Phillies Secure Trademark on 'Bedlam at the Bank,' Radio Call From Harper's NLCS Homer

The Phillies have trademarked "Bedlam at the Bank," the phrase radio announcer Scott Franzke used to describe Bryce Harper's go-ahead home run in the pennant-clinching game of last year's National League Championship Series against the San Diego Padres. The team gained exclusive rights to the slogan this month, after filing a request with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The idea came from Howard Smith, the team's president of business affairs, who is entering his fifth full season in the role. A Phillies fan for more than 50 years, Smith said the call gave him goosebumps. "I had such a visceral reaction to it," he said by phone Saturday, adding that he considered it one of the best baseball calls he had ever heard.

Smith said the move was a logical one because the Phillies had already used "Bedlam at the Bank" as the title of their 2022 video yearbook. The trademark lets the club prevent outside parties from profiting from the phrase. Once the season begins, the team will sell T-shirts and other licensed merchandise carrying the four-word slogan.

Smith, who joined the Phillies in 2017 after serving as MLB's senior vice president of licensing, pointed to the nature of the local market. "Philly is such an aggressive market that, when something gets hot, it's like a cottage industry," he said. He described trademarking team property as "more common than you think" across MLB and other pro sports leagues. The Phillies have already trademarked various logos, Phanavision and the Phillie Phanatic.

Registering a broadcast call is another matter. Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney who tracks unusual USPTO filings on his blog, said it is unusual for a team to trademark a play-by-play call. He noted that "it's rare to have a historic moment where the call by the announcer is also historic."

Smith argued that the circumstances made the call iconic. Harper's homer came in the eighth inning of Game 5, with the Phillies trailing by a run and down to their final six outs. "It's all about the moment," Smith said. Had Franzke said the same words in the middle of July, he suggested, people would have found it creative and moved on.

Smith said he spoke with Franzke the day after the homer and asked what fans have asked the announcer since: whether the line was something he had in his back pocket. Franzke, who recently told MLB.com he finds the reaction to the call "humbling," said it was not pre-planned and came to him in the moment.

Smith raised the trademark idea with team lawyers in the days after the game, but the process took several months. The Phillies first had to confirm nobody else owned the phrase, and they began using it themselves. "If you don't use it, you lose it," Smith said.

In the meantime, unlicensed T-shirts bearing the slogan have appeared. Several Phillies players, including slugger Kyle Schwarber, have worn them around the clubhouse in spring training. Smith said the club will not treat the phrase like the Phillies' "P" or wordmark, but will need to be more diligent in protecting it. He acknowledged that fighting a screen printer over a T-shirt "never goes well," but said the team must now handle such cases accordingly.