In the days preceding the Phillies’ first-ever trip to Tiger Stadium, there was a separate trip on team officials’ minds. It was the end of August 1997, and it had been almost three months since the Phillies selected J.D. Drew with the second-overall pick in the amateur draft. The two sides had issues to overcome in contract negotiations.
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Like, only $8 million or so in differences.
But the Phillies believed this trek to Detroit was fortuitous. They had a day off before the three-game weekend series. Team president David Montgomery plotted a clandestine meeting. He’d fly with manager Terry Francona and rookie third baseman Scott Rolen on a private jet to Sioux City, Iowa, where Drew played independent ball. Rolen would sell Drew on the Phillies.
Then, some of the beat writers learned about the meeting. They also decided to go to Iowa. This prompted Montgomery to cancel it because he “thought it would lose its intended innocence if it went public,” according to a Philadelphia Inquirer story on Aug. 29, 1997.
Drew, of course, never signed.
The 1997 Phillies were a special brand of bad. They were 30-70 after 100 games, which marked the worst 100-game start to a Phillies season since 1945. They signed Danny Tartabull to a $2 million contract and his season lasted all of three games. They made Francona the youngest manager in baseball at 38, and handed him a pitching staff that featured Curt Schilling in his prime and a bunch of other unmentionables.
Wendell Magee Jr., the Opening Day center fielder, was so bad that he had to be demoted to Triple A before the end of May. Darren Daulton remade himself as a right fielder, then was traded to the Marlins in July. Derrick May batted cleanup on Opening Day and was released in August.
The Phillies won 14 games total in June and July. Then, something happened. A productive August concluded with the trip to Tiger Stadium during the first year of interleague baseball. It was a chance for Richie Ashburn to wax poetic about the historic ballpark.
There is something neat about rediscovering a place as it nears its final days, and that is what most Phillies viewers did on this night.
Let’s follow along.
Good evening, everyone, from Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Michigan. Welcome to Phillies baseball. Tonight, the Phils and the Detroit Tigers as we resume interleague play. Harry Kalas along with Rich Ashburn and Chris Wheeler. Pleasant night here in Detroit.
0:38 — “So, the Phillies on a bit of a roll coming in here to Detroit. One of the guys for the Tigers who has been a big difference in their record being so much improved over last year is a Philadelphia-area product, Whitey, Bobby Higginson.”
“Well, Bobby is,” Ashburn says. “He’s right out of Philadelphia. He went to Temple University. He wanted to play with the Phillies. He was always a Phillies fan. The Phillies wanted to make a second baseman out of him. He didn’t think he could play second, so he’s here with Detroit.”
1:20 — This is how you enter a broadcast:
2:12 — The Phillies drafted right-hander Tyler Green with the 10th-overall pick in 1991, and this game marked just his 36th start in the majors. These were the four players selected right after Green in the 1991 amateur draft: Shawn Estes, Doug Glanville, Manny Ramirez and Cliff Floyd.
Also selected that year by the Phillies, in the 18th round: Higginson. He didn’t sign, as Ashburn alluded, opting to play his senior season at Temple.
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“Starting lineups for you, right after these messages,” Kalas says. How bad could it be?
3:18 — Oh no. It’s bad.
3:41 — Kalas introduces Willie Blair, the Tigers’ starter. “Yeah,” Ashburn says, “he’s been with a lot of clubs. I believe this is his sixth major-league club. He gets the ball over the plate.”
4:40 — Kalas notes that the Phillies have gone 1-8 in interleague play. They won the franchise’s first-ever interleague game, against Toronto in June, then lost the subsequent eight.
4:48 — Actual proof that Francona once wore a uniform top while he managed a game:
5:03 — What if I told you that, in four years, this next man would score the tying run in Game 7 of the World Series against the Yankees for a team that didn’t even exist at this moment?
6:21 — “Talk about being on top of the action here at Tiger Stadium. We can almost reach out of our booth and touch the home-plate umpire,” Kalas says. “That’s how close we are to home plate.”
“Don’t worry about a thing, Harry,” Ashburn says. “You have a Hall of Fame center fielder with a glove here. See this glove?”
