Will Always Sunny Help Chase Utley Get Into The Baseball Hall Of Fame?

The Mets offered a subtle reminder of the year-long nature of Hall of Fame campaigns July 9, when Billy Wagner — who missed induction this year by five votes and will make his final appearance on the writer’s ballot in December — appeared at a press conference prior to a game against the Nationals.

But 10 days before that, a whiskey signing about 30 miles east of Citi Field provided the latest evidence that no player has a promotional campaign as uniquely consistent or hyper-focused as former star second baseman Chase Utley.

“Sometimes it takes a little while for these things to happen,” said Glenn Howerton, who plays Dennis Reynolds on “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,” the show on which he serves as an executive producer with longtime friends and co-stars Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day.

That’s right. Whiskey & the longest-running sitcom in American history might just be Chase Utley’s ticket to Cooperstown.

Utley will not be on stage today at the Clark Sports Center, where the quartet of Adrian Beltre, Todd Helton, Jim Leyland and Joe Mauer will officially be inducted into the Hall of Fame. And his effort to join the most hallowed club in sports is likely to require patience into the 2030s.

But Utley’s credentials have a chance of being absorbed by members of the electorate every time he pitches his Four Walls Whiskey signature drink, or every time an episode of “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” either airs on FXX or is cued up on Hulu.

For those unaware of Utley’s connection to the show (again, you can and should see it anytime on Hulu), he’s the player to whom Mac (McElhenney) pens a letter that he hopes Dee Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson, McElhenney’s wife) will deliver to him when she storms the field after the Phillies win the 2008 World Series in the season five episode “The World Series Defense.”

Utley and Ryan Howard guest starred as themselves in the season six episode “The Gang Gets Stranded In The Woods,” when Mac planned to have his long-awaited game of catch with Utley at a charity function. But Mac never got there due to car trouble and Dennis, pretending to be Mac, played catch with Utley.

That guest appearance led to a real-life friendship between Utley and the cast. Utley and McElhenney have participated in three ceremonial first pitches, including at last month’s London Series, when McElhenney and Utley turned a ceremonial double play to end a promotional campaign that began with Utley — Major League Baseball’s ambassador to Europe — finding out McElhenney was sending letters to Harper.

“Just a super down to earth — just a sweet, sweet, really fun, awesome guy and we just got along like a house on fire,” Howerton said following an appearance June 29 at the Stew Leonard’s Wines & Spirits of Farmingdale, where he signed bottles of Four Walls whiskey.

Utley’s entry into the Sunny universe has provided a glimpse at a personality few saw during his peak years with the Phillies, when he was as well-known for his reticence off the field as his consistency on it. In a 2023 profile of Utley, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic described an Utley press conference during his 35-game hitting streak in 2006 as “…practically performance art.”

Howerton said he’s less of a baseball fan than McElhenney and Day but said he could understand Utley might have needed to maintain a low-key public persona in order to fully concentrate on a very public job.

“I’m just guessing maybe he just got a little bit more comfortable showing his actual personality on camera, which is a very different thing,” Howerton said. “I think people think acting is easy, until they have to do it. And then you clam up, you get nervous or you’re like you don’t want to be too broad so you play it real small. But then all of a sudden you’re doing nothing It’s not an easy thing to do. You’re putting yourself out there.”

Being a professional baseball player, of course, is a job that requires putting oneself out there daily in front of a demanding audience that often feels it can also do the job. In 2009, Utley told The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Andy Martino that his stoic demeanor belied the enjoyment he derived from playing the game.

“I am having fun,” Utley told Martino. “When I’m on the baseball field, that’s where I love to be. I’m not joking around and smiling. That competition, that heat-of-the-battle intensity, that’s how I have fun.”

It certainly doesn’t hurt the Utley-Sunny connection that Utley’s career and subsequent Hall of Fame campaign has unfolded much like “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.”

