By Tom Verducci
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/
February 16, 2012
The Hall of Famer takes a cut against the Cubs on Aug. 6, 1986. Carter was 4-for-10 during the doubleheader at Wrigley Field. (Heinz Kluetmeier/SI)
Try as I might as a witness to his five years in New York as a catcher for the Mets, I cannot conjure a single image of Gary Carter with anything but a smile on his face. I have no recollection of a gloomy Carter, not even as his knees began to announce a slow surrender, his bat grew slow and weary or as his teammates, renowned masters of the dark arts, chided him for his well-displayed rectitude.
In those days in the mid- and late-1980s, you could stand in the middle of the Mets' clubhouse with a blindfold, be spun around three times, stagger off in any direction and chances are you would hit a locker that was host to some sort of mayhem or outrageousness. Those Mets, with near bloodthirstiness, wanted to destroy other teams and pillage their cities, claiming whatever women and alcohol happened to be in the way.
"What I remember," pitcher Dwight Gooden told me in 1995 in
Sports Illustrated, "is we'd be on the road and we'd come back into the clubhouse after batting practice and we'd be saying, 'Yeah, let's kick some ass and then go out and show everyone we own this town.' Whether it was Montreal or St. Louis or whatever, we wanted people to know it, like we were taking over the place."
On the field, such will of these barbarians in spikes helped fuel the 1986 Mets into not just one of the most dominating teams of all time, but also one of the toughest. They won four times in that postseason in the last at-bat, including three times when they were down to their last out or two. The Mets were ferocious competitors, and they became world champions.
Carter provided much of that championship fiber, only without the demons and debauchery that came to be associated with many of his teammates. He was "Kid" from Sunny Hills High in Fullerton, Calif., a former star quarterback with a Pepsodent smile, golden curls, a beautiful family and strong faith. Teammates in Montreal and New York would come to resent how overtly he displayed such goodness -- if not, out of their own insecurities, the very goodness itself.
But I can tell you this about the guy known as Teeth or Camera Carter by the insecure: He was as genuine a person and as tough a ballplayer as you would ever want to come across.
The light that was Gary Edmund Carter has been extinguished. Kid is dead, and far too soon at age 57 because of the evil of inoperable brain tumors. This world, not just this little game, is less sunny without him.
There was, despite resentment from inside his clubhouses, nothing phony about Carter, and nothing given easily to him. He was the same off camera as on: optimistic, faithful, kind-hearted, philanthropic. It drove some people nuts that Carter played every day with the joy as if it were the opening day of Little League. Even that nickname, "Kid, " was minted with some derisiveness by jaded Expos veterans when Carter, in his first spring training camp, in 1973, had the nerve to run hard on every sprint and bring enthusiasm to every drill.
"Kid," they'd bark without looking up from their clubhouse card-playing, "go get us some ice cream."
When Carter took Berlitz classes to better fit in Montreal and when endorsements came his way, teammates cringed, including an influential faction that included outfielders Andre Dawson, Tim Raines and Warren Cromartie.
In his 1987 book,
A Dream Season, written with John Hough Jr., Carter wrote, "My enthusiasm for my family -- and for baseball, and other things, too -- strikes some people as a bit too much. My happiness crowds people a little."
It was all genuine, though. Kid really did love God, his wife, Sandy, his three children, Christy, Kimmy and D.J., and baseball. Those Mets once scorned a teammate (not Carter) for having the audacity to bring his wife into a hotel bar on the road. Carter was the kind of guy who argued for the Mets to let wives fly with the team during the 1986 postseason, and wrote, "If I could, I'd take Sandy, my beautiful and beloved wife of 12 years, on every road trip."
Carter sometimes was ridiculed for such fidelity, especially on the back of planes and buses by Darryl Strawberry. Mets trainer Steve Garland told me in 1995, "There was a lack of respect for Gary Carter. He was clearly an overwhelming minority -- or I should say an underwhelming minority."
He was too religious, too good, too square -- Tim Tebow with more talent and without social media.
The late writer Jim Murray once wrote, "Gary Carter is the type of guy who, if he saved a child from drowning, the mother would look at him and say, 'Where's his hat?' "
Carter, though, was brutally competitive despite appearances. He had signed a letter of intent to play quarterback at UCLA before the Expos drafted him, and had once wrecked his knee on the football field. Originally an outfielder, he had to learn how to catch as a minor leaguer -- and wound up catching more than 2,000 games and setting records for putouts and chances.
Carter played the position with extreme tenacity. Over an 11-year period (1977-87), Carter averaged 139 games behind the plate -- and that includes the strike-shortened 1981 season. And yet his bat stayed potent enough to join Yogi Berra, Johnny Bench and Carlton Fisk as the only catchers with 300 homers, 2,000 hits, 1,000 RBIs and 1,000 runs. And incredibly, his best month over his career was the last; he posted an .820 OPS in September/October games.
"Certainly physically he's the strongest catcher I've seen," former catcher Alan Ashby once said.
