Abbott Elementary took a big chance on the newest season of their series. In the third episode of this season, they decided to film an episode during a live Phillies baseball game. Much planning and preparation went into this taping, but surprisingly, the idea for this episode started out with one 10-year-old boy’s request.
This child loves Abbott Elementary and told his dad that he wishes they would talk more about baseball in the show. This was most likely in reference to the characters in Abbott bringing up the Philadelphia Eagles NFL team, where they had some of the players in an earlier episode. Usually when a conversation like this happens, not much is done about it. But when your dad is Nick Trotta, who is the Vice President of Major League Baseball’s global media and licensing team, there’s a greater chance something can be done.
Trotta was inspired by this and reached out to Abbott’s team. They loved the idea and immediately got to work figuring out how they could best possibly create an episode. They worked together to create the script as most accurately as they could; Abbott coming up with how they could incorporate the characters into the stadium audience accurately and the MLB making sure the show was authentic to the game. Since the episode was being filmed during the baseball game, this allowed for the script to have more flexibility on the day of filming. They even had one of their writers in the stands with them making changes to the script on the fly.
One of the major segments of this episode was one of the teachers, Barbara Howard, being a huge Kyle Schwarber fan, one of their star players. This was written before the taping of the episode, but it worked way better than anyone could have expected. During the game, Schwarber hit four home runs, making him the 21st player in all of Major League Baseball history to accomplish such an incredible play. This monumental moment allowed for an even better outcome to a plot point that was already written in the episode.
Chris Perfetti, who plays Jacob Hill, a history teacher on the show, states that “It was surreal. We had the freedom to sort of react to the game, to just stay in character and be there. But I remember, it was after the third homer, I think, we all just stood up as ourselves, losing our minds that it was Kyle again.”
Schwarber believes that the filming of the Abbot Elementary episode was a huge reason why he was able to hit this historic milestone. “I really enjoyed making my acting debut with such a great crew on a show that’s so Philly and hilarious,” Schwarber said. “Quinta and the team definitely brought me some luck that night.”
The MLB and Abbott Elementary took a risk making this episode, but the outcome was one they could have never even imagined. Not only did they successfully film a real episode of the show during an ongoing baseball game, the chances of Schwarber hitting four home runs in this specific game were slim to none. All of this was thanks to the mind of one 10-year-old Abbot Elementary fan, with a father who may know a thing or two about professional baseball.