 documented games, Wilson hit .321/.426/.495, good for a .922 OPS and a 139 OPS+. He collected 35 hits in 109 at-bats and drew 18 walks. His .426 on-base percentage ranked 10th among the hitters listed on Seamheads’ 1939 Negro League leaderboard.
Wilson is in Cooperstown today. The Hall of Fame lists the Philadelphia Stars as his primary team and credits him with a .352 career average in the major-league statistics now recognized by MLB.
He wasn’t alone in that lineup.
Second baseman Pat Patterson hit .339, with 12 doubles and three triples. Shortstop Chester Williams hit .326, piling up 61 hits in just 46 documented games. Veteran left fielder Roy Parnell hit .302. And 25-year-old center fielder Gene Benson led Philadelphia with five documented home runs.
The problem was getting people out.
The Stars posted a 5.79 team ERA, worst among the seven NNL clubs in the Seamheads database, while allowing 6.2 runs per game across their broader documented schedule. Wilson managed the club to a 16-24-1 mark before Jake Dunn took over and went 16-8 in the remaining documented games.
But numbers alone can flatten a season this old.
So consider what happened on Aug. 12.
The Newark Eagles came to 44th and Parkside for an afternoon game.
Their lineup included Monte Irvin, Willie Wells, Mule Suttles and Biz Mackey. Leon Day also appeared.
All five are now in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The Stars beat them anyway.
It took 15 innings.
Williams went 4-for-6, scored three runs and doubled twice. Patterson collected three hits and drove in two. Jim West added two doubles and two RBIs. Philadelphia scored once in the bottom of the 15th and walked off with a 6-5 victory.
Think about that scene.
An August afternoon in West Philadelphia. Five future Hall of Famers on the visiting club. Jud Wilson in the home dugout. A game that stretched across 15 innings before the Stars finally won it.
That happened here.
It is part of Philadelphia’s major-league history now.
There is an important caution whenever we put precise numbers around Negro League seasons. The record remains incomplete. MLB estimates that surviving statistical documentation from the recognized Negro Leagues between 1920 and 1948 is roughly 75 percent complete, and researchers continue to uncover games and box scores that can change individual and team totals.
But the incomplete statistics should not produce an incomplete memory.
Philadelphia in 1939 had separate baseball worlds because baseball itself was segregated.
At Shibe Park, the Phillies were losing 106 games. The Athletics were laboring through another seventh-place season.
Across the city, the Stars were playing at 44th and Parkside against clubs loaded with some of the greatest players the sport has ever known.
For generations, one of those worlds occupied most of the official record.
The other had to be reconstructed.
That is what makes the Phillies’ Field of Dreams uniforms more interesting than a simple exercise in nostalgia.
The gray jerseys can take us back to 1939.
But once we get there, we should remember everybody who was playing.
The Phillies were there.
The Athletics were there.
And at 44th and Parkside, so were the Philadelphia Stars.
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