August 7, 1969: Awash in drama, Phillies punt exhibition against farm team in Reading

If the Philadelphia Phillies played their August 7, 1969, exhibition against their Double-A farm team as a farce, it might have been because they couldn’t handle any more drama.

Phillies manager Bob Skinner resigned on the day of the game, blasting team management for perceived lack of support in his disciplinary struggles with slugger Dick Allen. Allen, who had missed almost a month of the season in a combined suspension and walkout, wasn’t at the exhibition in Reading, Pennsylvania, either. Front-page news stories in Philadelphia said Allen’s refusal to play was the last straw for Skinner, who sought front-office support to force Allen to attend but didn’t get it.1

Interim skipper George Myatt managed the seven-inning exhibition against the Reading Phillies as a joke, activating two of his coaches and letting infielder Cookie Rojas take a turn at pitching. The junior Phillies – who played a regulation Eastern League game after the exhibition – allowed their big-league cousins only two hits and strolled to an 8-0 victory. One suspects Myatt and his team dismissed the game’s result in the time it took them to change and shower.

The 1969 season was the major leagues’ first with divisional play, and the Phillies entered the day near the bottom of the newly created National League East Division. Their 44-64 record placed them 24½ games behind the first-place Chicago Cubs and ahead of only the first-year Montreal Expos.

Allen, a future Hall of Famer, had been the Phillies’ biggest offensive weapon for several seasons after winning the National League Rookie of the Year Award in 1964. He’d also been an intermittent discipline problem, being punished on three occasions, in 1967, 1968, and 1969, for arriving late to games or missing team flights.2

His relationship with the team boiled over again on June 24, 1969, when Allen went to a racetrack to watch a horse he owned and missed the news that the first game of a Phillies doubleheader had been moved up an hour. Skinner suspended Allen, who refused to meet with Phillies management to settle the situation. Allen stayed away from the team for 26 days and didn’t return to the starting lineup until July 24.3  The Phils struggled without him, going 6-16 from July 1 to July 24 and losing seven games in a row at one point.

A few days before the Reading exhibition, Allen told Skinner he wasn’t going because he’d reached an agreement with Phillies owner Bob Carpenter that excused him from exhibitions. After meeting with Carpenter and general manager John Quinn, Skinner scheduled a 3 P.M. news conference at Connie Mack Stadium, where he unexpectedly quit.4 Skinner criticized Allen for creating disharmony and Carpenter and Quinn for humoring him. “With the inside track he has, no manager can control this guy under the present setup,” Skinner seethed.5 In a further twist to the story, Allen showed up at the ballpark that afternoon but missed the team bus to Reading; Carpenter told him not to bother driving there.6

While tension was erupting in Philly, Myatt – a member of the Phillies’ coaching staff – was sightseeing through rural southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and mother. Not until he reached Reading’s Municipal Stadium did he learn of Skinner’s resignation and his new role. “Some people take leisurely drives through Pennsylvania Dutch country to forget about their troubles,” the Reading Eagle newspaper quipped. “George Edward Myatt took one Thursday and found a few.”7 Stepping in as manager was familiar for Myatt: He’d led the Phillies for two games in 1968, winning both.8

So who was there representing the Phillies? Other than Allen, the Reading fans got to see most of the Phillies’ usual starters for at least a few innings, including Rojas, Don Money, Tony Taylor, Larry Hisle, Johnny Callison, and Mike Ryan. Deron Johnson, usually the Phils’ left fielder, started in Allen’s place at first, while backup outfielder Ron Stone started in left.

On the mound, 35-year-old Turk Farrell got the start. Farrell had begun his career as a reliever with the Phillies before becoming a starter with the Houston Colt .45s and Astros. His once-famed fastball faded, Farrell was winding down his career in the Philadelphia bullpen, where it began. The 1969 season was Farrell’s 14th and last in the majors, and he entered with a 3-3 record, two saves, and a 3.88 ERA.

While the Phillies struggled, manager Bob Wellman’s Reading team thrived. Reading entered the day in a two-team race at the top of the Eastern League, just a half-game behind the first-place York Pirates with a 65-43 record.9 The 1969 season was Reading’s third as host of the Phillies’ Double-A farm team.

