When you talked about “Lefty” for the last 4 decades, if you weren’t talking about political leftists, then you were definitely a baseball fanatic. And if so, by mentioning the nickname “Lefty,” baseball fans universally knew you were talking about Steve Carlton.
Carlton started in Major League Baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1965. He had four strong seasons with the Cards, including a 17-11 record in 1969 and a 20-9 record in 1971.
Lefty had his own unique training regiment that used martial arts and other techniques. But in the process, his training regiment allowed for longevity in the game without the various arm, shoulder, back and leg problems of pitchers today.
In his 24-year career, Carlton won 329 and lost 244, winning 241 of those games, including five 20-game winning seasons and 4 Cy Young Awards with a red-striped Phillies. Only Greg Maddux tied him for Cy Youngs and only Randy “Big Unit” Johnson with 5 and “Rocket” Roger Clemens with 7, surpassed Carlton in winning Cy Young Awards.
I previously wrote about the trade that brought Carlton to the Phillies for another fairly fair pitcher in Rick Wise. The 36th anniversary of that agreement was marked by Baseball Library two days ago, on Monday, February 25.
In Carlton’s first season with the Phillies, he miraculously won 27 games for a team that won only 59 in total. He subsequently led the Phillies to the Eastern division championships in 1976, 1977, and 1978, as well as the League Pennant. National and his first and only World Cup. They won the series championship in 1980 when they defeated the Kansas City Royals 4 games to 2 with Carlton winning 2 of the games.
In 1981, Lefty was again set to win 20 games, but as a result of the players’ strike, the season was shortened with most teams playing only 107 games. Carlton went 13-4 with a 2.42 ERA, allowing just 9 home runs as the Phillies reached the postseason before losing the split-season formula in the playoffs to the Montreal Expos.
Possessor of nasty things, Lefty was a strikeout pitcher who collected 4,000 Ks with only Clemens (4,167) and Nolan Ryan (5,714) scoring more. Carlton has the all-time strikeout total for lefties.
Carlton was consistently brilliant until 1985 when his career entered the twilight of light years. However, he was stubborn and thought that he still had his stuff and conditioning on him. But he finally retired 4 years later, having pitched for 5 teams during that period posting just 16 wins and 37 losses and an ERA that exploded to 6.70 and 16.76 in his last two seasons.