Phillies fans from Schuylkill County go viral with their ‘Declaration of Schwarber’

Rebecca Hummel and McKenzie Buehner of Pottsville petitioned the Phillies to re-sign slugger Kyler Schwarber with a poster that garnered hundreds of signatures and read “We the people of Philadelphia didn’t fight the British just to lose Schwarber!!”

On social media and on sports talk radio, armchair general managers across the Delaware Valley have spent the summer imploring the Phillies to re-sign slugging designated hitter Kyle Schwarber, who will become a free agent at the end of the season.

Two Phillies fans from Pottsville, Schuylkill County, Rebecca Hummel and McKenzie Buehner, tried a more creative approach to petition the Phillies to re-up the beloved basher who has hit 176 home runs since he signed with the Phillies prior to the 2022 season—many of them majestic moonshots that seem like they might never land.

The friends brought an oversized poster board to a game at Citizens Bank Park on Aug. 2. On the left was an image of the Declaration of Independence. On the right, another kind of declaration: “We the people of Philadelphia didn’t fight the British just to lose Schwarber!!,” and room to garner the signatures of fellow fans around a photo of the “Schwarbarian.”

Hundreds put their John Hancocks to their “Declaration of Schwarber,” including fans, vendors, ushers, members of the grounds crew, and police officers working the game. Their effort went viral on social media.

Though Hummel said their original goal was just to get their sign on the Jumbotron, they asked a ballpark staffer if they could pass along the poster to Schawarber, who said no. Undaunted, Hummel rolled up the poster, pulled back the netting near the Phillies’ dugout, and tossed it inside. There it sat rolled up in a camera well, collecting dust during the Phillies’ 10-game road trip, when Philadelphia Inquirer sportswriter Alex Coffey found out about it on social media. When Coffey arrived at the ballpark on Tuesday, she asked a Phillies bat boy to see if the poster was still there, and it was, resting on top of a circuit breaker.

Coffey mentioned the poster to Schwarber, who asked if he could see it. And 17 days after Hummel and Buehner made the rounds at CBP garnering signatures in support of re-signing Schwarber, he held the poster in his hands and looked it over, which gave him goosebumps, as Coffey wrote in her story.

“I think as a player, when you sign somewhere, you don’t expect things like that,” Schwarber told Coffey. “You come in and try to leave your mark. And you hopefully leave a good enough impression that it works out that you’re able to come back.”

Hummel said she has no idea what happened to the poster after Schwarber saw it.

“Even if it was thrown away, I’m glad he saw it,” said Hummel, who makes the five-hour round trip journey from Pottsville to CBP a couple of times a season, and watches every game on TV.

Hummel said she inherited her love of the Phillies from her great-grandfather, and hinted that she and Buehner could be making their way back to South Philly to petition the Phillies to lock up another pending free agent, catcher JT Realmuto.

“I’d love to be able to get down to another game and make a sign for JT. The toughest man in baseball definitely deserves some fan love.”