A year ago, Phillies prospect Jonathan Hennigan threw the last pitch before spring training stopped

"I’ll never, ever get rid of that baseball," said the 26-year-old left-hander, who might be the answer to a spring-training trivia question.

Phillies minor-league reliever Jonathan Hennigan threw the final pitch of spring training last year.Read moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer

by Scott Lauber

Published March 11, 2021, 12:06 p.m. ET

Upon returning home to Texas last March after Major League Baseball aborted spring training, Phillies pitching prospect Jonathan Hennigan pulled a ball from his equipment bag and tossed it around his yard.

“Put that thing away,” his dad told him. “Do not touch it. Do not ruin that baseball.”

Hennigan laughed this week as he retold the story by phone from Clearwater, Fla. The 26-year-old lefty reliever said he saves the ball from every game that he completes, 55 over four seasons in the Phillies’ farm system. But this one — with “OFFICIAL 2020 SPRING TRAINING” and commissioner Rob Manfred’s signature stamped across the sweet spot — was different.

For a few months last spring, it looked like it could be the last ball thrown in a major-league game all year.

The Phillies were the last team to walk off the field that Thursday, March 12. Their 8-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in Port Charlotte, Fla., ended later than the five other Grapefruit League games, and MLB canceled the seven exhibition games in Arizona. One night earlier, the NBA suspended its season after Utah’s Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19, and MLB followed suit, calling off spring training two weeks before the season was scheduled to begin.

Hennigan heard the news during the game. A former 21st-round draft pick out of Texas State University, he was attending minor-league camp but got the call to accompany the big-league team to Charlotte Sports Park as an extra pitcher. As he sat in the visiting bullpen, a group of about two dozen fans seated within earshot buzzed about it after their phones buzzed with news alerts in the sixth inning, about 90 minutes before the Phillies’ game ended.

“We didn’t believe it at first,” said Hennigan, who has a 3.79 ERA in 125 minor-league appearances. “Here we’re in the middle of a game, and all the fans are saying that this is the last spring training game and the season’s going to end. We were like, ‘No way. It’s impossible.’ ”

Hennigan entered in the ninth inning. He gave up a leadoff single, then got two quick outs before striking out Tampa Bay’s Ruben Cardenas on four pitches. Catcher Henri Lartigue shook Hennigan’s hand and stuffed the ball in his glove.

“We walk in the locker room and everybody went straight to their phone,” Hennigan said. “It was like, ‘Oh man, this isn’t good.’ Twitter was blowing up.”

Even then, the magnitude of the situation hadn’t hit most people, especially Phillies players who made the two-hour coach bus ride back to Clearwater. Most of them figured spring training would resume in a few weeks. At worst, Hennigan recalled thinking they would have to quarantine for a week to ensure nobody was sick.

Three days later, the Phillies sent their players home. By the end of June, the minor-league season had been canceled.

Hennigan tried to replace the lost innings by working out at a local high school. His wife, Randi, a professional softball player, occasionally grabbed a bat and stood in against him. He figures he simulated about 80 innings at home before Phillies farm director Josh Bonifay called with an offer to play winter ball in Australia.

“Man, I ran with it,” said Hennigan, who threw 8 2/3 scoreless innings. “I had to go play in a game. I think I put myself in a good spot. I wouldn’t be here in this big-league minicamp if I hadn’t done what I had to do in the offseason and go and perform and show them what I’ve got.”

The Phillies invited Hennigan to their spring-training minicamp, and he has appeared in one Grapefruit League game. He finished the 2019 season at double-A Reading, posting a 4.47 ERA in 31 games, and is awaiting his assignment for this season. The minor leagues are expected to open in May.

But no matter what happens next in his career, Hennigan will always remember March 12, 2020, when he became the answer to a spring-training trivia question.

“And I’ll never, ever get rid of that baseball either,” he said. “I’ve got it sitting in a case on my mantle. It will forever be a part of me.”