Steve Carlton
Steven Norman Carlton is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a left-handed pitcher for six different teams from 1965 to 1988, most notably as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies with whom he won four Cy Young Awards as well as the 1980 World Series. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994 in his first year of eligibility.
Nicknamed "Lefty", Carlton has the second-most lifetime strikeouts of any left-handed pitcher, and the second-most lifetime wins of any left-handed pitcher. He was the first pitcher to win four Cy Young Awards in a career. He held the lifetime strikeout record several times between and, before his contemporary Nolan Ryan passed him. One of his most remarkable records was accounting for nearly half of his team's wins, when he won 27 games for the last-place Phillies. He is the last National League pitcher to win 25 or more games in one season, as well as the last pitcher from any team to throw more than 300 innings in a season. He also holds the record for the most career balks of any pitcher, with 90.
Early years
Carlton was born and raised in Miami, Florida, where he played Little League and American Legion Baseball during his youth. Steve was the only son of Joe and Anne Carlton and was raised with his sisters Joanne and Christina on 144th Street in Miami. Joe Carlton was an airline maintenance worker.As a teenager, Carlton began reading and following the teachings of Eastern philosophy and Paramahansa Yogananda, who promoted greatness through meditation.
He attended North Miami High School, playing baseball and basketball at first. Carlton had no plans beyond high school and showed little interest in his studies. As a senior, Carlton quit basketball to concentrate on pitching. He was teammates in high school with Kurt Bevacqua, and his teammate Richie Mehlich defeated Charlie Hough 1–0 in the playoffs under coach Jack Clark; Mehlich was later the victim of murder.
After high school, Carlton played baseball at Miami Dade College North, where he pitched in relief on a strong team under coach Demie Mainieri.
In 1963, while a student at Miami-Dade, he signed with the St. Louis Cardinals for a $5,000 bonus.
Minor leagues
In 1964, Carlton pitched for four teams as he quickly advanced through the Cardinals minor league system. He pitched for the Cardinals team in the Florida East Coast Instructional League going 2–3 with a 2.89 ERA; in 12 starts with the Winnipeg Goldeyes of the Class A Northern League he was 4–4 with a 3.36 ERA; with the Rock Hill Cardinals of the Class A Western Carolinas League he was 10–1 with a 1.03 ERA in 11 starts, earning a promotion to Class AA Tulsa. Carlton concluded 1964 with the Tulsa Oilers of the Texas League, going 1–1 with a 2.63 ERA in four games. Overall, Carlton was 15–6 with a 2.22 ERA and 191 strikeouts in 178 innings in 1964.In 1965, Carlton pitched one game and 5 innings of one-run ball with the Cardinals team in the Florida East Coast Instructional League and was promoted to the major league team.
In 1966, Carlton started 19 games with the now Class AAA Tulsa Oilers of the Pacific Coast League, going 9–5 with a 3.59 ERA.
Major league career (1965–1988)
St. Louis Cardinals (1965–1971)
Carlton debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals as a 20–year-old in 1965 and by was a regular in the Cardinals rotation. An imposing man with a hard fastball and slider, Carlton was soon known as an intimidating and dominant pitcher. Carlton enjoyed immediate success in St. Louis, posting winning records and reaching the World Series in 1967 and 1968. In 1967, Carlton was 14–9 with a 2.98 ERA in 28 starts. In 1968, he was 13–11 with a 2.99 ERA. On September 15,, Carlton struck out 19 New York Mets, while losing to the Mets, 4–3, setting the modern-day record at that time for strikeouts in a nine-inning game. He finished 1969 with a 17–11 record, a 2.17 ERA, second-lowest in the NL, and 210 strikeouts.In the 1967 World Series, Carlton started Game 5 and pitched six strong innings, giving up only an unearned run, but taking a 3–1 loss. The Cardinals beat the Boston Red Sox to capture the World Series.
In the 1968 World Series, Carlton pitched in two games in relief, giving up three runs over four innings as the Cardinals lost to the Detroit Tigers in seven games.
A contract dispute with the Cardinals made Carlton a no-show at spring training in. He proceeded to go 10–19 with a 3.73 ERA, leading the NL in losses. In, Carlton rebounded, going 20–9 with a 3.56 ERA, his first of six 20–win seasons.
Following another salary dispute, Cardinals owner Gussie Busch ordered Carlton traded. The Cardinals were offering $55,000 and Carlton wanted $10,000 more. He was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies on February 26, 1972, just before the season for pitcher Rick Wise. At the time, the trade appeared to make sense from the Cardinals' perspective. Carlton had won 77 games to Wise's 75, and both were considered among the game's best pitchers. Tim McCarver, who had caught for Carlton in St. Louis and for Wise in Philadelphia, described the trade at the time as "a real good one for a real good one". He felt Carlton had more raw talent, but Wise had better command on the mound. Moreover, Busch's order to unload Carlton was an open secret across baseball. With potential partners driving very hard bargains, the Phillies' offer of Wise was the best St. Louis could do.
