The site founder and editor as well as primary contributor is Matthew Veasey. Born and raised in the 2nd Street (some call it ‘Two Street’) neighborhood of South Philly, Matt is a 1979 graduate of Saint John Neumann High School (now Neumann-Goretti HS) and a 2009 graduate of Saint Joseph’s University.

Matt was a member of the Philadelphia Police Department from 1990-2018. He retired honorably at the rank of Sergeant with the Training Bureau after serving in the ranks of Police Officer and Detective earlier in his nearly three-decade career. Prior to that he worked for a decade in the banking industry. He was a part of the official Philadelphia Police Department “Twitter Initiative” for the final eight years of his career, posting on that social media site under the official sanction of the department.

During the course of that career in law enforcement, Matt founded this website at mattveasey.com back in 2004, writing on law enforcement, family, news, politics, faith, entertainment, and sports, especially baseball.

Site owner Matt Veasey (L) with Phillies radio voice Scott Franzke outside of Citizens Bank Park during the 2010 season.

Also during that law enforcement career, Matt began to cover his beloved Philadelphia Phillies for other websites. He served as Site Expert for Fansided’s “That Ball’s Outta Here” from 2014-16, recovering what was a floundering entity through his own writing as well as editorial work, social media presence, and staff hiring, growing it into a respected resource on the team. In 2016-17, Matt covered all of Major League Baseball for Fansided as a writer with their “Call to the Pen” site.

During October-November 2016, Matt contributed a number of the the profiles at Sports Talk Philly during their countdown of the “Top 25 Phillies of All-Time“: Billy Hamilton, Johnny Callison, Sam Thompson, Roy Thomas. In 2017, he contributed a pair of pieces to the Philadelphia Baseball Review.

In July 2018, Matt was brought on at “Phillies Nation” as a writer, quickly becoming an integral part of their effort into August 2019. He served during that time as the lead writer for the site, and also contributed as an Assistant Editor and Social Media Coordinator. He left following a major dispute regarding past articles at this mattveasey.com website that were deemed too sensitive by the Phillies Nation owner. You can read the true story of that situation here.

In the fall of 2019, Matt began to cover the Phillies with his own efforts on social media as @PhilliesBell, which can be found through that handle on Twitter. This was accompanied by original pieces on the team at his own website, philliesbell.com. In April 2020 a YouTube channel was setup for The Bell.

“Phillies Bell” existed as a stand-alone website during much of the 2020 pandemic delay of the Major League Baseball campaign and the entirety of the abbreviated regular season, and then on through the postseason. In mid-November 2020 ‘The Bell’ was incorporated back into this mattveasey.com site as a subsection. The Twitter social media feed for Phillies Bell continues as a separate entity and is the single best place to follow for info on the club.

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