The Main Event

  • September 16, 2009 – Jayson Werth hits a grand slam off Washington’s Jason Bergmann for a 6-1 win, with Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Raul Ibanez on base — the first slam in MLB history involving four players who’d each hit 30+ home runs, and the Phillies’ 10th slam of the season, a team record.

On September 16, 2009, Jayson Werth stepped in against Washington reliever Jason Bergmann with the bases loaded and drove one into the seats at Citizens Bank Park for a grand slam that beat the Nationals 6-1. It wasn’t just another late-season blast. With Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Raul Ibanez all on base, it marked the first grand slam in major league history hit with four players on the field who had each hit 30 or more home runs in that same season. It was also the Phillies’ 10th grand slam of the year, a number that would climb to an eventual franchise record before the season ended.

A first-round pick who had to prove himself twice

Werth’s road to that moment was anything but direct. The Baltimore Orioles took him 22nd overall in the 1997 draft, then immediately traded him to Toronto before he ever appeared in an Orioles uniform. He broke into the majors with the Blue Jays in 2002 and was dealt to the Los Angeles Dodgers in March 2004. Two seasons later, disaster struck: a pitch from A.J. Burnett broke his left wrist during spring training in 2005, and complications from the injury wiped out his entire 2006 season. The Dodgers, unwilling to gamble on a player who hadn’t swung a bat competitively in over a year, non-tendered him.

The Phillies signed Werth to a modest one-year, $850,000 contract in December 2006, a low-risk flier on a player some teams had written off entirely. It became one of the best minor investments in franchise history.

Becoming a fixture in Philadelphia

Werth won the Phillies’ right field job in 2007 and never let go of it. He was a key piece of the 2008 World Series championship team, batting .273 with 24 home runs during the regular season and hitting .444 with a two-run homer in the World Series against Tampa Bay. His breakout came in 2009, when he made his only All-Star team while hitting 36 home runs and driving in 99 runs as the Phillies returned to the World Series, this time falling to the Yankees in six games. He signed a two-year deal that covered the 2009 and 2010 seasons, then closed out his Phillies tenure in 2010 by leading the National League with 46 doubles while adding 27 homers, 87 RBI, and a .296 average. Over four seasons in Philadelphia, he hit .282 with 85 home runs, and the club made the postseason every year he wore the uniform.

From Philadelphia to Washington, and a long career after

Werth’s big free agent payday came from an unlikely source. In December 2010, the division rival Washington Nationals signed him to a seven-year, $126 million contract, a deal that was widely mocked at the time as one of the worst in baseball history given Werth’s age and a rebuilding Nationals roster. It aged better than critics expected. Werth became a clubhouse leader and productive regular in Washington, earning MVP votes in both 2013 and 2014 and helping the Nationals reach the postseason four times over his seven seasons there. He retired in 2018 at age 39 after a brief comeback attempt in the Seattle Mariners’ system, ending a 15-year major league career. He comes from a genuine baseball family, the grandson of longtime infielder Dick “Ducky” Schofield and nephew of another major leaguer, also named Dick Schofield, with his stepfather Dennis Werth having played in the majors as well. After baseball, Werth largely stepped away from the public eye, spending time with his family and pursuing organic farming.

A 2009 lineup loaded with power

The grand slam Werth hit didn’t happen in a vacuum. The 2009 Phillies scored 820 runs, the most in the National League, built around one of the most fearsome middle-of-the-order groups in franchise history. Ryan Howard led the majors with 45 home runs and 141 RBI. Chase Utley hit 31 homers with a .905 OPS and scored a team-high 112 runs. Raul Ibanez, in his first season in Philadelphia, hit 34 home runs with 93 RBI. Combined with Werth’s 36, the Phillies became just the 12th team in major league history to have four players each hit 30 or more home runs in a single season, and only the second team to have three of those four be left-handed hitters.

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A franchise record built one slam at a time

Werth’s blast was part of an unprecedented run on grand slams for that Phillies team, which finished with 11 for the season, still the franchise record. Howard hit three of them himself, including a 475-foot shot into the third deck at Citizens Bank Park on May 30 that made him the franchise’s career grand slam leader, passing Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt. Howard’s three slams tied him with two other Phillies for the second-most in a single season, one shy of the club record of four set by Vince DiMaggio, Joe DiMaggio‘s older brother, back in 1945. Ibanez hit a slam of his own on April 27 in the very same game as one of Howard’s, only the fourth time in franchise history that two teammates had each hit a slam in the same contest. Pedro Feliz added two grand slams, including the season’s 11th and last on September 29 against Houston. Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino each contributed one, and pinch hitter Matt Stairs delivered one of the more colorful ones, a ninth-inning slam off Washington’s Zack Segovia on September 10 that snapped a career-worst 30-at-bat hitless stretch.