While Wise pitched in the majors for another 11 years, he only won 188 career games compared to Carlton's 329. Partly because of this, the trade is considered one of the worst trades in Cardinals history, and one of the most lopsided trades in all of baseball history.
Carlton was 77–62 with a 3.10 ERA in 190 games and 172 starts with the Cardinals over parts of seven seasons, with 66 complete games and 16 shutouts. He was selected to the NL All-Star team in 1968, 1969 and 1971.
Philadelphia Phillies (1972–1986)
In Carlton's first season with Philadelphia, he led the league in wins, complete games, strikeouts, and ERA, despite playing for a team whose final record was 59–97. His 1972 performance earned him his first Cy Young Award and the Hickok Belt as the top professional athlete of the year. He became the first pitcher on a last-place team to win the Cy Young Award, and his winning percentage of 46% of his team's victories that season is a record in modern major league history. Carlton attributed his success to his grueling training regimen, which included Eastern martial arts techniques, the most famous of which was twisting his fist to the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket of rice.Some highlights of Carlton's 1972 season included starting the season with five wins and one loss, then losing five games in a row, during which period the Phillies scored only 10 runs. At this point he began a 15–game winning streak. After it ended at a 20–6 record, he finished the final third of the year with seven more wins and four losses, ending with 27 wins and 10 losses. Carlton also completed 30 of 41 starts.
During the 18 games of the winning streak, Carlton pitched 155 innings, allowed 103 hits and 28 runs, allowed 39 walks, and had 140 strikeouts. From July 23, 1972, to August 13, 1972, he pitched five complete-game victories, allowed only one unearned run while only giving up 22 hits in 45 innings, and threw four shutouts. Baseball commentators during 1972 regularly remarked that Carlton's slider was basically unhittable.
"Auggie Busch traded me to the last-place Phillies over a salary dispute," reflected Carlton on his 1972 season. "I was mentally committed to winning 25 games with the Cardinals and now I had to re-think my goals. I decided to stay with the 25-win goal and won 27 of the Phillies' 59 victories. I consider that season my finest individual achievement."
Media silence
When Carlton slumped in, finishing 13–20 with a 3.90 ERA, the media's questioning of his unusual training techniques led to an acrimonious relationship between them and Carlton. In 1976, upon the advice of his lawyer Edward L. Wolf, he decided to sever all ties with the media, and refused to answer press questions for the rest of his career with the Phillies. When approached unbeknownst he was on live air in the early 1980s he hurled a sponsor's watch at the commentator's head in the pregame show. This reached a point where, in, while the Mexican rookie Fernando Valenzuela was achieving stardom with the Los Angeles Dodgers, a reporter remarked, "The two best pitchers in the National League don't speak English: Fernando Valenzuela and Steve Carlton.""One thing I regret is that Philadelphia fans didn't see the same Steve Carlton we saw in our clubhouse," longtime Phillies teammate Larry Bowa said of Carlton's media silence. "He put up a mask when the writers came in. He was very consistent with the writers. He didn't talk to any of them."
Carlton reflected on his longtime media silence, saying: "It was perfect for me at the time. It took me two years to make up my mind. I was tired of getting slammed. To me it was a slap in the face. But it made me concentrate better. And the irony is that they wrote better without access to my quotes. It's all quotes, anyway, and it all sounds the same to me. After that they wrote better and more interesting stuff. I took it personal. I got slammed quite a bit. To pick up the paper and read about yourself getting slammed, that doesn't start your day off right."
More success
Carlton continued to enjoy many years of success with the Phillies, winning the Cy Young Award in,,, and, and pitching the Phillies to the best string of post-season appearances in club history. Carlton was the first pitcher to win four Cy Young Awards, a mark later matched by Greg Maddux, and exceeded by Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson. His Cy Young Award in 1972 was by unanimous vote, and he finished fifth in balloting for the National League MVP. Gradually the Phillies improved their team, and won the National League East Division three consecutive times from 1976 to 1978.In 1980, Carlton led the National League in victories, strikeouts and innings pitched to help the Phillies win the 1980 World Series, their first title; he won the series' final game and was 2–0 with a 2.40 ERA with 17 strikeouts in 15 innings in his two starts against the Kansas City Royals. Carlton is the last major league pitcher to have 300 innings pitched in a season.
Carlton won a Gold Glove Award for his fielding in. On September 13, 1982, for the fourth time in his career, Carlton hit a home run and tossed a complete-game shutout in the same game. He is the only pitcher to have done so in three different decades.
He helped the Phillies to another pennant in 1983, finishing 15–16 with a 3.11 ERA in 37 starts. but they lost to the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. Carlton was 2–0 with a 0.66 ERA against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS, allowing 1 run in 13 innings with 13 strikeouts. In the 1983 World Series, Carlton was matched up against Jim Palmer in Game 3, where he gave up 2 earned runs in innings of a 3–2 loss. The Phillies lost the series in five games.
On September 23, 1983, in a game against his former team, the St. Louis Cardinals, Carlton won the 300th game of his career, becoming the 16th pitcher to accomplish the feat.