Conines clobbering Phillies in September a Miami Marlins family tradition

Stop me if you've heard this before, Miami Marlins fans:

The Marlins just won a huge game with massive playoff implications in late September against the Phillies, sparked by a big home run from Conine.

The most recent of these is hardly a mystery. Griffin Conine announced his return to the majors with a bang, homering off of one-time Marlin and long-time curmudgeon David Robertson, 157 days after suffering a dislocated shoulder sliding into second base against this same Phillies team. It was Miami's first run of the night, and helped spark the rally that eventually resulted in a wild 6-5 victory Tuesday night in Philadelphia.

Now, real ones amongst the Marlins fan base know that this is hardly the first time such a thing has happened. Well, real ones, and anyone who read the title of this article. Griffin's father, Jeff Conine (you might have heard of him) was a pretty prodigious punisher of the Phillies in his own right. The senior Conine hit 14 home runs against the Phillies in his career, more than he hit against any other team except Colorado. In 2003, Conine was a .282/.338/.459 hitter on the season...but morphed into a far more dangerous .324/.375/.649 hitter when he faced the Phills.

However, what is probably less widely known is that father and son both hit home runs against the Phillies...on the same day.

That fact was true yesterday, and by the way will also be true later today if the junior Conine goes deep again. On September 23rd, 2003, Jeff hit a 3-run shot off of Kevin Milwood. The next day, he'd connect for a 2-run shot off of Carlos Silva. Both hits were key contributions in a Marlins sweep of the Philadelphia, setting up a pivotal final series...against the New York Mets.

Twenty-two years later, Griffin is well on his way to following in father Jeff's footsteps.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Gotta love baseball.