“I’m not concerned at all,” Kalas says. “It’s a right-hander’s glove, though. That’s, uh …”
7:39 — “Good to have Scott Rolen back in the lineup,” Kalas says. Rolen had missed the preceding San Diego series with a sore shoulder after being hit by a pitch. In his 45 games before the shoulder issue, he hit .329/.437/.584. It’s fun to see Rolen in this moment — before the drama, before he became one of the best third basem*n of his era, and a few months before becoming the first Phillies player to win Rookie of the Year since Dick Allen in 1964.
10:38 — “One ball and one strike,” Kalas says.
“Phillies just lost one of the greatest baseball fans, Harry,” Ashburn says. “A gentleman by the name of Bob Stuart, living out in Wyndmoor. Never missed a game. We send our condolences along to Anna.”
“One and two to Damion Easley,” Kalas says.
12:09 — Higginson is hitting .300 on the dot with 23 homers. “Nice ballpark for him, too, with that power to right field,” Ashburn says. “It’s only 326 down the lines. A short, low fence there in right field.”
“I guess you played here in All-Star Games, huh?” Kalas asks.
“They have an overhang out there in right field, as you can see,” Ashburn says. “An outfielder can be standing there, waiting to catch a ball, and it can hit that overhang. I played here in an All-Star Game in 1951. Great hitters’ park.”
13:35 — “Kevin Stocker is going to tie a major-league record with three assists in the inning,” Kalas says. “No runs, hits, errors and none left. At the end of one, it’s a nothing-nothing game.”
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13:52 — Ashburn is reading promos as the broadcast returns from commercial break. Between a Toyota ad — “I love what you do for me” — and one for the Pennsylvania lottery, the crowd roars. “Brian Hunter, with a leadoff double,” Ashburn says. No action is shown. Ashburn just plows forward with the lottery ad.
16:04 — If GIFs were a thing back then, this would be the one for the 1997 Phillies:
“That was almost a strike,” Ashburn says.
The umpires discuss it.
“He called that a strike!” Wheeler says. “He’s telling their dugout right now that it was a strike because it was right down the middle.”
18:10 — Wait, Higginson is up again. There is no score graphic on the broadcasts yet — remember, it’s 1997 — and this is the first hint that we are missing some of the broadcast here. Actually, Wheeler being in the booth with Ashburn should have been the first hint because Kalas would do the first three innings. So, this is the bottom of the fourth.
Wheeler relays a story from Dick Conley, Higginson’s coach at Frankford High. “He wrote an essay in English class when he was in grade school,” Wheeler says. “He said he wanted to be a big-league ballplayer. Well, he realized his dream.”
A Higginson sacrifice fly scores the first run of the game.
21:15 — “You’ve got the glove,” Ashburn tells Wheeler after a foul ball.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” Wheeler says.
“I hope you don’t bail out if one comes up here,” Ashburn says. “You’re supposed to protect me. This is Protect Senior Citizens Week.”
“I’ll try,” Wheeler says.
22:26 — What an all-time bat throw by Tony Clark. Wheeler is laughing. The bat landed in right field.
26:20 — Ashburn starts on a story during a replay. “The Unterbergers from Philadelphia — Glenn, Alyse, Sam and Andrew … ”
“Breaking ball there for Kevin Jordan,” Wheeler says. “A high curveball. You just see him lace it into center field.”
Ashburn resumes his message.
“Unterbergers on a driving tour through the midwest and stopped here in Detroit for this game. Mike Lieberthal, grounded out his first time up.”
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“It’s kind of fun being here,” Wheeler says. “I’ve never been to Detroit. Obviously, never been to this ballpark. So everything is new this weekend. It’s really nice. One of the things about interleague play you have to like. This old ballpark, over 100 years old, here in downtown Detroit. I walked into it tonight and I felt like I was back in Connie Mack Stadium. The upper deck just makes you think of Connie Mack.”
28:30 — Runners on the corners and here comes Billy McMillon. He was the Phillies’ return in the Daulton trade. He lasted six seasons for four different teams and never logged more than 175 plate appearances in a season. He even started a game in the 2003 American League playoffs.
