The Main Event

  • September 7, 1971 – Greg Luzinski hit his first career home run, off St. Louis’s Reggie Cleveland. It was also the first Phillies homer to reach the 500-level seats at Veterans Stadium.

On September 7, 1971, a 20-year-old first baseman named Greg Luzinski stepped into the batter’s box at brand new Veterans Stadium and drove a pitch further than anyone had hit a ball there before. It was his first major league home run, a towering shot to left field that Phillies fans would talk about for years. Few of them realized they had just watched the opening act of one of the most beloved careers in franchise history.

A Chicago Kid Who Almost Played Football

Gregory Michael Luzinski was born on November 22, 1950, in Chicago and grew up dreaming of replacing Ernie Banks at the infield corner for the Cubs. He was good enough at football to draw scholarship offers from Notre Dame and Kansas, but he turned them down to chase baseball instead. The Cubs barely scouted him. It was the Phillies, tipped off by a friend of team owner Bob Carpenter, who selected Luzinski with the 11th pick of the 1968 draft.

He signed quickly and tore through the Phillies system. Playing for Reading in 1970, he hit .325 with 33 home runs and 120 runs batted in, becoming the first player in Eastern League history to top 100 RBI in a season and earning a September call-up. He debuted as a pinch-hitter against the defending champion Mets before he had even turned 20.

The Phillies initially saw Luzinski as a first baseman, but Deron Johnson held that job in 1971, so Luzinski spent most of that season at Triple-A with the Eugene Emeralds piling up power numbers, along with a Pacific Coast League record 167 strikeouts that hinted at the free swinging approach that would define his career. It was there that his thick chest and punishing bat first earned him the nickname “The Bull.”

That September call-up brought the record home run at the Vet, and by the following spring the Phillies had made a decision. With Johnson entrenched at first, they moved Luzinski to left field. The transition was not always smooth defensively, but his bat made the move worthwhile. He led the team in hits, home runs and RBI as a rookie in 1972, then broke out fully in 1973 with a .339 June that earned him National League Player of the Month honors.

The Bull in His Prime

From 1975 through 1978, Luzinski was one of the most feared hitters in the National League. He earned four straight All-Star selections, leading the majors in fan voting among outfielders in 1976 and 1977, and topped all National League vote-getters in 1978. In 1975 he became the first Phillie since 1950 to lead the league in RBI, finishing as league MVP runner-up. He repeated as runner-up in 1977 after posting career highs with a .309 average, 39 home runs and 130 RBI. Sparky Anderson called him “one of the best clutch hitters in baseball,” and Dick Allen once predicted the Phillies would “have to order more baseballs” once Luzinski hit his stride.

His blasts became a kind of civic spectacle. He hit some of the longest home runs ever seen at Veterans Stadium, Shea Stadium, the Astrodome and Dodger Stadium, feeding the legend of “Bull Blasts.” On September 26, 1976, he delivered a three-run homer against Montreal that clinched the Phillies’ first division title in 26 years, the start of three straight NL East championships.

Luzinski’s popularity in Philadelphia went well beyond the numbers. After signing a five-year contract in the winter of 1976, he purchased a block of Veterans Stadium box seats in left field for underprivileged children to use, a section fans nicknamed “The Bull Ring.” He worked the local banquet circuit every winter, helped sell season tickets on offseason promotional tours, and won the Phillies’ Roberto Clemente Award for community involvement. For years he was, by any measure, one of the most popular athletes in the city.

That goodwill frayed in October 1977, when Luzinski misplayed a ninth inning line drive in game three of the National League Championship Series, opening the door to a Dodgers rally on a day Phillies fans still call “Black Friday.” Philadelphia’s notoriously tough crowds turned on him during slumps in 1978 and 1979, even though the real culprit was a managerial decision not to have pulled him for defense late in that NLCS game.

A World Series Ring and a Move to Chicago

Luzinski helped push through the frustration to be part of the 1980 Phillies, the team that won the franchise’s first World Series championship, beating the Kansas City Royals in six games after reporting to spring training 25 pounds lighter and battling through a knee injury during the season. It proved to be his last year in Philadelphia. On March 30, 1981, the Phillies sold him to the Chicago White Sox, his hometown team, ending an 11 year run in a Phillies uniform that left him among the franchise’s career leaders in home runs and RBI.

