Why Joe Carter is the ultimate Phillies Villain
All week at NBC Sports Philadelphia, we’re debating the biggest villains in Philly sports history. Today, we look at the Phillies.
Joe Carter’s path to villainhood in Philadelphia began in a Chicago hotel in December 1990.
Pat Gillick will tell you the story if you want.
He’s told it to me before and it’s a great one.
The winter meetings were finishing up and Gillick, then general manager of the Blue Jays, was getting ready to hustle off to O’Hare Airport for a flight back to Toronto.
Before getting in the taxi, he stopped at a payphone – kids, ask your parents about those – and called his wife Doris. Before hanging up, Gillick informed his wife that, oh, yeah, he’d made a big trade. Popular Blue Jays Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez were headed to San Diego for Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar.
There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone.
“You better get home before you screw up that team any more,” Doris Gillick told her husband.
Eventually, Doris, and all Jays fans, came to like the trade.
And why not?
Alomar and Carter helped the Jays win back-to-back World Series in 1992 and 1993.
Gillick wanted Alomar, then just 22, for his athleticism and the young second baseman went on to make the All-Star team and win a Gold Glove in each of his five seasons in Toronto.
Gillick wanted Carter, then 31, for his right-handed power bat and Carter went on to hit 30 or more homers four times and 25 or more six times during seven distinguished seasons in Toronto.
Carter, of course, made Gillick look rather prescient on the night of October 23, 1993. Gillick wanted right-handed power and Carter delivered it when he dropped the head of the bat on Mitch Williams’ down-and-in fastball and sent it over the left field wall at SkyDome. The three-run homer lifted Toronto to an 8-6 win over the Phillies in Game 6 as the Jays won their second straight World Series. “Touch ‘em all, Joe. You’ll never hit a bigger home run in your life,” Jays’ Hall of Fame broadcaster Tom Cheek called out as Carter danced around the bases.
Carter’s walk-off home run is still just one of two to decide a World Series, the other being Bill Mazeroski’s Game 7 clincher for the Pirates against the Yankees in 1960.
In Philadelphia, we call Carter a “villain” because that’s what we do as sports fans.
Maybe calling him a “heartbreaker” would be more accurate because he broke a lot of hearts in Philadelphia that night.
Carter was actually a winner. He was a winner throughout his 16-year career. He made five All-Star teams and hit 396 homers.
On the night of October 23, 1993, he was a winner again. He won a battle against Williams in a big spot. Williams would be the first one to tip his hat to Carter. In fact, he has. That’s what competitors do.
Williams briefly took some grief from fans for losing the battle, but, over time, fans have come to respect Williams for being a stand-up competitor and for taking the ball on fumes after a long season.
“We don’t make that World Series without Mitch,” Larry Andersen has said time and time again.
Over the years, I’ve sought some different perspectives on Carter’s blast.
Back in May 2003, I caught up with Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson and talked to him about the home run. Henderson, baseball’s all-time stolen-base king with 1,406 of them, was on base for Carter’s homer. He had drawn a leadoff walk in the bottom of the ninth and moved to second base on a hit by Paul Molitor.
Up came Carter, acquired by Pat Gillick three years earlier for his right-handed power bat.
“Mitch thought I was going to steal and he made a mistake to Joe Carter and Joe caught him,” Henderson told me in 2003. “I know what happened and so does Joe. Mitch was worried about me and he made a mistake.
“I know Mitch got dogged out, but he had a tough time making sure I didn’t go and still trying to pitch to Joe. That stuff helped a lot in my career. Pitchers would worry about me and make a mistake to the hitter.”
Good hitters don’t miss mistakes.
And Joe Carter didn’t miss that one the night he became a hero in Toronto and a heartbreaker in Philadelphia.
The Phillies didn’t get back to the postseason for 14 years after Carter’s crushing blow and it took them 15 years to get back to the World Series, where the heartbreak of 1993 was washed away with a victory over Tampa Bay and a parade down Broad Street in October 2008.
The Phillies’ general manager in 2008 was Pat Gillick.
Small world.
