From footnote to infamy

Back in 1987, backup infielder Phillip Wellman makes the Class AA Harrisburg Senators’ Opening Day roster, takes one at-bat and walks before becoming a footnote in franchise history as being the first player released from the first pro team on City Island since 1952.

He never plays in another game.

Wellman, though, continues to carry on in baseball as a long-time manager in the minor leagues, working in 2,903 games over 23 seasons through 2023 with the San Diego Padres’ Class AAA team in El Paso.

No matter how many prospects he helps develop, though, Wellman forever lives on through the internet, where captured for posterity is his epic meltdown 17 years ago today as manager of the Class AA Mississippi Braves during their game at Chattanooga.

Words cannot do justice to Wellman’s three-minute implosion in 2007, so here is the video.

Enjoy.

Not that the faith-based Wellman will enjoy it as he always worries about the damage his antics from that moment in 2007 causes to his reputation as a baseball lifer, as a teacher of the game to its next generation of players.

“There are very few major league games I watch now where I haven’t crossed paths with some of those kids,” Wellman tells MLB.com in 2021.

“So, I’m hoping when they put me six feet under, people will remember me for more than just that video. If they don’t, they didn’t know me.”

At the time in 2007, the 45-year-old Wellman thinks he knows the Atlanta Braves – his employer – well enough that now virally infamous meltdown would lead to his immediate firing.

Turns out that Wellman is wrong, especially after Braves manager Bobby Cox sees the video and calls Wellman to say all is well.

“I don’t know how funny this is, Bobby,” Wellman recalls that conversation with MLB.com.

“It’s awesome,” Cox tells Wellman. “If I thought my bad knees would let me get up off the ground, I’d try it myself.”