Among left-handed pitchers, only Warren Spahn finished his career with more victories than Steve Carlton. Though Spahn has been deceased for the last three years, he has been quoted as much lately as Steve Carlton was for a fifteen year span of his Hall of Fame career. Fed up with what was being written about him in the Philadelphia papers, Steve Carlton decided to clamp his mouth shut and give the reporters nothing, after which they labeled him a recluse and “stand-offish”. But there was no mystery surrounding Steve Carlton when he took the mound, as he was a dominant hurler for many years. Just ask Cardinal fans, who watched their team haggle with Steve Carlton over money and then sent him to the Phillies in one of the worst deals ever.
Steven Norman Carlton was born in Miami, Florida just before Christmas in 1944. His dad was an airline mechanic and Steve had two sisters; the entire family had just one bedroom that they shared. At the age of twelve, Carlton began playing baseball, and he became a star pitcher for his high school team as well as a good basketball player. The Cardinals selected Carlton in the amateur free agent draft of 1963, and after some seasoning in the minors, he was up for good with St. Louis in 1967, part of the starting rotation. As a 22 year old, Carlton went 14-9, striking out sixteen Phillies in a game on September 20th. The Cards advanced to the World Series, where he pitched great in Game Five but lost 1-0 to Jim Lonborg on an unearned run. St. Louis won in seven games.
After a 13-11 campaign in 1968 and a seven game defeat to the Tigers in the post-season, Carlton toured Japan with a group of All-Stars. While there, he began to try to learn how to throw a slider, and when he finally perfected the pitch, the National League hitters had no answer for it. In a 1969 game against the Mets, Carlton struck out a then record 19 Mets, but lost the game 4-3 when he surrendered a pair of two-run homers to Ron Swoboda. After going 17-11, Steve Carlton got into a contract dispute with the Cardinals, and when he finally signed, he had a dismal 19 loss season. But he rebounded to post a 20-9 mark in 1971, and asked for a raise of $10,000 when contract time rolled around. The Cardinals refused to give in to his demands, and sent him to the Phillies for pitcher Rick Wise, who had been a 17 game winner the year before. Cardinals’ General Manager Bing Devine later had to defend the move. “We hadn’t been able to sign Carlton. There was no free agency, so he didn’t have the freedom to say, ‘Sign me or else.’ He was being very difficult to sign for the ridiculous amount of $10,000 between what he wanted and what we’d give him. Many times Mr. Busch gave me a little leeway in the budget, but in the case of Carlton, Mr. Busch developed the feeling that Carlton was a ‘smart-aleck’ young guy, ‘and I’m not used to having young smart-alecks tell me what do.”
Mr. Busch probably downed a few more beers than usual in 1972 as Steve Carlton posted what many consider to be the single greatest season in baseball by a pitcher. Playing for a Phillies’ club that won just 59 contests, Carlton went 27-10 with a 1.97 earned run average. Steve fanned 310 batters and included eight shutouts among his win total as he was a unanimous choice for the Cy Young Award. Carlton won almost 46% of his squad’s games, a baseball record for one hurler.
A sore and tired arm caused Carlton to go just 44-47 in the next three seasons, one of those being a 13-20 disaster in 1973. When the press began to slam him in the newspapers, Carlton decided to stop talking to them altogether in 1974. “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.”
The Phillies reacquired catcher Tim McCarver prior to the 1976 season, and when Carlton and he were reunited from their past successes in St. Louis and Philly in the early Seventies, everything started to click again for Carlton. The pair was on the same page when it came to knowing how to get hitters out. Carlton became so good that McCarver remembered hitters saying that Carlton had gotten them out, but “at least he didn’t throw me the slider. He went 20-7 in 1976 and 23-10 in 1977, garnering a second Cy Young. Both years the Phils went to the playoffs, and both times they came up short. In 1978, Steve was just 16-13, but once again Philadelphia won the NL East, only to fall to the Dodgers in the League Championship Series, although Carlton won his start, even hitting a grand slam to aid his cause. An 18-11 standard in 1979 was followed up by the second best year of his career, another Cy Young coming to Steve after he was 24-9 in 1980. This time the Phillies got to the World Series, and Carlton won both his starts against the Royals as Philadelphia won its first title.
The last of his four Cy Youngs was awarded to Carlton for his 23-11 record in 1982. Carlton won his 300th game in 1983; ironically it was against the Cardinals with a twelve strikeout performance. “Lefty” began to falter as he turned forty, and when the Phillies released him after the 1985 season, Carlton played for four more teams before retiring at the age of 43 in 1988. At the time of his retirement, his 4,136 strikeouts were second all time; Carlton now stands fourth on that list behind Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, and Randy Johnson. His career mark was 329-244, with a 3.22 earned run average over 24 years in baseball.
Steve Carlton was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1994 with almost 96% of the sportswriters’ votes. Carlton always prided himself on staying in top physical condition, which enabled him to be so good for so long. He also credits McCarver for much of his success. As for Tim, he once claimed, “When Steve Carlton and I die, we are going to be buried in the same cemetery, sixty feet, six inches apart”.
