Larry Christenson, a workhorse pitcher for the Phillies in the 1970s and early 1980s, died unexpectedly Friday while on a fishing trip with family and friends in the state of Washington. He was 72.<\/p>\n
A native of Everett, Washington, Christenson was the Phillies\u2019 first-round draft pick in 1972. He pitched for the Phils from 1973 to 1983, spending his entire career in Philadelphia. After his playing days, he settled in the Philadelphia area, became successful in business and was active in local charity work. He was a tireless supporter of Phillies Charities, Inc.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was always helping people,\u201d remembered former teammate Larry Bowa. \u201cIf you needed him, he was there. If there was a fundraiser, he\u2019d be the guy who got everyone together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christenson made it to the majors at age 19. He was a stalwart on three straight National League East championship teams from 1976 to 1978. Over that span, he went 45-28 with a 3.65 ERA in 616 innings. He won 19 games in 1977. He went 5-1 for the 1980 World Series Champion Phillies, but was limited to 14 starts because of injury.<\/p>\n
Christenson was the Phillies\u2019 starting pitcher on May 19, 1979 when the team wore burgundy uniforms. Management had intended to have the team wear the uniforms several times that season, but the Phillies lost to Montreal on the night the uniforms debuted and the players did not like them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wore them once,\u201d Bowa recalled. \u201cAfter the game, Bull (Greg Luzinski) went upstairs and told (owner Ruly Carpenter) we we\u2019re done wearing them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christenson is forever captured in photographs wearing the burgundy uniform.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a great teammate,\u201d Bowa said. \u201cHe was a real good hitter for a pitcher. He had a great personality. He had a way of keeping the clubhouse loose, but he was tough and always prepared to pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got along with him great. Sometimes when he gave up a long home run, I\u2019d go to the mound and say, \u2018How did you hold that pitch?\u2019 He’d look at me and say, \u2018Get the (bleep) out of here.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a great guy. He will be missed.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Larry Christenson, a workhorse pitcher for the Phillies in the 1970s and early 1980s, died unexpectedly Friday while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,5865,99],"class_list":["post-829365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-phillies-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}