He hits a sacrifice fly.
36:32 — Bubba Trammell starts the fifth inning with a double. “They have a lot of hope for him right there,” Wheeler says. “Former University of Tennessee Volunteer. He could be a pretty good player for them.”
“Darren Daulton was a Bubba,” Ashburn says.
“Darren Daulton was a definite Bubba,” Wheeler says. “His teammates called him Bubba.”
37:36 — Ashburn is on a roll. “The old New York Giants in the Polo Grounds, Wheels, they were going to get the fans in on the game. They installed a microphone. When an argument started, the microphone shot out of the ground right by home plate. The only problem with that was Leo Durocher was the manager. The first time he ran out there — that’s when you could argue balls and strikes without getting thrown out of the game — they have a little Italian umpire by the name of Augie Guglielmo.”
Ashburn can’t stop laughing.
“He called Augie every name Leo could think of. And Leo could think of a lot of them. That was the end of the microphone.”
43:01 — This game wasn’t that long ago, but here is a reminder that the score bug graphic is, and always will be, the most important revolution for sports broadcasts. The game is just harder to follow without the balls-and-strikes count always on the screen.
45:25 — As Higginson bats again, Ashburn laments how the Phillies haven’t been able to acquire many big leaguers from the Delaware Valley. “Had some good ones in the past,” he says. “Del Ennis, out of Olney High.”
50:06 — “Stolen base, Scotty Rolen,” Ashburn says. Rolen stole 16 bags in 1997. He never surpassed that mark in a 17-year career. This one was his 13th of the season.
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“That’s a lot of stolen bases for a guy as big as Scott Rolen,” Wheeler says.
Rico Brogna followed with a double to cut it to a 3-2 Tigers lead.
54:19 — The camera pans to the Tigers TV booth and there’s Al Kaline.
“You know,” Ashburn says, “he tried out in Connie Mack Stadium when he was a kid out of Baltimore. Here’s Lieberthal. Strike one. He was a skinny kid. And I don’t think they thought he would ever be big and strong enough to play major-league ball. Well …”
56:26 — The tape has again jumped ahead here. There’s a lefty in the game now for the Phillies, Ryan Karp, and it’s the seventh inning. Bases are loaded. It’s Higginson again. Karp walks him and a run scores.
1:03:32 — Francona brings in Jerry Spradlin to face Travis Fryman. Spradlin walks in another run. Francona stares into the abyss.
1:06:09 — Add Ron Blazier to the list of 1997 Phillies who never appeared in the majors after that season. It is a long list.
1:11:43 — “You see the ball that the Big Cat hit last night?” Kalas asks.
“No,” Wheeler says.
“Longest in Coors Field history — 487 feet to center.”
1:14:16 — Things are not going well for Blazier. It’s that point in the game and the season when not much is said on the broadcast between pitches.
1:23:24 — “Mile-high popup and this should be the ball game,” Kalas says. “Deivi Cruz, the shortstop, waits and puts it away. This one is over. A 1-2-3 inning for Dan Miceli here in the ninth. No runs, hits, errors and none left. Detroit wins by a score of 7-2 here at Tiger Stadium, and the Phillies’ interleague frustrations continue. The Phillies drop their ninth straight in interleague play.”
Eleven days later, Ashburn was dead at 70, and this tape of the Tigers game is one of his last broadcasts available online. Last year, another YouTube user uploaded the sixth inning from the Phillies broadcast on Sept. 8, 1997 — the last inning Ashburn called on TV.
Karp, the same young lefty who struggled in the Tigers game, was on the mound against the Mets. He induced a 4-6-3 double play.
“How ’bout that?” Ashburn says. “Nice job by Ryan Karp to retire the Mets. No runs, one hit, one left on. Harry Kalas joins Wheels in the seventh.”
In case you missed it: Opening act for ‘Wild Thing’ and 1991 Phillies
(Top photo of Scott Rolen in Detroit on Aug. 29, 1997: Duane Burleson / Associated Press)
