Presented by ZAMZOWS.
This Day In Sports…April 17, 1976, 50 years ago today:
Future Hall of Famer Steve Carlton, almost at the mid-point of his brilliant career, would go 20-7 in 1976 and lead the National League with a winning percentage of .741. This was not one of those 20 victories. Carlton couldn’t get out of the second inning at Wrigley Field, and by the end of the third Philadelphia trailed the Chicago Cubs 12-1. But neither would this be one of Carlton’s seven losses.
The Phillies then mounted the greatest comeback in National League history, actually taking a 15-13 lead in the ninth before Chicago tied it in the bottom of the inning. Philadelphia won it in the 10th, 18-16. Another future Hall of Famer, Mike Schmidt, made the game doubly historic. Schmidt hit four home runs that day for the Phils; he’s still one of only 21 players to ever achieve the feat. And Schmidt is one of only 11 to do it in four consecutive at-bats.
Schmidt came into the game batting just .167 with one homer, but—using a bat borrowed from teammate Tony Taylor—ripped a Rick Reuschel pitch into the leftfield stands to cut the Phils’ deficit to nine runs. In the seventh, Schmidt narrowed the Cubs’ lead to six with another home run. By the time he came up in the eighth, it was a four-run game, and he slugged another three-run homer to slice the lead to one. Then in the 10th inning, with the score tied, Schmidt went yard again with a two-run shot to provide Philly with the final margin of victory. Carlton surely enjoyed all four of Schmidt’s bombs from the clubhouse.
The last player to club four homers in a game was former Boise Hawk Kyle Schwarber, also for Philadelphia, last August against the Atlanta Braves. Schwarber is remembered around here for being assigned to Boise after being drafted fourth overall by the Cubs in 2013. He was quickly promoted after going 12-for-20 with four home runs for the Hawks over the first five games of the season. (Incidentally, no MLB player has ever hit four home runs in a game twice.)
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