Dick Allen’s younger brother Ron was Reading’s starting first baseman, contributing a .300 batting average, 25 home runs, and 97 RBIs over the full season.10 Others who started for the minor leaguers included third baseman Gene Leek; right fielder Gene Stone, no relation to Ron, who’d seen the only big-league action of his career with the Phillies earlier in the season; and catcher Stump Merrill, who never made the majors as a player but managed the New York Yankees in 1990 and 1991.

Wellman’s starting pitcher was 21-year-old lefty Bill Laxton, who’d been born across the river from Philadelphia in Camden, New Jersey. In his fourth pro season, all in the minors, Laxton was wrestling with control issues. Laxton walked 105 hitters in 107 innings over the course of 20 regular-season starts at Reading, while compiling a 7-9 record and a 3.62 ERA.11

With 5,005 fans watching, Laxton showed the parent club his best stuff. He pitched five shutout innings and allowed only two singles, by Callison in the first and Money in the fourth. Laxton struck out five Phillies and walked only two. “That’s right, TWO,” the Reading Eagle wrote for emphasis.12

Laxton’s teammates provided run support early and often. Shortstop John Jagutis, Reading’s second batter of the game and a .216 hitter over the full season, homered to give the home team a 1-0 lead. Third baseman Ron Cox followed with a single, and Ron Allen’s double scored him for a 2-0 Reading advantage.13

After a quiet period, Myatt sent Rojas to the mound for the bottom of the third.14 Two seasons earlier, Rojas had pitched a shutout inning against the San Francisco Giants in his only big-league pitching appearance. He was less effective against Double-A batters, walking Leek and Gene Stone and surrendering a run-scoring single to center fielder Steve Kolinsky. Merrill’s single loaded the bases, and another single by second baseman Pat Locanto scored Stone. Two outs later, Jagutis’s single drove in two more runs for a 6-0 Reading lead, spelling the end of Rojas’s night. Lowell Palmer came on to work 2 1/3 shutout innings, allowing one hit.

Myatt called 44-year-old coach Al Widmar out to pitch the sixth inning, 11 years after Widmar’s last regular-season appearance as a professional pitcher.15 Adding to the comedy, 48-year-old coach Andy Seminick came out to catch. He’d played 18 seasons as a pro, mostly with the Phillies, where he was a 1949 NL All-Star and a member of the 1950 Whiz Kids NL championship team.16

After Cox homered to left off Widmar, manager Wellman got in on the fun by inserting himself as a pinch-hitter for Leek – and hitting a single to left field. Leek returned to run for Wellman, and Gene Stone pounded a double to right field to drive him in, bringing the final score to 8-0. Bob Terlecki, a pitcher temporarily promoted from Raleigh-Durham of the Class-A Carolina League, closed out the Phillies with two hitless innings to end the game in 1 hour and 35 minutes.17 Reading lost its second game of the night, 5-4, to the Waterbury (Connecticut) Indians.18

“The accent on winning was strictly one way,” the Reading Eagle summarized the exhibition. “It was an exhibition, nothing more, nothing less, for Myatt and the big-leaguers.”19 A Philadelphia sportswriter described Phillies hitters as “going through the motions,” adding acidly, “a skill they have mastered in recent weeks.”20

The Reading team closed the season in second place with an 81-59 record, 8½ games behind York. The EL’s four-team Shaughnessy-style playoffs were canceled in the first round because of the combined impacts of steady rain, players’ military obligations, and other complications.21 Entering 2025, the Reading team – renamed the Fightin’ Phils – was still Philadelphia’s Double-A Eastern League affiliate.

The parent club went 19-35 under Myatt to close in fifth at 63-99. Frank Lucchesi took over as manager for 1970; Myatt spent another 2½ seasons as a Phillies coach but never managed in the majors again.22

Allen played out 1969 with the Phillies, then was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for 1970, the Los Angeles Dodgers for 1971, and the Chicago White Sox for 1972. Under manager Chuck Tanner, Allen turned in three memorable seasons for the White Sox, winning the AL Most Valuable Player Award in 1972 and home-run titles in 1972 and 1974. Allen’s second act with the White Sox helped cement his eventual Hall of Fame election, four years after his death in 2020.

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for general player, team, and season data.

