This is typically one of the worst sports weeks of the year.
The NBA and NHL seasons are over (finally), although the association does quench the thirst of its most ardent fans by conducting summer league games featuring recent draft picks and other young players.
The NFL is counting down the days until the start of training camp, although the Los Angeles Chargers are already at work in preparation for their July 31 Hall of Fame game with the Detroit Lions.
Major League Baseball shuts down its games for the week in order to stage its Home Run Derby and All-Star Game, two events that have lost a lot of the luster and esteem they once held in the national sporting culture.
These recent days, however, were some of the most entertaining in Philadelphia sports history.
That scenario seemed unlikely after
Phillies
slugger
Kyle Schwarber
declined a chance to be part of the Home Run Derby. With ace
Zack Wheeler
pulling out of the game entirely, Schwarber was the Phillies’ lone representative as a reserve DH to Shohei Ohtani.
That seemed light for one of baseball’s six division leaders, but it also provided a good reason to go to bed early when the National League went up 6-0 in the sixth inning.
As I often do, I woke up in the morning and checked the box score. The final score — N.L. 7, A.L. 6 in 10 innings — surprised me a little. What surprised me a lot more was how the box score explained the N.L.’s victory:
Batter One pinch hit in the 10th inning and hit a home run off Pitcher One.
What the hell does that mean?
I’ve seen a lot of things during my 26 years as a baseball writer, but this was the first time I ever saw Batter One get the best of Pitcher One in the All-Star Game or any game for that matter.
Naturally the investigation went deeper. I confess that I did not know that something called a swing off had been put in place ahead of the 2022 ASG to decide the outcome of a tie game after nine innings.
The mysterious Batter One turned out to be Schwarber, although he was actually the second hitter in N.L. manager Dave Roberts’ swing-off three-player rotation. In the future, baseball should figure out a better way to explain its ASG swing offs in the box score, but Phillies fans surely loved the result.
Schwarber’s achievement came against batting-practice fastballs that he requested in the middle of the plate, but it’s still no small feat to hit three out on three swings with a game hanging in the balance.
For the really old folks in the audience, it no doubt brought back memories of
Johnny Callison’s ASG walk-off homer at Shea Stadium in 1964
. That was the last time an All-Star Game ended with a home run and the last time a Phillie won the ASG MVP Award.
Schwarber said afterward that he didn’t deserve the award and maybe he’s right. He definitely denied
Pete Alonso
a chance of winning it. The
Mets
‘ slugger hit a three-run homer during the actual game and would have had a chance to win it in the swing off if the American League’s Jonathan Aranda had produced a single home run during his turn at the plate. Aranda failed to launch a home run and Schwarber became the Batter One hero in baseball’s first-ever swing-off.
But that was only the first bit of excitement for Philadelphia fans in these typically dull days of summer.
The
Eagles
, one week ahead of their first training-camp practice, provided one more remembrance of their incredible 2024-25 season.
The ESPYs have been around for 32 years, but you could chop off both of your hands and still count the number of times Philadelphia teams or athletes played a huge role in the sporting world’s answer to the Oscars, Emmys and Grammys.
That changed Wednesday when the Super Bowl champion Eagles became the focal point of the entire show. There was
a comedic short film
on the origins of the tush push and host Shane Gillis took jabs at the Cowboys, Ohio State and Michigan.
Saquon Barkley
won the ESPYs for the
best play of the year
and the best NFL player of the year, but lost out to Oklahoma City NBA star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for the best male athlete award.
Still, it was the Eagles’ night and the dark sporting days of summer for maybe the first time ever belonged to Philadelphia in 2025.
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Bob Brookover can be reached at