Utley, who was shuffled between second base and third base in the minor leagues, collected 1,084 minor league at-bats before debuting with the Phillies in 2003. He racked up another 554 at-bats at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre before the Phillies finally promoted him for good in May 2004, when he was 25 years old. As elite as his peak was — his 64.5 WAR, per Baseball-Reference, ranks 15th all-time among second basemen — he retired with 1,885 hits. No player elected by the BBWAA has finished his career with fewer than 2,000 hits.

Howerton, McElhenney and Day made the pilot in 2003 on a camcorder, which cost under $200, and received a one-season, seven-episode order from FX. Following the season, FX said it would renew the show but only if a name actor was added to the cast. Danny DeVito, a veteran of classic TV and blockbuster films, arrived for season two and introduced himself to a new generation of fans as the do-and-say-anything Frank Reynolds, who may or may not be the father to Dennis, Dee and/or Charlie Kelly (Day).

Despite setting records for the longevity of its run —“It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” completed its 16th season last July and is renewed through an 18th season, easily leaving the 14-season run of “The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet” in its rearview mirror — the show has famously never been nominated for an acting or writing Emmy.

The season nine episode “The Gang Tries Desperately To Win An Award” poked some self-referential fun at the Emmy shutout. Utley joined in on the meta fun in the most recent season of “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,” when he finally met Mac and played catch with him in “The Gang Gets Cursed.” It ended with Utley acknowledging the role superstitions play in a baseball player’s life, taking Mac’s monkey paw and yelling “Hall of Fame, baby, here I come!”

Utley referenced his Hall of Fame case again this year in an ad for his signature drink “The Man,” which is a Four Walls whiskey with a splash of ginger ale. Utley is an investor in Four Walls along with Howerton, McElhenney and Day, who developed the whiskey in 2022 as a way to raise money for hospitality workers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’d argue Four Walls Irish American Whiskey and ginger ale will definitely…most likely…eventually…be in the Hall of Fame. Of drinks,” Utley said in the ad. “Even if it takes a while. Four Walls and ginger is fine with that.”

Utley debuted on the ballot last December and received 28.8 percent of the vote, which presents him a long but manageable road to election. Of the 48 players who have been elected this century by the Baseball Writers Association of America, six had a lower share of the vote than Utley in their first year on the ballot while Edgar Martinez received just 25.2 percent of the vote in his fifth year of eligibility in 2014. Wagner debuted with 10.5 percent of the vote in 2016 and fell slightly to 10.2 percent in 2017 before beginning his climb to 73.8 percent last December.

“I don’t know enough baseball personally to be able to sort of compare him to other players,” Howerton said. “But I like that he’s willing to kind of poke fun at himself and the fact that he hasn’t been asked into the Hall of Fame yet. I think that’s great. I think that’s awesome.”

As the game evolves, careers grow shorter and one-time Hall of Fame benchmarks such as a .300 average, 3,000 hits or 500 homers grow harder to achieve, a younger electorate will likely look to reward excellent peaks.

Second base is also a notoriously under-represented position. Three of the second basemen ahead of Utley in WAR — Lou Whitaker (75.1), Bobby Grich (71.1) and Willie Randolph (65.9) — went one-and-done on the BBWAA ballot.

If Utley eventually finds his way to Cooperstown, it might be with an assist from “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” — just another thing Howerton, McElhenney and Day could not have envisioned upon shooting their bare bones pilot. McElhenney co-owns the Welsh soccer team Wrexham A.F.C. with actor Ryan Reynolds, an experience the duo have chronicled in the documentary “Welcome to Wrexham.” Howerton, Day and Olson have each starred in multiple projects since Sunny began.

“The fact that it’s gone this long and turned into this level and that it’s expanded into other things like sports and whiskey and all kinds of other things — it all started with us and those home video cameras,” Howerton said. “And obviously I’ve been there every step of the way. So to have experienced that process, it’s kind of unheard of.”