Werth’s own slam stands out among that group for its rarity rather than its power. Plenty of Phillies hit grand slams that summer. None of them did it with three teammates on base who had each already gone deep 30 times that season, a distinction that, as of today, still belongs to Werth alone.

Philadelphia Baseball Events for September 16

  • September 16, 1926 – In the first game of a doubleheader, the Phillies lose to St. Louis 23-3, using six pitchers, two of whom didn’t retire a single batter. In game two, manager Art Fletcher and catcher Jimmie Wilson were ejected after a dispute with the umpire, and Fletcher was suspended for the rest of the season.
  • September 16, 1930 – Trailing Pittsburgh 10-5 in the bottom of the ninth, the Phillies score five runs to tie it. The Pirates score four in the top of the tenth, but the Phillies answer with five of their own for a 15-14 win.
  • September 16, 1940 – Rookie Danny Litwhiler singles in both games of a doubleheader with St. Louis, extending his hitting streak to 21 games, the longest by a Phillies rookie at the time.
  • September 16, 1952 – Ted Washington, a Camden high school standout and member of the Negro Leagues’ Philadelphia Stars, becomes the first African American player signed by the Phillies. He was called to military duty the following spring, and a training injury ended his baseball career.
  • September 16, 1967 – Rick Joseph hits a pinch-hit grand slam in the bottom of the 11th to beat Los Angeles 8-4, the only pinch-hit, extra-inning grand slam in Phillies history.
  • September 16, 1972 – Mike Schmidt hits the first home run of his 548-homer career, a three-run shot off Montreal’s Balor Moore that accounts for all the runs in a Phillies win and snaps Moore’s 25-inning scoreless streak.
  • September 16, 1986 – Kent Tekulve pitches the final 2.2 innings against Pittsburgh for the win, his NL-record 847th career pitching appearance.
  • September 16, 1997 – Curt Schilling beats the Mets 3-2, becoming the 13th pitcher since 1900 to reach 300 strikeouts in a season.
  • September 16, 2007 – Ryan Howard strikes out twice against the Mets, giving him 184 for the season, a new team record surpassing Jim Thome‘s 182 in 2003.
  • September 16, 2025 – Down 4-0 on the road, the Phillies erase the deficit and eventually go up 9-6 on the Dodgers: Shohei Ohtani‘s 50th homer of the year ties it at 6-6 in the eighth, but rookie catcher Rafael Marchán answers with a go-ahead three-run homer off Blake Treinen in the ninth for the win.

ICYMI

Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for September 16

  • Roger McKee (born 1926) – A World War II-era manpower shortage got McKee to the majors at 17; on October 3, 1943, he became the youngest pitcher in MLB history to throw a complete-game win, beating Pittsburgh 11-3 for the Phillies at 17 years, 17 days old.
  • Ron Mrozinski (born 1930) – A left-handed pitcher who spent his brief two-year big-league career (1954-1955) entirely with the Phillies, going 1-3 with a 5.36 ERA in 37 appearances.
  • Mark Parent (born 1961) – A journeyman catcher for seven organizations over 13 seasons, Parent closed out his career as a backup backstop for the Phillies in 1997-1998.
  • Desi Relaford (born 1973) – The Phillies’ primary shortstop for parts of five seasons (1996-2000), valued more for his glove and versatility than his bat before being traded to San Diego in 2000.
  • Michael Martinez (born 1982) – A Rule 5 pick who served as a Phillies utility infielder/outfielder from 2011-2013; he later drew national attention making the final out of the 2016 World Series as a member of the Cleveland Indians.
  • Brandon Moss (born 1983) – Got a brief five-game, hitless callup with the Phillies in 2011 before establishing himself as a power-hitting first baseman/outfielder with Oakland and other clubs over an 11-year career.
  • Matt Vierling (born 1996) – A 2018 Phillies draft pick out of Notre Dame, Vierling reached the majors in 2021 and shared center field duties through 2022 before being traded to Detroit that January.

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