According to a poll conducted by ESPN’s Baseball Tonight program, as well as our own poll, Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt is the greatest Philadelphia Phillie of all time by an overwhelming margin.

The staff from BBTN picked who they believed were the top 10 players from each franchise and then the public voted on their top choice from those ten. The BBTN staff cast their own vote as well, and the top three from each group were revealed during BBTN. This was done for every major league team.

Schmidt, largely considered the greatest third baseman of all time, won with an overwhelming 77% of the vote in our own Hot Stove Philly vote, despite some heavy competition.

Schmidt was competing against the likes of Grover Cleveland Alexander, Dick Allen, Richie Ashburn, Steve Carlton, Chuck Klein and Robin Roberts.

In his rookie season with the Phillies, Alexander led the league in wins with 28, still a major league record, 31 complete games, 367 innings pitched, and seven shutouts while finishing second in strikeouts and fourth in ERA.

Allen averaged .292 batting, .534 slugging, and a .378 on base percentage over his career and is widely considered to be the best player not in the Hall of Fame.

Whitey is one of the most popular Phillies ever from both his time on the field and in the radio booth. He had the most hits (1,875) of any batter during the 1950s.

Lefty is undoubtedly the best pitcher ever to put on a Phillies uniform and is the only player to ever win the Cy-Young Award while on a losing team when he won 27 games on a 1972 Phillies team that only managed 59 wins the whole season.

Chuck Klein was the best hitter in Phillies history up until Schmidt emerged on the scene. During his career he had four home run championships, two RBI titles, and a batting title. Klein, Ty Cobb, and Jimmy Sheckard are the only three players to lead the league in home runs and stolen bases in a year. In his 17-year career Klein batted .320, with 398 doubles, 1201 runs batted in, 1168 runs, 2076 hits (870 extra-bases), and 300 home runs. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1980.

In his 19-season career, Roberts compiled a 286-245 record with 2,357 strikeouts, a 3.41 ERA, 305 complete games, 45 shutouts, and 4,688⅔ innings pitched in 676 games. He is the only pitcher to defeat the Boston Braves, the Milwaukee Braves and the Atlanta Braves, a testament to his endurance and longevity.

That is some serious competition, but it was largely thought to be a foregone conclusion that Schmidt would prevail as number one. He is a three-time MVP, a 12-time All Star, and a 10-time Gold Glove Award winner. In 1976, Schmidt hit 12 home runs in the Phillies’ first 15 games, including 4 in one game on April 1. No one had ever hit so many homeruns so quickly. This feat was later tied by Alex Rodriguez in 2007.

In the Phillies World Series season of 1980, Schmidt led the league in homeruns with 48 and won the NL MVP in a unanimous vote. He would win the MVP the following year as well, and his third in 1986. Schmidt led the league in home runs eight times, in RBI four times, OPS five times, and walks four times. He finished his career with 548 homeruns and 1,595 RBIs. They are just two of many Phillies’ records that he holds. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995 and received (at the time) the fourth highest percentage (96.52%) in history.