In Chicago, Luzinski found new life as a designated hitter. He led the White Sox in home runs, RBI and runs scored during the strike shortened 1981 season and won the American League’s Outstanding Designated Hitter Award, an honor he captured again in 1983 while helping the White Sox win a division title. He set a franchise record with home runs in five straight games that year and became the first player to hit three home runs onto the roof above Comiskey Park’s second deck. He retired after the 1984 season with 307 career home runs and 1,128 RBI. He also garnered four all-star game appearances and finished in the top 10 for MVP voting four times in his career.

Life After Baseball, and Bull’s BBQ

Luzinski stayed close to the game after retiring, serving as hitting coach for the Oakland Athletics under Tony La Russa and later for the Kansas City Royals under former teammate Bob Boone. But his most visible second act came back in Philadelphia. When Citizens Bank Park opened, Luzinski opened Bull’s BBQ in Ashburn Alley, serving pulled pork, smoked turkey and his signature kielbasa “Bull Dog” sandwiches to generations of new Phillies fans. He is there for most home games, greeting fans, signing autographs and showing off his 1980 World Series ring.

The Phillies inducted him onto their Wall of Fame, and the National Polish American Sports Hall of Fame recognized him in 1989. Whatever bitterness lingered from his final Philadelphia seasons has long since faded. These days, mention “The Bull” in South Philadelphia and people are more likely to think of barbecue and a World Series ring than a dropped fly ball, a fitting turn for a career that began with the longest home run anyone had ever seen at the Vet.

Philadelphia Baseball Events for September 7

  • September 7, 1901 – The Phillies, riding a nine-game winning streak, hosted a Pittsburgh club that had won ten straight; Philadelphia won 4-1.
  • September 7, 1911 – Rookie Grover Cleveland Alexander beat 44-year-old Cy Young 1-0, in what would be Young’s final major-league season.
  • September 7, 1923 – Boston’s Howard Ehmke no-hit the Athletics in a 4-0 win at Shibe Park, a no-no controversially preserved by an official scorer’s late change of a hit to an error.
  • September 7, 1971 – Mike Anderson appeared in the resumption of a game suspended since August 1st. Despite having played seven games the previous week, this is considered his official MLB debut because of when the game originally started.
  • September 7, 1972 – Steve Carlton beat St. Louis 2-1 for his 100th career win and 23rd of the season, a Phillies record for lefties. His nine strikeouts pushed his season total to 272, breaking Jim Bunning‘s 1965 team mark of 268.
  • September 7, 1994 – Acquired pitcher Fred McNair from Seattle to complete the July 21, 1994 trade that had sent Shawn Boskie to the Mariners.
  • September 7, 1996 – Scott Rolen broke a bone in his arm after being hit by a Steve Trachsel pitch, ending his season one at-bat shy of losing his rookie eligibility for 1997.

ICYMI

Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for September 7

  • Ed Daily (born 1862) – An outfielder-pitcher for the Philadelphia Quakers, the Phillies’ forerunner, who won 26 games as a rookie hurler in 1885 before spending most of the rest of his career in the outfield.
  • Eddie Matteson (born 1884) – A right-handed pitcher whose brief major-league career included his 1914 debut season with the Phillies.
  • Curt Davis (born 1903) – A workhorse right-hander who broke in with the Phillies in 1934, going 19-17 and then 16-14 over his first two seasons, before being dealt to the Cubs in May 1936 in the trade that brought Chuck Klein back to Philadelphia.
  • Barry Lersch (born 1944) – A pitcher, mostly out of the bullpen, for the Phillies from 1969 to 1973 who made his MLB debut on Opening Day 1969 before finishing his career with St. Louis.
  • Dave Wallace (born 1947) – A pitcher who debuted with the Phillies in 1973 and, despite never earning a big league win in his career, went on to a long, respected run as a pitching coach for the Dodgers, Mets, Red Sox, Astros and Orioles.
  • Julio Peguero (born 1968) – An outfielder who played all 14 of his career MLB games with the Phillies in 1992 after arriving from Pittsburgh in a 1990 waiver trade.
  • David Newhan (born 1973) – A versatile utility player who spent part of his eight-year, five-team MLB career with the Phillies and later worked as a big-league hitting and infield coach.

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