Homer History: Joe Blanton’s improbable World Series blast

In our Homer History series, writers re-tell the stories of memorable home runs from their perspective. In this installment, Yahoo Sports college football writer Sam Cooper writes about one of the most improbable home runs of the Phillies 2008 World Series run.

I was 18 years old when the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series.

The Phillies were always terrible when I was a kid, but I still made countless half-hour treks down I-95 from the suburbs to Veterans Stadium with my dad. We would walk up to the box office and buy cheap seats in the 700 Level (so high up that you could barely see the ball), only to walk directly down to the third base side and sit unobstructed in like the 15th row to watch those teams with Mike Lieberthal, Scott Rolen and Doug Glanville lose again and again.

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But it was baseball – my favorite sport – and I got to hang out with my dad, so I didn’t mind the losing all that much. I got used to it, I guess.

(Joe Blanton's improbable World Series home run.) So when the Phillies first started turning the corner and playing a whole lot better around 2006 (shoutout to Jim Thome), it was such a welcomed change. A genuine core of young players, mostly all developed from within, forming a young, fun nucleus? What an idea!

The combination of those guys – Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Shane Victorino, Jayson Werth and company – plus a few other key acquisitions culminated with the 2008 season, when the Phils beat the Rays in five games to win their first World Series since 1980 and the city’s first title in any major sport since 1983.

There were plenty of big hits and home runs that got the team to that point. Victorino’s grand slam off C.C. Sabathia and Matt Stairs’ pinch hit moonshot off Jonathan Broxton come to mind, but it wasn’t until a cold October evening at Citizens Bank Park and a bomb off the bat of an unheralded back of the rotation starter named Joe Blanton when it hit me that the Phillies might actually do it – they might actually win the whole thing.

It came in Game 4 with the Phillies already up two games to one in the best of seven World Series. When the Phillies came to bat in the fifth inning, the crowd was still buzzing from a three-run moonshot Howard hit off Andy Sonnanstine in the fourth to give the Phils a 5-1 lead.

[Previously in Homer History: When Albert Pujols silenced Minute Maid Park]

The Rays got one back in the top of the fifth when Eric Hinske (the guy Brad Lidge struck out to clinch the final out of the series) homered off Blanton, but the stadium was still electric, even when the light-hitting Blanton stepped to the plate with no one on and two outs in the bottom of the fifth.

(As an aside, people forget that the Phillies didn’t have that insane Halladay-Lee-Hamels-Oswalt rotation when they won it all. Hamels was there, of course, but the team’s other starters were Brett Myers, an ancient Jamie Moyer, Blanton, Kyle Kendrick and the rotting corpse of Adam Eaton. But anyway …)

(AP Images) Blanton, a chubby 6-foot-3 righty, was one of many solid midseason acquisitions made by GM Pat Gillick, but it wasn’t for his bat, obviously. The guy had two – TWO – career hits leading up to that at-bat, but that didn’t stop him from turning on an Edwin Jackson fastball and depositing it into the left field seats.

I was sitting in the lower level down the third baseline, and had the perfect angle of Jackson’s delivery and the ball coming off Blanton’s bat. The crowd exploded when he hit that ball. I still get chills thinking about it.

It was that moment right there, watching the ball clear the flower bed in left-center, when I thought to myself, “holy s—, this could actually happen. This team could actually win the World Series.”

It didn’t seem real before then. This was Philadelphia, after all. In a decade where the Eagles lost a Super Bowl and three NFC Championship Games while the Flyers and 76ers were continually eliminated early in the playoffs, the city was just starving for a winner. This Phillies team was different. It had a certain kind of swagger that the city loved. These guys weren’t scared of anyone, and they had the perfect blend of blue collar veterans, all-stars and bright-eyed young guys.

Blanton, who was brought to Philly from Oakland in July for three mid-tier prospects, was in his fifth year in the majors in 2008. He was – and still is – consistently unspectacular, but was the kind of innings-eater the team needed. He gave up only four hits and two earned runs while striking out seven in six innings to earn the win in Game 4, but his bat was the story this time around.

(AP Images) Blanton told reporters after the game that he hadn’t hit a home run since his high school days in Kentucky. His approach to the fateful at-bat? Close his eyes and let it rip.

“I’m not a hitter,” Blanton said. “I’m just going to close my eyes and swing as hard as I can, just in case I make contact.

[Elsewhere: The Dodgers are bringing back second baseman Howie Kendrick]

“My job’s not to go out and hit home runs or get hits. My job is to go out and throw the ball well and give our team a chance to win. And when you get the applause coming off the mound from pitching, you kind of get that sense of, I’ve done my job for the day and have given our team the chance to win.”

Blanton had 31 career at-bats entering the game, and 20 of those ABs ended in strikeouts. Ordinarily, the guy didn’t have a clue at the dish, but he somehow managed to hit one of the most iconic home runs in Phillies history – in my view, at least. It was also the first World Series home run by a pitcher since 1974 – when Oakland’s Ken Holtzman did so in Game 4 against the Dodgers.

The Blanton home run increased Philly’s lead to 6-2 and they went on to win 10-2 after adding four more in the eighth on homers from Jayson Werth and another from Howard. The Phils then fought through that weird, 48-hour rain delay to win the World Series a few days later.

Blanton spent four more up-and-down seasons in Philly, finishing with a 34-25 record and a 4.47 ERA. Oh, and if you’re wondering, he hasn’t hit a single home run (or even an extra base hit) since.

COMING MONDAY: The night Jim Leyritz ruined any chance of an Atlanta Braves dynasty, by Yahoo Sports’ Jay Busbee.

PREVIOUSLY IN HOMER HISTORY
The night a hobbled Kirk Gibson broke my heart (by Mike Oz)
– Cal Ripken Jr. wowed us yet again on Iron Man night (by Lauren Shehadi)
– When Albert Pujols silenced Minute Maid Park (by Jeff Passan)
– Bill Mazeroski’s great walk-off World Series winner (by Kevin Iole)
– The Big Papi grand slam that still haunts Detroit (by Al Toby)

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