Final Years
Phillips was sold to the Kansas City Cowboys during the off-season to make room for Dave Orr. By the end of the 1888 season, Phillips' abilities began to decline at a rapid pace, which brought about simpathy among the baseball community. Years later, Charles Comiskey recalled that when he was the manager for the St. Louis Browns, instructing his pitchers to throw easy-to-hit pitches for Phillips so that his public image would remain intact. The 1888 season was Phillips' last at the major league level, and while he had his lowest seasonal batting average of .236, he again led the league in putouts. He returned to Canada to play one more season of professional baseball, with Hamilton Hams of the International League. However, he batted just .245, which signaled the end of his playing career. Phillips never married, and he died on October 7, 1900 in Chicago at the age of 43, of syphilitic locomotor ataxia, and he is interred at Graceland Cemetery. Phillips was enshrined into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988.
Read more about this topic: Bill Phillips (first Baseman)
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