Rico Carty, who won the National League batting title in 1970 with the Atlanta Braves, passed away on Saturday. He was 85 years old.
We are saddened by the passing of 15-year MLB veteran Rico Carty.
Carty spent 8 of his 15 years with the Braves. In his memorable 1970 season, Carty hit .366 to win the NL batting crown. It is still the highest mark in Braves modern-era franchise history.
His popularity was so… pic.twitter.com/XPcyzBeo9Y
— MLB (@MLB) November 24, 2024
Rico Carty Has Passed Away at 85
Carty played in the major leagues from 1963-79, missing all of 1968 with tuberculosis and 1971 with a knee injury. He played for the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves (1963-72), Texas Rangers (1973), Chicago Cubs (1973), Oakland Athletics (1973, 1978), Cleveland Indians (1974-77), and Toronto Blue Jays (1978, 1979). Best known as a Brave, he was inducted into their Hall of Fame last year. He was known for his flamboyant style of play and one-handed catches in left field before that was fashionable. For his career, the right-handed batter hit .299/.369/.464, 204 HR, 890 RBI, and 132 OPS+. He won the NL batting title in 1970 when he hit .366 and also led the league with a .454 OBP.
Primarily a left fielder, Carty also saw action at the other outfield spots, first base, and amazingly, 17 games at catcher in 1966, where he threw out an astonishing 50 percent of would-be base stealers. He was just an average fielder, but in 1966, he led all NL left fielders with 218 putouts.
“I Believe He’s Capturin’ Their Imagination”
His infectious smile and accessibility to fans made him a favorite wherever he played. As a rookie, the Dominican native Carty hit two runs in one game on a Sunday afternoon in Milwaukee. As he took the field after the second shot, according to The Pittsburgh Press columnist Roy McHugh, a fan in the left-field bleachers shouted, “Rico, baby, we love you!” Carty looked over his shoulder and flashed a big smile. His manager, Bobby Bragan, looked over at coach Dixie Walker and said, “I believe that fellow is capturin’ their imagination.”
Bragan elaborated to McHugh, “I don’t know how to describe it, but Rico does things with a flourish, like catchin’ the ball one-handed, and runnin’ out from under his cap, and poundin’ his bat on the ground when he misses a third strike.”
“I Never Gave Up”
After missing the 1968 season, he returned with a vengeance, hitting .342/.401/.549, 16 HR, and 58 RBI in 1969. “My belief in God and my body helped me come through,” he told Al Abrams of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. This was an era when a player from an opposing team would sit down with a writer for an interview. “I never gave up. I knew in my heart I would come back. Why [did] I know? Because I have faith. I also know I never been sick, bad, since I was one year [old].”
It was Carty’s seventh-inning sacrifice fly off pitcher Wayne Granger that broke a tie and was the difference in a 3-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on September 30, clinching the first-ever NL West Division title for the Braves. In the NL Championship Series against the New York Mets, Carty was 3-for-10 with two doubles and three walks in his only postseason exposure.
“A Hitter Has to Be Like a Sportswriter”
In 1970, Carty had a season for the ages, hitting .366/.454/.584, 25 HR, 101 RBI, and 171 OPS+. He was hitting .401 as late as June 17. Nine days later, when he was hitting “only” .377, he admitted to Ira Berkow of Newspaper Enterprise Association that he was weary of being asked whether he could hit .400. “A hitter has to be like a sportswriter,” he told Berkow, making an interesting analogy. “He cannot be bashful. In my job, be bold. I walk into every pitcher and I’m not scared of any of them, no matter if his name is Seaver, Gibson, Marichal, Maloney, Dierker.”
After missing 1971 and hitting just .277 in 1972, the Braves passed Rico Carty onto Texas. He bounced around the majors after that, finishing up with the Charlie O. Finley A’s and the expansionist Blue Jays, two teams where aging hitters went to finish up their careers as designated hitters.
The Last Word
In 1995, Post-Gazette sportswriter Paul Meyer eavesdropped on a conversation between former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Steve Blass, then a broadcaster, and Carty’s former teammate Felipe Alou, then the manager of the Montreal Expos. “You know,” said Blass, Rico Carty was the best two-strike hitter I ever pitched against. He would shorten up his stroke on two strikes, and he was so strong he could almost play ‘pepper’ in games and do pretty much what he wanted to do with two strikes.”
Alou nodded in agreement, “To this day, I think he was the best two-strike hitter I’ve ever seen in baseball.”
Photo Credit: © Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images
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