Fifty-three years ago today, the Phillies made a trade that didn’t look like a franchise-changing move at the time. It turned into one anyway.
Philadelphia landed Dave Cash from the Pirates in exchange for Ken Brett, and the player they got back was never a superstar on paper. Cash never made an All-Star team before arriving in Philadelphia and never picked up MVP votes in Pittsburgh.
What he did have was a track record of winning. In five seasons with the Pirates, he was part of the 1971 World Champion club and also helped them to division titles in 1970 and 1972.
That mattered in a major way for a Phillies team that had spent decades drowning in disappointment. For 93 years, the franchise was stuck in the wrong end of the standings far more often than not, finishing the regular season there 91 times. Before the shift Cash helped ignite, Philadelphia had only managed two pennants, in 1915 and 1950.
Cash arrived with something the Phillies had rarely carried: belief.
On May 24, 1974, after a doubleheader sweep of the Montreal Expos, he put that attitude into words.
“Yes, we can!”
The line stuck. The Phillies were still a few years from true contention, but that kind of confidence helped shape a young team that was beginning to climb.
In 1974, Philadelphia jumped from 71 wins the year before to 80, and Cash was right in the middle of it. He hit .300, stole 20 bases, played strong defense at second base, and earned his first All-Star nod along with down-ballot MVP votes.
The improvement kept coming in 1975. The Phillies won 86 games and finished second, 6.5 games behind the Pirates.
Cash again made the All-Star team, hit .305, and drew more MVP votes. Around him, the roster was taking on real shape.
Greg “The Bull” Luzinski, then 24, finished second in MVP voting, and 25-year-old Mike Schmidt was beginning to build what would become the greatest career in MLB history at third base.
Cash later explained what he saw in that group.
"It was a team that needed confidence," Cash told Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Frank Fitzpatrick in 2007. "Mike Schmidt [in just his second full season] doubted himself.
He worried about how the fans were going to react to him. I spent a lot of time trying to convince him to block them out."
By 1976, the Phillies had broken through to the postseason for the first time in 26 years. They won 101 games, finished nine games ahead of the Pirates, and Cash earned another All-Star selection. The run ended with a sweep in three NLCS games, and Cash departed in free agency for the Expos.
Even so, his imprint never faded. Philadelphia would not reach the top of the baseball world until 1980, but by then Cash was long gone. The point remained the same: he was the player who helped turn a weary franchise into one that finally looked and acted like a winner.
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