Talk:Steve Carlton

Type of Slider Steve Threw?
When I was growing up in the late 1970s and early 80s, I remember that Steve was one of the best slider pitchers of the time period. First off, is that true?

Then, how did he do it? His mechanics, and also, a slider is just a pitch somewhere between a fastball and a curve. Now, that's a lot of gradient, I know a cutter is closer to a fastball. So, where in this gradient did Steve tend to throw his slider? Thanks. FriendlyRiverOtter 06:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Hitting
When I was a kid, listening to the games the truly awful Phillies were playing, one thing I remember was that Carlton not only pitched so many wins... he not infrequently hit too. There were times I remember that his average was higher than a number of the folks in the order and I remember that he had a pretty good RBI stat for someone who did not play every day. (I think he may have even pinch hit on occasion... that's how bad the Phillies were then!)

How about adding his batting average and a commentary? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.33.1.37 (talk) 21:31, 12 November 2007 (UTC)


 * He was a lifetime .201 hitter, and hit as high as .291 in a season, but without any power or walks. He was a slightly above-average hitter for a pitcher, but if the Phillies used him to pinch-hit, that was crazy. Most years, he hit even worse than Mario Mendoza did. Jsc1973 (talk) 02:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

He was the best hitting pitcher the Phillies had, and he'd pinch-hit in extra-innings games when they were out of bench players. But that's it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.103.46.75 (talk) 03:38, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm removing the reference to him pitch-hitting for the 1972 season. Baseball-reference has him pitch-hitting twice in his carreer (both with the Phillies, but neither of those in 1972). If evidence comes up that he did in fact pitch-hit for that season and it was an important fact, it should be put back. Otherwise it makes no sense to include that. Snitor (talk) 11:30, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Removed Suicide Attempt Reference
I removed the line that stated, "Carlton also tried to commet suicide. Which sucked!" Besides the word "commit" being misspelled and the poor grammar in the two sentences, there is no link to any source material mentioning this event taking place, and, after a quick search on Google, I could not find any reference to any such suicide attempt made by Steve Carlton. That's not to say that it didn't happen; I just do not know whether or not it did. The bottom line is that this offhand mention is unsubstantiated and is of unencyclopaedic quality, thus meriting its immediate removal. BobCubTAC (talk) 10:31, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

World Series
In the infobox, it does not list the Twins World Series as a win for him (presumably since he was not on the postseason roster). However, in the article it says that the Twins earned him a third ring. Just for internal consistency, I think that it should use one number or the other (with appropriate in-text caveats), but it is confusing now. matt91486 (talk) 09:24, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Carlton's relationship with the media
In the 1999 edition of the Bill James Baseball Abstract, James's entry on Carlton is a meditation on "professionalism" & how the interests of professional athletes (formerly "ball players") & journalists (formerly "sportswriters") diverged. James concluded that Carlton worked at being the consummate professional, looked around & was shocked to find only assholes but that no athlete would be shocked by that today. BubbleDine (talk) 11:47, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

4136 strike outs in career
Under the SO section of career stats (which I assume is strike outs) there is the number 5714

This number seems inflated as official stats say that Steve had 4136 strikouts in his major league career.

There may be minor league strikeouts added to make 5714 but I don't think Steve had much of a minor league career Endo999 (talk) 19:02, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

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 * Steve Carlton Statue.jpg

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Citation needed
The article has this: "...Carlton maintains his greatest rival was Tom Seaver.[citation needed]...". Using Google Bard AI, it gave the following: Steve Carlton had many pitching rivalries during his career, but one of the most notable was with Tom Seaver. The two pitchers were both dominant right-handers who spent most of their careers in the National League. They faced each other 49 times, with Carlton winning 24 and Seaver winning 25. The rivalry was particularly heated in the 1970s, when both pitchers were at the peak of their powers. In 1972, they each won 23 games and finished first and second in the Cy Young Award voting. In 1973, Carlton won the Cy Young Award while Seaver finished second. The two pitchers also met in the 1973 National League Championship Series, with Carlton winning Game 1 and Seaver winning Game 5.

Carlton and Seaver were two of the greatest pitchers of their generation, and their rivalry was one of the most exciting in baseball history.

I did not corroborate the info. Billymac00 (talk) 19:14, 26 April 2023 (UTC)


 * AI is not a reliable source. I know that ChatGPT gets its information (or at least some of it) through the Internet, and I imagine Bard does too? Then they could be taking that Carlton's top rival was Seaver from our page. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:52, 26 April 2023 (UTC)