Steve Carlton
- St. Louis Cardinals (1965-1971)
- Philadelphia Phillies (1972-1986)
- San Francisco Giants (1986 )
- Chicago White Sox (1986 )
- Cleveland Indians (1987 )
- Minnesota Twins (1987-1988)
Steve Norman Carlton ( born December 22, 1944 in Miami, Florida ) is a former American professional baseball player in Major League Baseball. His nickname is Lefty.
Life
Steve Carlton made his debut in the National League with the St. Louis Cardinals on April 12, 1965. Starting with the 1967 season the left-handed pitcher integral part of the rotation pitcher the Cardinals was then. This season, he came up with fourteen victories in nine defeats and with the Cardinals reached the World Series against the Boston Red Sox. Carlton cashed in his World Series start, although a defeat, but his team was victorious. 1968 reached the Cardinals once again the World Series, but were subject to the Detroit Tigers.
As of the 1969 season, Carlton finally reached the attention of the baseball world. He was nominated as a starter for the All-Star Game, where he was also the victory pitcher. On September 15, he then presented a new record for strikeouts in a game over nine innings. Against the New York Mets, although they won the game 4-3, get him 19 strikeouts. In 1971 he won the first time then 20 games in a season.
After the season, he demanded a salary improvement in the Cardinals that this, however, refused and transferred him to the Philadelphia Phillies. With the Phillies, he showed then probably his best season. He won 27 games, had 30 complete games, 310 strikeouts and an ERA of 1.97, and thus won the Triple Crown. Remarkable in its services are just at this time, particularly as the Phillies the last place occupied this season in their division with a record of 59 wins and 97 defeats and thus Carlton was responsible for almost half of the victories as a pitcher.
In that year he also won his first Cy Young Award. 1977, 1980 and 1982, he was able to repeat this success and was the first player to win the trophy for the best pitchers a season four times.
Between 1973 and 1975, however, he was not very successful, as he had to contend with various injuries. When the press criticized his training methods, Carlton decided to give no interviews representatives of the press and information. This he held throughout his time by with the Phillies. As in 1981, the Mexican Fernando Valenzuela with the Los Angeles Dodgers made a stir, a reporter wrote: "The two best pitchers in the National League does not speak English. Fernando Valenzuela and Steve Carlton "
In 1980, he helped the Phillies then to their first ( and until 2008 only) win the World Series. Against the Kansas City Royals, he won two games, including the decisive sixth. In 1983 he reached with the Phillies for the second time the World Series, but it lost to the Baltimore Orioles. On September 23, 1983 Carlton became the 16th player in the history of the MLB his 300th game as a pitcher against the St. Louis Cardinals.
During the 1986 season he was released by the Phillies and joined the San Francisco Giants. There he was on 5 August 1986 the second player in the Major Leagues after Nolan Ryan, who reached 4,000 strikeouts in his career. Shortly after he announced his resignation, but played in the same season yet for the Chicago White Sox. Further stations were the Cleveland Indians and the Minnesota Twins before he stepped down permanently.
Carlton finished his career with 329 victories in 244 losses, an ERA of 3:22 and 4,136 strikeouts. In the number of strikeouts he is thus only behind Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens. In 1994 he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Phillies no longer awarded his shirt number 32. Also they built a statue of him outside of Citizens Bank Park.
A television appearance had Steve Carlton in the American series Married with Children.