Most Phillies fans want to forget the 1964 season. This Facebook group is dedicated to remembering it.

When Stephen Dicht created the Facebook group “Memories of the 1964 Phillies,” he wasn’t sure what to expect. This was a season most fans wanted to forget. It started with promise, but ended in heartbreak, after the club lost 10 straight in late September (along with a 6½-game lead in the National League, and the pennant).

Dicht always saw more than that. Yes, 1964 was a historic collapse. But it was also a season full of excitement and hope; a young team, with a young manager, which competed with the powerhouse Giants, Dodgers, Cardinals, and Braves — and did so until the very end.

For a 10-year-old growing up in Northeast Philadelphia, it was exhilarating. Heartbreaking, but exhilarating. Dicht wondered if others felt the same. So, he decided to create the group in December 2023, ahead of the 60th anniversary of the team. He encouraged fans to share their thoughts, good and bad.

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The response was overwhelming. The group ballooned to nearly 5,000 members. People began posting newspaper clippings, bottle caps, and baseball cards. They entered into healthy debates about what caused the collapse — Chico Ruiz? Gene Mauch? Pitching fatigue? — but also shared some positive memories.

One member, Barry Bowe, taped video recaps for every game of the 1964 season. Another, Bernie Valente, started making miniature replicas of the scoreboard at Connie Mack Stadium.

Eventually, family members of former 1964 Phillies began to join the group. This included John Boozer’s sons, Curt and Morgan; Art Mahaffey’s wife, Janet; Dick Allen’s son, Richard; and Johnny Callison’s granddaughter, Juli Betsch.

The group became not just a place to reminisce, but to learn. Betsch shared old family photos of her “Pop,” sitting in his den, drinking a glass of wine. Older fans would regale members with stories of Connie Mack Stadium.

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This group knows that it is an outlier — or, as Valente puts it, “crazy.” But the members have taken solace in their community.

“When Johnny Callison died in 2006, one of his teammates said, ‘It’s time we stop focusing on the heartbreak and remember the first 150 games,’” Dicht said. “And that’s what a lot of people have chosen to do. Myself included.”

Betsch was born in 1983, 10 years after Callison’s final season. She lived around the corner from her grandparents in Glenside, and spent a lot of time with them growing up.

To his granddaughter, Callison was not a four-time All-Star right fielder with a cannon for an arm. He was “Pop,” a man who spent his afternoons watching Julia Child cooking shows, and his evenings with the Phillies on, a cigarette in hand.

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Callison had eight granddaughters in total, but Betsch was the most athletically inclined. She played softball throughout high school and college, and her grandfather would often give her critiques.

“He’d tell you to choke up on the bat,” Betsch said, “put your glove down, get in front of the ball. If you did bad, he would tell you you did bad.”

In “Memories of the 1964 Phillies,” Betsch found a welcome audience for her favorite childhood memories. She showed the group’s members a side of Callison they’d never known, and in turn, they showed her what it was like to watch her Pop play in his prime.

“They’re telling me all these stories,” Betsch said. “They send me all these articles about my grandpa, and they’re like, ‘Juli, you’ll love this.’ And it’s just neat. It’s really neat.”

Added Valente: “It blows my mind. Because as a kid, these people are like a million miles away. It’s an otherworldly kind of thing. And then you meet somebody’s nephew or their granddaughter, and all of a sudden, you feel so much closer to the player.”

Valente and Dicht are two of the most active members of the group. They are self-described Gene Mauch-defenders, and try to correct some misconceptions about the former manager.

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Among the biggest is that Mauch pitched only two starting pitchers over that 10-game stretch: Chris Short and Jim Bunning.

In reality, Mauch used four: Short, Bunning, Mahaffey, and left-hander Dennis Bennett.

“People still say that Mauch panicked and only used Bunning and Short for those 10 games,” Dicht said. “Which is false. Art Mahaffey actually pitched well in the two games he started. Dennis Bennett, his arm was shot.”

“Stephen and I are on an island,” Valente said. “We kind of defend the manager. When you lose 10 games in a row, I would say it’s a team effort.”

Another misconception is that the Phillies were expected to contend in 1964. But Dicht and Valente point out that the teams they were competing against were stacked with future Hall of Famers.

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The Giants, alone, had five: Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal, and Gaylord Perry.

“Nobody picked this team to do anything,” Valente said. “All these other teams were just loaded with future Hall of Famers, and we didn’t have any stars. I mean, Richie Allen was a rookie, and he was an emerging star, but we were kind of like the little train that [could].

“And I think that’s why, even though it didn’t end well, and it was pretty devastating, it was still really a fun summer.”

If anything, this is what Valente and Dicht try to focus on. Before their 10-game losing streak, the Phillies were playing playoff-caliber baseball. There were plenty of warm memories to look back on, from Bunning’s perfect game on Father’s Day to Callison’s walk-off, three-run home run in the 1964 All-Star Game.

It’s why Valente picked up his passion project of making replicas of Connie Mack Stadium. He started doing this 10 years ago — long before he found “Memories of the 1964 Phillies” — and taught himself how to build them from scratch.

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“I’m a complete psycho,” he said. “I miss that ballpark. It was old and it was dingy and it was run down, and I miss it with all my heart. If it were in Europe, that place would be like a shrine.

“So I said, ‘Well, I can’t drive by it anymore. I’m going to build a model.’ I don’t have blueprints. I’m not an architect, but I’ll use simple freshman algebra and balsa wood. And I’ll look at photographs, and I’ll say, how the heck am I going to do this?”

After Valente posted photos of his replicas, members of the group started asking if they could purchase them. An entire stadium takes months, but Valente can build a replica of the Ballantine Beer scoreboard in about three to four days.

To date, more than 70 members have purchased a replica.

“It does take a lot of time, but I enjoy it,” Valente said. “It kind of relaxes me. I’ll put the Phillies game on and do it.”

Dicht’s intention was only to start a discussion, but he now realizes he has tapped into something bigger. To Valente, and the thousands of other members, “Memories of the 1964 Phillies” is a place to unpack a season that evoked every kind of emotion.

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A place to be “crazy” together.

“As a kid, I’m thinking, ‘I don’t know how we’re doing this, but we’re coming up with ways of beating teams that I know are a lot better than us,’” Valente said. “So, overall, the experience was kind of positive [to me], but I am on an island.

“All of us in the group, I think we’re kind of on an island.”