But for the era – and with Schmidt’s business-like approach to his stellar career – the reaction caught everyone off guard.

Schmidt’s three-run blast off Don Robinson of the Pirates turned a 6-5 Pittsburgh lead into an 8-6 Phillies win on April 18, 1987. Schmidt clubbed Robinson’s center-cut 3-0 fastball and deposited it into the second deck at Three Rivers Stadium, rallying a Philadelphia team that had squandered a three-run lead in the bottom of the eighth.