Frank's Place: The Phillies' bummer of '42

Attention! This is to inform you that the entertainment portion of the 2016 Phillies season has concluded. Before departing the bandwagon, please make sure to gather your unwarranted optimism. Drive safely, have a nice summer, and we'll see you again when the 76ers screw up the NBA draft.

Sorry. If I don't vent, there's a good chance I'll turn into my grandfather.

I've noticed signs of a transformation these last few weeks as I've tried to watch the virtually unwatchable Phillies - a nightly endeavor highlighted by an endless procession of stubborn, stupid, and fruitless at-bats.

Each game, increasingly irritated by things that never bothered me before, I find myself channeling him. After every two-strikeouts-and-a-weak-ground-ball inning, I talk to myself or the TV as he did in his crusty dotage. Baserunning blunders boil my blood, too. Impatient at-bats can make me switch the channel.

My grandfather was a lifelong Phillies fan and a bitter old man, two not-unrelated conditions. When he passed at 78 in 1966, his death certificate cited congestive heart failure as the reason. It failed to note the contributions of Gene Mauch.

In his final years, he spat out the Phillies manager's terse name like an Anglo-Saxon curse. Often it was an unadorned but sharply pointed "Mauch!" At other times, he'd add a few blunt adjectives.

Whenever Mauch ordered a bunt for no apparent reason or failed to remove an underperforming pitcher, my grandfather would rise from his chair; snatch his glass of beer; and, muttering loudly and foully, switch off the TV or radio before heading to the sun porch.

This man of constant sorrow never saw his Phillies win a championship. During the shank of his life, the 31 years from 1918 through 1948, the team enjoyed just one winning season. Twenty-seven of those years concluded with the Phillies either in eighth (15 times), seventh (eight), or sixth place (four). Twelve times, they finished 40 or more games out of first place.

Not long ago, trying to gauge the level of suffering my poor grandfather must have experienced, I looked closely at those seasons.

The analysis left me with one overriding question: How did he survive 1942? That Phillies season was so historically bad it would have turned Job into a Mets fan.

It began with incredibly bad timing. On Nov. 27, 1941, two weeks before the Nazis declared war on the United States, the Phillies hired a manager whose name couldn't have been more overtly German, Hans Lobert.

Lobert's first move was persuading ownership to shorten the team's name from "Phillies" to "Phils." He claimed it was an attempt to "put a little pep" in the moribund franchise. A dissenting Philadelphia sportswriter suggested the Phillies instead were trying to "get the lie out of their name."

The roster Lobert inherited was already woeful, and the wartime loss of several players - including the aptly nicknamed Hugh "Losing Pitcher" Mulcahy - didn't help.

Shortly after dropping those three letters, the Phils dropped their first three games to fall into the National League cellar. They would not get out. They never won more than three games in a row. Their statistical high point came on May 24, when they took the opener of a doubleheader to improve to 13-25. They lost the nightcap, and 28 of the next 34.

They had players such as Hilly Flitcraft, Boom-Boom Beck, and Pinky May. Two future managers - Bobby Bragan and Danny Murtaugh - didn't help. Nor did two future Hall of Famers, Lloyd Waner and Chuck Klein.

Waner was 36 and dissipated by drink. In 287 at-bats, he had just 10 RBIs. Reacquired in August after a nine-year absence, Klein was 37 and washed up too. In 14 games, he managed one hit, a single.

The Phils averaged 3,111 fans a game at Shibe Park, and once, for an 8-5 loss to Cincinnati on Sept. 11, drew 393.

Their final record was 42-109, leaving them a mind-blowing 62½ games out of first.

The ignominy they earned was deserving.

Phils hitters were last in batting average, runs, hits, home runs, stolen bases, walks, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, and OPS. Their pitchers were last in ERA, complete games, shutouts, and saves, while allowing more runs, hits, and walks than any other staff. Their fielders led the league in errors and compiled the worst fielding percentage.

(Depressing footnote: The '42 Phils' league-low .232 batting average was two points higher than the current team's .230.)

After the season, the NL took the team away from owner Gerry Nugent, replacing Lobert with the more appropriately named Bucky Harris and Nugent with the equally inept William Cox.

I can't imagine that my grandfather could have endured too many games on the radio that season. As if the team weren't horrid enough, its radio announcers, By Saam and Taylor Grant, were two broadcasters he disliked in any capacity.

"I'd rather hear your grandmother announce a game than Saam," he liked to say. "He stinks."

He survived the '42 season, but he might not have made it through this one. He'd have flipped whenever Odubel Herrera did. He'd have pulled the plug every time Maikel Franco pulled off a pitch. He'd have cursed the corner outfielders' lack of production.

The summer of '42 was a perfect storm of misery for a curmudgeon like him. Food, gasoline, and so much else were subject to wartime rationing. He was too old to fight. And, thanks to a baseball team too bad to enjoy, he had no respite.

There was, however, beer and, though it too was rationed, he owned a bar. I never saw him watch a game without a glass or a quart bottle beside him, though as the years went on its anesthetic powers apparently dulled.

Night after night now, as I sit there grumbling at these Phillies, I wonder if I'm doomed to follow John Radcliff's cranky path. Why couldn't I have taken after my other grandfather, a gentle, sweet-natured man?

Come to think of it, he didn't like baseball. And if that's the trade-off, I'll gladly become a miserable old crank.

ffitzpatrick@phillynews.com

@philafitz