Bill Lee, a former major league pitcher and teammate of Gary Carter's with the Expos, remembers how the Hall of Fame catcher used to also be an outfielder. Carter played 128 games in the outfield for Montreal between 1975-1976.
But an incident at spring training in Winter Haven Fla., made him a full-time catcher.
"He ran into the center field fence on a fly ball and was carried off the field unconscious," says Lee, who was playing for the Red Sox against Carter's Expos at the time. "That's when he became a catcher. He hit that full blast. That was Carter. Tough as nails."
During the 1986 World Series, when the 108-win Mets were down to their final out and faced with a 5-3 deficit to the Red Sox and no one on base, Carter confidently walked to the plate.
"It was Carter who refused to acknowledge the Mets were doomed," wrote Bob Klapisch of The Record in northern New Jersey. "A comeback was impossible -- except that it wasn't. He flared a cheap single that started the engine on the greatest comeback in Series history. And when Kid scored the first of three runs that inning, he crossed the plate with that un-cool fist pump that, in retrospect, was years ahead of its time."
He also had an assuring nod for his teammates. At the time it seemed like they were all one in victory. When the Mets pulled out that game, and then the series, Carter's beaming face and outstretched arms were another constant in the team's celebratory images.
But, in reality, Carter wasn't like many of the frolicking '86 Mets who, according to Klapisch, used to say they would be "on the pavement" 45 minutes after the last out.
"For a man who had nothing bad to say or do toward anybody, he was strangely alone in the Mets' clubhouse," wrote The New York Times' George Vecsey. "In Montreal he had been the core of the Expos, but general manager Frank Cashen and his Mets staff had accumulated so many strong personalities on the Mets that Carter was muted. ? In New York, Kid Carter was pure vanilla for a city with stronger tastes."
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Mets fans seemed to embrace him, though, as Expos supporters did when he was an All-Star for Montreal.
"Montrealers loved Gary Carter, and that was evident in the cracking voices on sports talk radio yesterday afternoon as fans remembered him," wrote The (Montreal) Gazette's Stu Cowan.
Carter's nickname of "The Kid" derived in Montreal when Expos players used it as a tool to get under the skin of catcher Barry Foote. "Did you see what The Kid did today down in Double-A," they would tease.
However, Carter's effervescence eventually won people over, and "The Kid" became a tribute to a determined, enthusiastic Hall of Fame player.
"I wish I could've lived my life like him," former Mets teammate Darryl Strawberry said Thursday.
When Carter was too sick to make the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies last summer, Johnny Bench told the New York Post's Kevin Kernan, "It's a gorgeous day, but it's not, without Gary's smile."
Carter's last public appearance was two weeks ago when he attended the opener for the college baseball team he coached, Palm Beach Atlantic University.
"Let's get a win tonight," Carter told the players who gathered around him.
A much longer tribute would come Thursday, when news of his death broke.
"It always seemed to me Carter was never quite as big a star as he should have been," wrote Sports Illustrated's Joe Posnanski. "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 lose sight of his greatness. His relatively low batting averages (Carter never hit .300 for a full season) played a role, too.
"There was also 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."
Source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomSports-TopStories/~3/6YTDQJ5hgoM/1
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