Inning-by-inning runs, with totals for runs, hits and errors.
Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
NYM	2	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	4	4	0
PHI	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	2	3	8	1

IV · THE GAME · MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

Mike Schmidt

Third Base · 12 September 1972 · Philadelphia Phillies · 27 September 1949, Dayton, Ohio

Schmidt's debut season lasted thirteen games and produced one home run. The career that followed took eighteen years and produced five hundred and forty-seven more.

At a glance

Career: 2,404 games · 2,234 hits · 548 home runs · 1,595 runs batted in · .267 average
Debut: 12 September 1972, aged 22, at Veterans Stadium
Last game: 28 May 1989, for the Philadelphia Phillies
Physical: 6' 2" · 200 lb · batted right · threw right · wore number 20

Look closer

The debut was a one-run loss with four hits between them
On 12 September 1972 the Phillies made eight hits to the Mets' four, committed one error to none, and lost 4–3. The Mets scored twice in the first inning and twice in the fourth; Philadelphia did not score until the seventh, then put two runs across in the ninth but ran out of time. The whole thing took two hours and twenty-one minutes in front of 5,057 people. More hits and fewer errors did not produce more runs.
The first full season was the hardest one to watch
In 1973 Schmidt played one hundred and thirty-two games, came to the plate three hundred and sixty-seven times, and struck out one hundred and thirty-six times — more than once every three plate appearances. He hit eighteen home runs that year, which means he struck out more than seven times for every ball he put over the fence. His batting average was .196.
The highest totals came in a narrow window
Schmidt hit forty-eight home runs in 1980, forty-five in 1979, forty in 1983, thirty-eight in each of 1974, 1975, 1976 and 1977. Every season in which he hit more than thirty-seven falls between 1974 and 1987. The seasons before and after that window show lower totals: eighteen in 1973, twelve in 1988, six in 1989. The career total is large because the middle was both productive and long.

The story

On the evening of 12 September 1972, the New York Mets came to Veterans Stadium and beat the Philadelphia Phillies 4–3. The Mets made four hits and no errors. The Phillies made eight hits and one error. The runs arrived in three bursts: two for New York in the first inning, two more in the fourth, one for Philadelphia in the seventh, and two in the ninth — too late. The game took two hours and twenty-one minutes. Attendance was 5,057.

Schmidt's first thirteen games that September produced seven hits in thirty-four at-bats, one home run, three runs batted in, and fifteen strikeouts. His batting average was .206. The following season he played one hundred and thirty-two games, struck out one hundred and thirty-six times, and hit for an average of .196. He also hit eighteen home runs, which means he struck out more than seven times for every ball he cleared the fence.

The 1974 season was different. Schmidt played all one hundred and sixty-two games, made one hundred and sixty hits in five hundred and sixty-eight at-bats, hit thirty-six home runs, and drove in one hundred and sixteen. His average was .282, his on-base percentage .395, his slugging percentage .546. The strikeouts were still there — one hundred and thirty-eight of them — but the other numbers had moved.

Between 1974 and 1987, Schmidt hit more than thirty home runs in ten of those seasons. He hit forty-eight in 1980, forty-five in 1979, forty in 1983, thirty-eight in each of 1974, 1975, 1976 and 1977. The totals in the years outside that span are lower: eighteen in 1973, twelve in 1988, six in 1989. The career figure — five hundred and forty-eight — is the sum of eighteen seasons, most of them in that middle window where the annual totals stayed between twenty-one and forty-eight.

Schmidt walked as often as he struck out. Over the eighteen seasons he drew one thousand five hundred and seven walks and struck out one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three times. His career on-base percentage was .380, seventy-three points higher than his batting average, which means that in more than one plate appearance in ten he reached base without a hit. He stole one hundred and seventy-four bases across the career, twenty-nine of them in 1975.

The last season was 1989. Schmidt played forty-two games, made thirty hits in one hundred and forty-eight at-bats, hit six home runs, and drove in twenty-eight. His average was .203. The final game was on 28 May 1989.

Why it mattered then

Schmidt played the position called third base, which sits on the left side of the infield between second base and the foul line. A third baseman fields ground balls hit hard to that side, catches line drives, and throws across the diamond to first base — a long throw that requires both arm strength and accuracy. The position has always demanded defensive skill, but in the 1970s it was not typically a source of power hitting. Schmidt's combination — five hundred and forty-eight home runs from a position known more for its glove work than its bat — made him unusual in his own moment. In 1980 Schmidt hit forty-eight home runs in the regular season and drove in one hundred and twenty-one. That same year the Phillies won the postseason. The timing mattered: the power arrived in a year when the club needed it most. Schmidt played eighteen seasons for one club, all of them in Philadelphia. That kind of tenure was becoming less common by the 1980s, as player movement increased and long careers with a single team grew rarer. The consistency of the connection — same position, same club, same city — made the accumulation of the numbers easier to follow, and easier to attach to one place.

Why it matters now

The five hundred and forty-eight home runs remain visible in the record, but the context around them has shifted. The totals that seemed large in the 1980s have been overtaken by later careers, some of them under circumstances that raised questions about how the numbers were produced. Schmidt's figures were compiled in an era before those questions became urgent, which means they sit in a different part of the conversation now — not because they changed, but because the conversation did. The career also demonstrates what a long accumulation looks like when it is not built on a few extraordinary seasons. Schmidt never hit fifty home runs in a year. His total in 1980 was forty-eight, and most seasons fell between twenty-one and forty. The total is large because the middle stretch lasted from 1974 to 1987 and the production stayed steady. That pattern — a long plateau rather than a sharp peak — is harder to picture than one enormous season, but it is the shape most large career totals actually take. Schmidt's eighteen seasons with one club are now unusual enough to be worth noting. Player movement has increased, and careers that span nearly two decades with a single team are less common than they were. The length of his tenure, combined with the consistency of the position he played, makes the career easier to summarise: third base, Philadelphia, 1972 to 1989. That kind of summary is harder to write now, which is why the ones from that era stand out.

The surprising detail

The season that produced Schmidt's highest batting average was also one of the shortest. In 1981 he played one hundred and two games — fewer than in any other season except his debut and his final year — and hit .316. He also hit thirty-one home runs in those one hundred and two games, which works out to one home run every 11.4 at-bats. The 1981 season was shortened by a players' strike that lasted from June to August, which is why Schmidt played fifty-eight fewer games than he had the year before. The .316 average and the home-run rate both came in the interrupted year.

What is disputed

Every figure here comes from the MLB Stats API. Statistical categories were not all recorded consistently across the eighteen seasons covered, and some totals for the 1970s were compiled retrospectively from contemporary scoring; the figures given are the ones the league publishes today rather than anything independently recomputed here.

Remember this

Five hundred and forty-eight home runs, none of them in a season that broke fifty — the total is the length of time as much as the size of the swing.

Test yourself

The Mets made four hits to the Phillies' eight in Schmidt's debut game, and committed no errors to Philadelphia's one. Why did the Mets win?

Go deeper

Image: Ken Lund from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0. Source.

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