Pitchers loved throwing to Carter. Despite his creaky knees and his strong physique, Carter was renowned by them for his target and his ability to frame pitchers. He seemed to ball himself up behind his glove, so that the pitcher has this great, round pillow of a target with no extraneous movement.
The physical strength of Carter was exceeded by his mental strength. His mother had died of leukemia when she was 37; Carter was just 12 when he lost his mom. Raised Presbyterian, Carter saw his Christian faith grow under the guidance of a teammate in Montreal, John Boccabella, a Catholic who helped him make sense of his mother's passing. He tirelessly raised funds to support leukemia research.
By the time he was traded to the Mets following the 1984 season, with Montreal owner Charles Bronfman souring on him and money paid to star players, Carter was not just ready for New York -- which was a Mets town then -- but wanted it. In his first game in New York, Carter hit a walk-off homer at Shea Stadium, which practically invented the New York curtain calls that opponents came to despise as excessive. He became the last piece to what in another year would be not just a championship team, but also the best National League team since the dawn of free agency.
Above all, there is one moment that forever will define Gary Carter and his inner strength. On Saturday night, Oct. 25, 1986, after Keith Hernandez made the second out of the bottom of the 10th inning of World Series Game 6 with Boston leading the Mets 5-3, the videoboard at Shea Stadium briefly flashed this message: "Congratulations, 1986 World Champions, Boston Red Sox."
There was one problem. The Red Sox would have to go through Kid to get that championship.
Five years earlier with Montreal, Carter came to the plate in the decisive Game 5 of the 1981 National League Championship Series with the Expos down 2-1 and down to their last out against Dodgers ace Fernando Valenzuela. Carter refused to make the last out. He grinded out a seven-pitch walk that knocked Valenzuela from the game -- only to have Bob Welch end it with one relief pitch.
This time the World Series was on the line, not to mention those 108 regular-season wins by the Mets that would be left without validation. Red Sox closer Calvin Schiraldi was on the mound, pitching with the bases empty and a two-run lead in need of only one more out for Boston's first championship since 1918.
Such are the moments that define the fortitude of a ballplayer -- not the endorsements or the nicknames or the camera time. And Carter, this man of unshakable faith and self-assuredness, was comfortable in such a revelatory spot.
"I was our last hope," he wrote, "and as I took my place and looked out at Schiraldi, all sounds shrank back, and I felt a presence in me, or perhaps besides me, a calming certainty that I wasn't alone. I was not alone, and I was not, so help me, going to make the last out of the World Series. I felt certain of that."
So confident and ready was Carter that he lashed at the first pitch, a fastball -- and fouled it back. Schiraldi threw two more pitches that would skirt the strike zone. Carter was comfortable enough to let them pass. On the fourth pitch, Carter, who had tied the game in the eighth when the Mets were down to their last five outs, lashed a single into left field.
With that one swing under ultimate duress, Carter provided the first light of hope to what would be one of the greatest rallies in baseball history. Within four batters the Mets would score three times without an extra-base hit to win the game.
Set aside the hit. Imagine the strength it took for Carter to stand there and be "certain" he was not going to make the last out. Such sangfroid is what defines Carter as a man, not just a ballplayer, of supreme conviction.
Wrote Carter even soon after the moment of a lifetime, "I'll always be grateful for the dream season of 1986. In a corner of my mind I will stand forever with my bat cocked, waiting for the two-one pitch from Calvin Schiraldi."
The Kid
By Joe Posnanski
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/
http://joeposnanski.si.com/
February 17, 2012
The Padres' mascot pretends to be an umpire calling a strike as Carter looks on at the second of his 11 career All-Star game appearances in 1979. (Neal Preston/Corbis)
There have been more than a dozen big league baseball players through the years who were called Kid … but I suspect that the name didn’t fit any of them quite the way “Kid” fit Gary Carter.
He got the Kid nickname the way most young ballplayers get nicknames … from veteran players, and complete with derision and sarcasm. Carter was in spring training in 1974, barely out of Sunny Hills High School — really, just a kid — and he was running sprints like mad and acting like each drill was more important than the national debt. He was responsible for getting ice cream for teammates, and he did this happily. They started calling him Kid. Well, sure they did.
“Hey, settle down there, Kid.”
“It’s a long season, Kid.”
“Watch out, the Kid’s going to take your job.”
“You don’t want to hurt yourself on your first day, Kid.”
That’s how it began, but here was the difference: Gary Carter really never stopped being Kid. Sure, they called Ted Williams Kid, but that really never fit and it eventually sounded so ridiculous that they gave him a bunch of other nicknames — Thumper, Splendid Splinter, Teddy Ballgame and all that. They called Ken Griffey Jr. Kid, but that too wore off after a while, after the years had taken their toll, after playing baseball no longer seemed to be as much fun. Kid Gleason, Kid Nichols, Billy DeMars … as they grew older the nickname seemed ironic. That’s how it goes. Kids grow up.
