Phillies Legends: Mike Schmidt

The most decorated player in Philadelphia Phillies history, today we look at the spectacular career of the legendary Mike Schmidt.

Ron Cortes/Philadelphia Inquirer/MCT/Sipa USA

There are not many Hall of Fame players with numbers as impressive as Mike Schmidt's. He is probably the greatest Phillie of all time and is by far the most decorated. 

He grew up in Dayton, Ohio with his family, and was always hitting in the batting cages, working on his craft. He was born for the game of baseball, and his decent high school numbers would help propel him to a college career at Ohio University.

Schmidt’s sophomore, junior, and senior seasons at Ohio University impressed Phillies scout, Tony Lucadello. Lucadello wanted the Phillies to take Schmidt with their first round (6th overall) pick, but he fell to the second round with the 30th overall, exactly one pick behind Royals legend George Brett.

Schmidt was brought up to the big leagues as a September call-up in 1972. The team was struggling and way out of the playoff race, so the Phillies saw it as an opportunity to see what they had in Schmidt. He only played 13 games in the ‘72 season, and donned the number 22 before he switched to the famous number 20 the following year.

His ‘73 season was certainly not a success by any means. Schmidt batted sub .200 and despite showing glimpses of power (18 home runs), he struck out often and was not producing at a high enough level.

There was lots of talk about sending Schmidt back down to the minors during the ‘73 season to develop and help get him more big league ready, but Phillies manager Danny Ozark refused as he saw something in Schmidt and figured he needed more experience in the Majors.

Schmidt played winter ball that season to refine his swing, and he decided to take a new approach at the plate. He no longer swung out of his shoes, and instead swung with an easier and more fluid motion. Before long, Schmidt was firing on all cylinders and was hitting the ball with just as much power despite a less aggressive swing.

An incredible 180 degree turn-around season in 1974 was soon underway, and Schmidt was quickly becoming the player we remember him as today.

In ‘74, his 36 home runs and .546 slugging percentage would lead the Majors. He was still high in strikeouts with a league leading 138, but batted .284 and came in sixth place for MVP voting.

This was just the beginning to Schmidt’s spectacular career, so to get a better understanding of his 18 seasons let's look at his greatest achievements: 

• National Baseball Hall of Fame

• 3x MVP

• 12x All-Star

• 10x Gold Glove

• 6x Silver Slugger

• World Series MVP (1980)

• 25th highest WAR in MLB history - 106.9

• 16th highest home run total - 548

In 1976, Schmidt helped lead the Phillies to a 101 win season, and their first playoff appearance since 1950. In the first 15 games of the season, he hit 12 home runs including four homers in one game, where he became the third Phillie to accomplish the feat, and tenth player to do so in MLB history.

As a matter of fact, after his four home run performance, Schmidt was pictured on the front of the very next edition of Sports Illustrated.

A couple years and some disappointing playoff losses later, Schmidt entered the 1980 season as one of the game’s best sluggers and defensive specialists. An up and down season for the Phillies in 1980 would put them on the verge of a playoff berth. To close out the regular season, the Phillies went to Montreal to play the Expos for a three-game series. The winner of the series would advance to the NLDS.

Schmidt went on to hit a two-run homer in Game 1 to give the Phillies a 2-1 victory. Similarly in Game 2, he hit a go-ahead homer in the 11th inning as the Phillies won 6-4 and secured their spot in the postseason.

A hard fought NLCS against the Houston Astros would go all five games (Championship series were best of five at the time) including four games going into extra innings. Schmidt struggled in the series batting just .208, but the team around him got the job done and the Phillies were going back to the World Series for the first time in 30 years.

Schmidt and the Phillies were set to face off against none other than George Brett and the Kansas City Royals. Schmidt had a huge bounce back series and completely threw out the narrative of him struggling in the postseason.

Schmidt went 8 for 21 in the series while driving in seven runs and scoring six of his own. He put together the game winning hit in game 6 that would ultimately cap off the incredible Phillies season and bring them their first ever World Series victory. Schmidt received World Series MVP honors that season, as well as National League MVP honors.

1980 was arguably Schmidt’s greatest MLB season, but a close contender would be the 1981 season where he slashed .316/.435/.644 with a 1.080 OPS. He led the league in home runs (31), RBI (91), walks (73), OBP, Slugging, OPS, and total bases (228).

Schmidt continued his greatness all throughout the 1980s and hit the most home runs of any player in that decade. By 1989, Schmidt had experienced his decline and was clearly not the player he used to be. An error at third base in San Francisco made him realize it was time to call it a career, and that is what he did. He announced his retirement in May of the ‘89 season, but in July of that same season he was voted into the All-Star game by the fans. He showed up to the game in full uniform but elected not to play in the game.

Five years after his retirement, Schmidt was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He has gone down in history as one of the game’s greatest third basemen and is certainly regarded as one of Philadelphia’s greatest athletes of all time. His impressive range at third made him famous for barehanded grounders with smooth throws to first using a submarine arm-slot. He was more popular, of course, for his bat that would hit an incredible 548 home runs.

This man is the biggest Phillie legend of them all, and despite the high expectations of Philadelphia sports fans, he fought year in and year out for the city. He will forever be cherished by the Phillies franchise and his greatness is everlasting as the Phillies have retired his number 20 forever. 

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