This story was excerpted from Paul Casella's Phillies Beat newsletter. Subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
PHILADELPHIA -- Bryson Stott remembers when off-field get-togethers used to be a bit quieter.
Pick any random fall Saturday in early November and you might have found Stott and his wife, Dru, getting together to relax and watch college football with Bryce and Kayla Harper.
Those gatherings have become a bit more crowded over the years.
The Harpers have three kids and are expecting another baby boy later this year. The Stotts have a 19-month-old daughter of their own, Braxtyn, and are also expecting a baby boy next month.
"We were just talking about that the other day -- it used to just be me and Dru and Kayla and Bryce," Stott said. "No mayhem, no toys, no nothing. Now, it's toys everywhere and kids screaming and laughing and playing. It's a lot of fun."
That description also likely provides a glimpse into what the family room at Citizens Bank Park will be like on Father's Day this Sunday when the Phils host the Blue Jays.
"I think we might have the most kids in the big leagues," joked Phillies ace Zack Wheeler, who will fittingly get the start on Father's Day after recently returning from the paternity list.
Wheeler and his wife, Dominique, helped add to that potential league-leading total when they welcomed their fourth child, Goldie, on June 2.
If you're keeping track so far, that's four Wheeler children, soon-to-be four Harpers and soon-to-be two Stotts. Now, toss in four for J.T. Realmuto; three apiece for Trea Turner and Nick Castellanos; two each for Kyle Schwarber, Ranger Suárez, Johan Rojas and Taijuan Walker; and one for Aaron Nola, Matt Strahm, Cristopher Sánchez, Edmundo Sosa and Weston Wilson.
Got all that?
“It's all fun,” Wheeler said. “They have the family room, and they all play and get along. It's pretty cool to see all our kids interacting together.”
While some of the children are a bit older than others -- Nick Castellanos and his 11-year-old Liam Castellanos have shared countless heartwarming moments over the past few years -- the vast majority are under the age of 5.
It makes events like the Phillies’ annual Family Day -- when all the players and their families spend time playing games and taking pictures together on the field after a game -- all the more special. There was also this past Easter, when -- after their game against the Marlins -- the Phillies held a massive Easter egg hunt in the outfield for all the players’ kids and had the Easter Bunny in attendance.
"It's funny -- we have a lot of kids that are all around the same age and everyone has young families," Schwarber said. "So to hear the stories of the funny, the frustrating, the hard, the crazy -- just everything that comes with daily parenting. It's fun to go through it together, it's fun to talk about.
"And it's fun when you walk up to the family room and you see them all playing together. We're all so lucky to have a team full of young families and everyone kind of having the same age kids."
And with the Phillies mostly keeping the same core together over the past few seasons, many of those kids are essentially growing up together.
"Tatum Turner is a month older than my daughter," Stott said. "So we've seen them kind of go from little newborns to playing with each other and now they go swimming together and things like that. And Bryce's kids love Braxtyn, and she loves their little one, and so on."
For a lot of Phillies players, this Phils family is all they’ve ever known. Along with Stott and Nola starting families recently, the Harpers had their first child during Bryce’s debut season in Philadelphia.
Meanwhile, Schwarber’s wife, Paige, went into labor with their first child on the same night he signed his four-year, $79 million contract to join the Phillies.
“It changes everything,” Schwarber said. “Now, you go home and you're just dad. You want to be the best dad you can possibly be for your kids because we're on the road so much and you feel like you miss so many things.”
For Stott, it’s provided a whole new perspective -- even if it has cut into his MLB The Show hours a bit.
“If I went 0-for-4, I used to go home and all I’d walk into was my PlayStation, and I'd just rage play MLB The Show and try to hit as many homers as I could,” Stott said. “But now, after a rough day, I still think about it driving home, but then you open the door and you've got a wife and a little human there waiting for you, and she's just happy as ever to see me every single time, no matter what.
“It makes it all feel worth it.”