But Gary Carter didn’t grow up. Oh, he got older, that was noticeable. His body changed. His swing changed. His game changed. But he didn’t grow up. He never seemed to lose his enthusiasm, his zeal. He seemed to love playing baseball to the end — and not love it in some vague, distant way, but love it the way a kid does, all out, like it was the first day of spring training. He called his book ‘Still a Kid At Heart.” That seemed right.
He had never expected this baseball journey. He was the younger brother of a baseball phenom. Gordon Carter was a remarkable high school baseball player, and the Angels took him in the second round of the 1968 draft. He spurned them to go play for Southern California — this was in the time of Vietnam — and soon after that he was drafted in the secondary draft by the Giants. “You’ll be back for my kid brother,” he told the scout who signed him.
The scout did come back, but not with any real hope. Everyone assumed that Gary Carter was going to play college football. He had twice been a Punt, Pass and Kick finalist — he would always say that he should have won the second time, but he slipped on the ice in the bitter cold of Green Bay — and he had a scholarship waiting for him at UCLA. He looked the part of the star quarterback; he would say that his dream was to be the next Joe Namath.
But legendary scout Bob Zuk — who had signed Willie Stargell and Darrell Evans and so many others — saw Gary Carter play baseball. He was blown away. It wasn’t just the talent; anyone could see Carter’s strong arm and hitting power. Zuk was an old-time scout, the sort who believed that he could see beyond talent, beyond tools and peer deep into a player’s soul. Carter’s soul was there on the surface — he played baseball with so much energy and life and excitement. Zuk told the Montreal Expos management that they had to see this guy. The Expos drafted him in the third round. Soon after he went to spring training and was called Kid. Soon after that, he finished second in the Rookie of the Year balloting. And in time, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Carter was a fabulous player in Montreal, and a very good good one for a while in New York. He hit with power — nine times he hit between 20 and 32 homers, this in times where those home run numbers meant something. He was a smart, tough catcher who could really throw — three times he led the league in caught-stealing percentage. He might have been the best player in the National League in 1982. He led the league in RBIs in 1984. He made every All-Star Game for 10 years. And, of course, he refused to make the last out of the 1986 World Series, and was one of the key players in one of the most jolting and memorable comebacks in the history of the game.
But for some reason, it always seemed to me, he was never quite as big a star as he should have been. The Montreal teams he played on seemed to underachieve annually — he took blame for that. His clean-cut image and personality did not quite fit in with those wild New York Mets teams — he took blame for that too. He played years past his prime — and for four different teams in his last four years — which probably led people to forget and undervalue his greatness. His relatively low batting averages (Carter never hit .300 for a full season) played its role too.
Then there was just this too-good-to-be-true thing going with Gary Carter — he didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, seemed to be happily married to the same woman, studied the Bible, gave good quotes, smiled for the camera, smiled for everybody, reached down to pick up garbage he happened to see anywhere near the field. Teammates, many of them, just didn’t quite get him. Strangers, many of them, were suspicious. There he was, in late August, still smiling while their bodies ached, still going full speed when the temperature was scorching 100, still the Kid long after most of the others had grown up.
I remember something someone once wrote about the late Johnny Carson — that everyone thinks they know Carson, but we really don’t. We know the persona of Johnny Carson, the comedian, the improviser, the late night host with impeccable timing and the unique ability to express warmth through a television screen. But, the author wrote, that isn’t the REAL Johnny Carson, who was very private and distant, married four times, had few friends and all that.
The point was forceful, but I’m not sure it was entirely right. The author assumed that the private Johnny Carson was the real Johnny Carson, and the public Johnny Carson was fake. Maybe that’s true. Then again, maybe it isn’t.
During his playing days, I remember, people in and around the game often wondered who was the REAL Gary Carter. There would be a lot of talk about that around the game. I saw him live his last year — I was still a kid reporter, and the Expos had come to Atlanta — and he went 0 for 4 and looked old and everybody talked about him. No, there was never a shortage of people who wondered what was in the heart of this person who seemingly never stopped smiling, never had bad days, never stopped playing baseball with all that fire and devotion.
Maybe we saw a little bit of that real Gary Carter in the last few months, when he courageously faced the brain tumors that would kill him. He was there for Opening Day for the Palm Beach Atlantic college team he coached. He told people not to feel sorry for him. He stayed close to his family. I remember watching my friend Dan Quisenberry die of brain cancer, and how strong he was in the last months. Gary Carter was like that. He died on Thursday. He was three months from his 58th birthday.
And, so, what is real? Of course, the people who knew Gary Carter — his family, his friends, his teammates — knew a Gary Carter that we didn’t know. But over the years I probably watched at least part of a couple hundred games of Gary Carter’s career on television or in ballparks, maybe more. I saw him doing something that he so obviously loved to do. I saw him throw out base runners, and I saw him hit home runs, and I saw him lash that single off Calvin Schiraldi with the World Series on the brink. I saw him play with such apparent joy, all the time. He was infectious and alive, and so many times he made my day just a little bit better. He was the Kid. That Gary Carter was real too.
