The Real Steve Carlton

Left-handed pitcher Steve Carlton was the last of the workhorses of the mound. His 24-year career (1965-1988) included a four-year stretch in which he averaged over 300 IP. In 1972 he started 41 games and completed 30 of them.

His career 329-244 record and 3.32 ERA earned him election to the Hall of Fame in 1994.

But few people really knew him. – Norman L. Macht

Not media savvy

For most of his career, Steve Carlton had a problem. It seems he worked harder on his pitching than his image – an unforgivable error in the media age.

Nothing so clearly defined the difference between his public and private images as the names by which he was known.

The press always called him Steve, but to his teammates he was Lefty.

Colorful southpaws like Grove and Gomez attracted the tag of Lefty because they made hot copy or told good jokes. Many fans were unaware that they even had proper first names.

But Steve Carlton refused to talk to reporters for eight or 10 or 13 years, depending on who’s counting. He was the Silent One, the Monk, the Recluse.

Why? Because he showed no emotion on the field? Because he made no colorful copy? Because all he did was work hard to develop himself into probably the best lefthander in history?

Would it have been different if he had given fans the chance to know the real Lefty – one of the most intelligent, well-read, interesting man who ever challenged hitters?

Hall of Fame intensity

Carlton was always shrouded in mystery. But that same stone wall of concentration and self-discipline – combined with the deadliest slider any pitcher ever threw – is what carried him into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

“He had the most intense concentration of anybody I ever associated with as an athlete,” said Keith Moreland, a catcher on the Phillies’ 1980 world championship team.

“He had the ability to tune everything out. I believe sometimes he was so deep into it he didn’t even know who the hitter was.”

Herm Starrette, Philadelphia’s pitching coach during Carlton’s prime, also remembered Lefty as stoical after a game.

“Whether he pitched a no-hitter or whatever,” Starrette said with awe, “when the game was over and you congratulated him, he’d tell you that’s past history. He was already preparing for the next game.”

A self made pitcher

Above all, Lefty was the game’s most successful self-made pitcher. When he first came up to the Cardinals in 1965, it looked like he wouldn’t make it. “He was a tall [6-4] skinny kid with a good curve but not much of a fastball,” recalled Nellie Briles, his rookie roommate.

“The Cardinals sent him down in ’66. Then they brought him up to pitch the Hall of Fame Game in Cooperstown [he beat the Twins, 7-5, going all the way] and he never went back down. He built himself up to over 200 pounds and developed that slider.”

Carlton was traded to the Phillies for Rick Wise after the 1971 season.

It was a fateful franchise error for St. Louis.

Carlton won 237 games for the Phillies (1972-85), with four Cy Young Awards. In 1972 his 27 wins accounted for almost 46 percent of the last-place club’s victories.

All thanks to that slider. More than anybody else in baseball, Carlton transformed that nickel curve into a million-dollar pitch.

“It had an intense bite,” Moreland recalled. “A lot of sliders just break sideways. His not only slid, it broke down at an angle.  And he threw it faster than anybody else – 85-plus. 

“He could throw it outside and break it down and over the corner, or throw it down and in.

He would backdoor right-handed batters and just eat them up. Ninety percent of his strikeouts were down-and-in sliders. Guys swung at it as it hit the ground”

Carlton’s control amazed Moreland. “You could catch some of [his pitches] in a tweezer. He could pinpoint that fastball on the outside corner, then come in with the slider.”

While catching Carlton with the Cardinals and Phillies, Tim McCarver claimed, “I put down three fingers [the sign for the slider] so often, I was putting out three fingers when I shook hands with people.”

The last of the 300-IP pitchers (304 in 1980), Carlton still was good for 284 innings at age 39. But he was not numbers-conscious. Complete games and innings pitched were incidental.

In his early years, he was an annual leader in complete games when his supporting cast was lean. But later in his career, if he had a big lead after seven or eight innings, he would invite the pitching coach to bring in somebody from the bullpen who needed some work.

On a day he was scheduled to pitch, Carlton went into his shell, focusing on his game plan, pitch by pitch.

Younger hurlers who watched him made no effort to copy his strict regimen, but they walked away impressed with his dedication and discipline.

Like Early Wynn, who ran wind sprints on the last day of the season, Lefty Carlton pitched to his last hitter as if his whole career was on the line.

He didn’t know any other way.