Neither Baseball-Reference nor Retrosheet provides box scores of exhibition games, but the August 8, 1969, edition of the Reading (Pennsylvania) Eagle published a box score.

Image of 1969 Topps card #507 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Allen Lewis, “Skinner Quits Phillies, Assails Front Office in Dispute Over Allen,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 8, 1969: 1.

2 Rich D’Ambrosio, “Dick Allen,” SABR Biography Project, accessed January 2025, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Dick-Allen. This biography also details the complicated relationship between Allen and Phillies fans, who reveled in booing him despite his talents.

3 D’Ambrosio, “Dick Allen.”

4 Bill Conlin, “Skinner’s Spectacular Finale: Courageous Man Walks Tall,” Philadelphia Daily News, August 8, 1969: 57; Sandy Padwe, “Bob’s Explosion Was Powerful,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 8, 1969: 27. Padwe reported a general sense of surprise and shock among Phillies coaches and players at the news of Skinner’s resignation.

5 Lewis, “Skinner Quits Phillies, Assails Front Office in Dispute Over Allen.”

6 “Allen Misses Bus to Reading,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 8, 1969: 27. Allen’s business manager, Clem Cappozzoli, was driving, and Cappozzoli took the blame for not reaching the ballpark on time.

7 John W. Smith, “George Myatt Hoping to Make Richie Happy,” Reading (Pennsylvania) Eagle, August 8, 1969: 18, https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PoVhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dqAFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4332%2C3798182. Myatt told the reporter that he’d obtained Skinner’s permission to drive to Reading separately from the team.

8 As of August 2025, Retrosheet credited Myatt with two games managed in June 1968, while Baseball-Reference credited him with one. A look at Philadelphia newspaper coverage from June 1968 indicates that Myatt managed the Phillies on June 14 when Gene Mauch left the club to visit his ailing wife, and again on June 15 after Mauch was fired. See: Bill Conlin, “Is Gene Mauch’s Trip Home Going to Be Permanent?” Philadelphia Daily News, June 15, 1968: 30; Allen Lewis, “Phillies Fire Mauch, Pick Bob Skinner as Manager,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 16, 1968: 1:1.

9 “Eastern League,” York (Pennsylvania) Gazette and Daily, August 7, 1969: 26. The league had six teams, and the third-place team, Elmira, was 10 games behind.

10 Ron Allen was 25 years old and in his sixth pro season in 1969. The Phillies never called him up, but he played seven games with the St. Louis Cardinals in August 1972.

11 Other relevant stats: Laxton gave up 69 hits and struck out 94 batters. He also threw 15 wild pitches – an improvement from the previous season, when he’d thrown 28.

12 Duke DeLuca, “Bill Laxton Too Good for the ‘Big’ Club,” Reading Eagle, August 8, 1969: 18, https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PoVhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dqAFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4332%2C3798182.

13 Unless otherwise noted, all game action is based on DeLuca, “Bill Laxton Too Good for the ‘Big’ Club,” and “Reading Holds Phils to 2 Hits in 8-0 Victory,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 8, 1969: 27.

14 DeLuca quoted Myatt as saying the Phillies were “short of pitching.”

15 Widmar pitched 17 seasons as a pro, including parts of five in the majors between 1947 and 1952.

16 Widmar and Seminick were never teammates during their playing careers, so this was their first experience as a battery.

17 Associated Press, “Phils Blanked by Reading,” Wilmington (Delaware) Evening Journal, August 8, 1969: 28. As of January 2025, Baseball-Reference did not indicate that Terlecki pitched any regular-season games for Reading in 1969. Terlecki subsequently pitched in Reading in 1970, 1971, and 1973; he made nine late-season appearances with the Phillies in 1972.

18 Duke DeLuca, “Merrill Loses – So Do Phillies,” Reading Eagle, August 8, 1969: 18.

19 Duke DeLuca, “Bill Laxton Too Good for the ‘Big’ Club.”

20 Stan Hochman, “Disneyland East: From Impossible to Intolerable,” Philadelphia Daily News, August 8, 1969: 57.

21 “Richardson Cancels Eastern Playoffs,” Elmira (New York) Star-Gazette, September 5, 1969: 15.

22 Lucchesi and Myatt were fired on the same day in July 1972. “‘Have No Choice but to Go Along’ – Lis,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 11, 1972: 25.