Schwarber joins elite Phils club

Kyle Schwarber became the 21st player in baseball history to hit four home runs in a game on Aug. 28. He joined Phillies Hall of Fame legends Ed Delahanty, Chuck Klein and Mike Schmidt, an elite club.

• Phillies Alumni

Four players to hit four are the most for any franchise. The next closest? The Diamondbacks and Braves, who have two each. Actually, the Braves have three, one while they were in Boston, one in Milwaukee and one in Atlanta.

How rare are four-home run games? Well, there have been 24 pitchers who have pitched a perfect game. But only 21 who have hit four home runs in a game.

Phils Fab Four

Delahanty: July 13, 1896: Home runs in 1st, 5th, 7th, 9th innings, at the Chicago Colts’ West Side Park ... The second player to hit four in MLB history.

Source: SABR's Jerrold Casway

1st inning: “Hit it over the inner, lower bleacher fence in front of the right-field wall.”

5th inning: “A towering blow that soared over the scoreboard and canvas-topped right-field wall. It landed across the road in a flock of chickens."

7th inning: “Over the head of the fleet-footed Chicago center fielder, Billy Lange. The ball rolled to the distant clubhouses.”

9th inning: “The hit carried beyond Lange, and bounded onto the roofs of the center-field clubhouses. A local gum factory recognized Ed’s achievement by giving him a box of gum for each home run.”

Attendance, 1,000 listed ... The Phillies' seventh straight loss, 9-8. Of the 21 historic games, three have taken place in losing causes ... Delahanty ended the season leading the league with 13 home runs.

Klein, July 10, 1936 ... Forty years after Delahanty ... 1st, 5th, 7th, 10th innings ... 9-6, 10-inning win in Forbes Field, Pittsburgh. Attendance, 2,500. Home run off Bill Swift leading off the 10th inning gave the Phils a 7-6 lead. “Rain began to fall as Klein stepped to the plate. Klein took Swift’s first pitch and banged it over the right-field wall, the longest ball he hit all afternoon,” Philadelphia Inquirer ... Klein was the fourth in baseball history to hit four ... Finished the season with 25 homers.

Schmidt, April 17, 1976 ... Forty years after Klein ... 5th, 7th, 8th, 10th innings ... 18-16, 10-inning win over the Chicago Cubs on a Saturday afternoon in Wrigley Field; fifth game of the season ... Attendance, 28,287.

“I arrived in Chicago in a slump. I was demoted to sixth in the batting order that day. I was definitely pressing and not relaxed,” said Schmidt in a newspaper clipping. “Before the game, my friend Dick Allen pulled me aside and said, 'Lets you and I just concentrate on having fun today.' The game started and we fell behind immediately, so it was comeback baseball all game. We came back from 11 runs twice [12-1 after three innings; 13-2 after four].”

For the record, he hit a two-run homer in the fifth inning (“curveball”, according to Schmidt) off Rick Reuschel; a solo home run in the seventh (“fastball up and in”) again off Reuschel; a three-run blast in the eighth (“another fastball”) off Mike Garman; and a two-run homer in the 10th (“fastball up and in”) off brother Paul Reuschel.

“I did use a Tony Taylor bat and wore a Terry Harmon T-shirt that he said had a lot of hits in it.”

Led the league with 38 homers that season.

How significant was that afternoon in Chicago? Schmidt became the second player in National League history to hit four consecutive home runs in a game, joining Boston’s Bob Lowe, who did it in 1894. Overall, 10 players hit four home runs in a game up until 1976.

Schwarber, Aug. 28, 2025 ... Forty-nine years after Schmidt ... Solo (1st inning), 2-run (4th), 3-run (5th), 3-run (7th) ... 1,618 total footage ... Nine RBIs set a new club single-game club record ... Had a chance to hit five home runs in a game in the bottom of the eighth inning. Atlanta shortstop Vidal Bruján was used as a pitcher in the bottom of that inning. Schwarber popped out to the left fielder on a 57 mph lob, the second bloop pitch he saw ... The four homers boosted his season total to 49.

Did You Know?

Of the four Phillies, Schwarber was the only one to take place in Philadelphia; 41,293 fans at Citizens Bank Park ... Also, the only night game ... Schmidt’s and Schwarber’s fetes happened in powder-blue uniforms ... For the first time, there were three in the same season this year, Nick Kurtz, Oakland A’s, July 25; Eugenio Suárez, Arizona Diamondbacks, April 26; and Schwarber.

Shibe Park

June 3, 1932, Lou Gehrig, New York Yankee first baseman, hit four against the Philadelphia Athletics, 1st, 4th, 5th, 7th innings ... Grounded out to second base in his last at-bat, 8th inning ... Yankees 20, A’s 13 ... Gehrig was the third to hit four; first since Delahanty in 1896.

July 18, 1948, Pat Seerey, Chicago White Sox left fielder, hit four against the Philadelphia A’s, Game 1 of a Sunday afternoon doubleheader ... 4th, 5th, 6th, 11th innings. His two-out homer off Lou Brissie was the game-winner, 12-11 ... He was hitless in three at-bats with a walk in the second game ... He hit eight more homers the rest of the season and finished his last full season with 19.