Nick Trotta’s 10-year-old son had a request.
He told his dad that he was the biggest fan of the ABC sitcom “Abbott Elementary” and hoped to see baseball integrated into the show. Trotta, who is Major League Baseball’s VP of global media and licensing, spoke with Carolyn Lehman, the league’s head of development for original content, about whether any efforts had been made for MLB to partner with the show.
Trotta’s department then reached out to ABC to express its interest and learned that Quinta Brunson, the show’s creator, cowriter, executive producer and lead actress who stars in the sitcom as Janine Teagues, had wanted to work with MLB for some time.
“[Quinta’s] one of the best in the business, so just knowing that’s where her creative instincts were at, nothing could make us happier,” Trotta told ESPN. “Same thing goes for the Phillies, they obviously have awareness of her love for their city. … To be able to give back, but really collaborate together, [it was] once in a lifetime.”
On Wednesday, the Golden Globe-winning television show on ABC airs an episode that was filmed at the Philadelphia Phillies’ Aug. 28 showdown against the Atlanta Braves.
“Abbott Elementary” was filming in the middle of a live Phillies game 👀
And it just so happened to be the night Kyle Schwarber hit 4 home runs 🤯 pic.twitter.com/ghIatXX3xi
— MLB (@MLB) September 3, 2025
The episode isn’t the first time a professional Philadelphia sports franchise has been featured in “Abbott Elementary,” a comedy about teachers and a Philadelphia public school principal who are determined to help their students succeed. In previous seasons, three Eagles stars (Jalen Hurts, Jason Kelce and Brandon Graham), former Philadelphia 76ers forward Andre Iguodala and Flyers mascot Gritty made cameos.
Trotta said that when MLB began to collaborate with the “Abbott Elementary” production crew for the episode, they coordinated the Phillies’ regular-season schedule with the television show’s production schedule to determine a designated shooting day.
Once the two parties scheduled the filming date — Aug. 28 — Trotta said that the Phillies organization reacted positively. The team previously had contributed to the documentary “The Turnaround,” which required the Phillies to shoot content for game day-related events.
“[The Phillies] are entertainment savvy and very accommodating as a staff [and] we had challenged what the limits of shooting during games could be on some other projects recently,” Trotta said. “There was a level of trust there and know-how on the Philly side.”
Chris Perfetti, who plays Jacob Hill in the series, says he was pumped when he received the news that “Abbott Elementary” would shoot an episode at a Phillies game.
“I love when we start the season off with a bang, which I feel like this really is,” he told ESPN. “We’re taking big swings, no pun intended, and I think it’s really just a testament to how well the show is working.”
“Abbott Elementary” is filmed at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. Perfetti explained that sets are normally so quiet during taping that you can hear a pin drop, but shooting at Citizens Bank Park was the total opposite for the cast.
With the episode being filmed at the live event, the cast and crew had just one chance to execute the perfect scene — there would be no do-overs. Even though there were 41,293 fans at the game, Perfetti said the cast was so enthusiastic for the challenge that it made it easier to focus.
“It just felt like we had so much support, and we were all kind of buoyed by this idea that we were going to try and do something really difficult,” Perfetti said.
In the episode, Principal Ava — played by Janelle James — takes the staff on a field trip to the Phillies game in hopes of being featured on the kiss cam. When the “Abbott Elementary” cast was featured on the jumbotron in real life, Citizens Bank Park erupted into cheers and applause.
For James, shooting the episode made her realize in the moment she was truly acting.
“It’s something that I’ve never done before, and it’s something I know that a lot of shows haven’t done, and I always frequently say that there’s always like one or two episodes each season that make me outside of the character as Janelle, where I kind of realize like, ‘Oh I’m on a sitcom,’ and it was a very, like, sick ‘Oh, I’m on a TV show’ moment,” James told ESPN.
Phillies left fielder Kyle Schwarber launched his first homer of the day in the bottom of the first inning. He hit another one in the bottom of the fourth inning. After the second home run, Trotta joked that Schwarber would hit a third home run.
His words turned into reality.
After Schwarber’s third homer in the bottom of the fifth, conversations between Trotta, the “Abbott Elementary” writers and Brunson began to take place. They changed the episode’s script on the fly to incorporate Schwarber’s impressive performance.
Schwarber’s historic four-homer game — making him the 21st slugger to achieve the feat in MLB history — and nine RBIs helped propel the Phillies to a dominant 19-4 win over the Braves.
“I remember looking at Quinta like ‘Is this really happening?'” Perfetti said. “Kyle Schwarber was part of the episode from the jump, but you know, he ends up being kind of not the star of just the episode but certainly the star of that team.”
Ahead of the game, Schwarber had received his lines and participated in a rehearsal. Trotta told ESPN that it took the slugger about an hour after the Phillies’ win to wrap up his media availability and get ready for his TV star turn.
He was a natural.
“Kyle did great in his acting part,” James said. “And so everything just came together, and it seems like every time we do feature some type of athlete that they do really well.”
The “Abbott Elementary” cast says the Phillies episode was a win for both sides.
“It felt like ‘Abbott’ brought a little luck to the Phillies, and the Phillies brought a little luck to the ‘Abbott’ shoot. It was rad,” Perfetti said.
“It will definitely go down in history for ‘Abbott,’ for all parties.”
