(Updated Feb. 26, 2022)
Every time Steve Carlton pitched against the Cardinals in 1972, it was a vivid reminder of the overbearing bungling of Gussie Busch.
Busch, the Cardinals’ owner, had a temper tantrum because Carlton wouldn’t agree to the club’s contract terms. Ordered by Busch to trade Carlton, general manager Bing Devine dealt him to the Phillies for another pitcher, Rick Wise, in February 1972.
Carlton made Busch pay for his heavy-handiness in ways greater than any salary amount he sought. In four starts against the 1972 Cardinals, Carlton was 4-0 with an 0.50 ERA. Two of those wins were shutouts. In 36 innings pitched versus the 1972 Cardinals, Carlton allowed no home runs and two runs total.
First test
On April 15, 1972, Carlton made his Phillies debut and beat the Cubs at Chicago. Boxscore
His next start, his first in Philadelphia for the Phillies, was April 19 against the Cardinals. Not only would Carlton face his former team for the first time, he also would oppose their ace, Bob Gibson.
On the eve of the showdown, Carlton told Stan Hochman of the Philadelphia Daily News, “Pitching against old teammates, that’s a new challenge. They know what you throw and how you set up hitters. You go out there with them knowing that, and you have to handle it.”
Asked what it was like having been Gibson’s teammate, Carlton replied, “I learned things, but not the mechanics of pitching. What I learned involved ideas, competitive spirit, the intense concentration he brings to the job. I admire him. I enjoyed watching him pitch.”
Told Gibson wouldn’t discuss the matchup, Carlton said, “The way he feels is that he’s pitching against the other club, not against some other pitcher.”
Cardinals outfielder Lou Brock said, “Carlton is one of the few guys who really cares. Some guys get taken out of games in late innings, even though they’ve pitched well, and they’re satisfied. Not Carlton. He feels like it’s his game. He’s got a lot of killer instinct.”
Speed game
Carlton, 27, and Gibson, 36, delivered a classic. Relying on the slider he learned on a trip to Japan with the Cardinals in 1968, Carlton pitched a three-hit shutout and the Phillies won, 1-0, in a game played in one hour, 33 minutes.
Phillies catcher Tim McCarver, another former Cardinal, told the Philadelphia Daily News that Carlton “was working quicker than he usually does. A couple of times he was winding up to pitch before I gave him the sign.”
The Cardinals’ hits were singles by Ted Sizemore, Matty Alou and Ed Crosby, who filled in at third base when Joe Torre was sidelined because of a bad back.
The Phillies scored in the sixth when former Cardinals prospect Willie Montanez hit a triple into the right field corner and Deron Johnson followed with a sharply grounded single to center.
With two outs and none on in the ninth, Ted Sizemore represented the Cardinals’ last hope.
“Tim called for a fastball and I shook him off,” Carlton told the Philadelphia Daily News. “I was thinking slider. I wanted to run it down and in on him.”
Instead, Carlton got the pitch up and in, and Sizemore drove it deep. “The ball fled Sizemore’s bat as though it had important business in a distant city,” Bruce Keidan wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Center fielder Willie Montanez turned and gave chase. He leaped near the wall and caught the ball in the web of his glove. As he came down, his glove hit the wall, the ball popped out and Montanez snared it again near his knees.
Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst and his coaches said the ball touched the wall after it came out of Montanez’s glove and should have been ruled a hit, but umpire Andy Olsen, who had run into the outfield from his post near second base, called it a catch and Sizemore was out, ending the game.
“Body and glove made contact with the wall,” Olsen explained to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “but the ball did not hit the wall.”
The loss was Gibson’s first versus the Phillies since April 1969. He’d won seven in a row against them. Boxscore
Home on the road
On Aug. 5, 1972, Carlton, playing in St. Louis for the first time since the trade, pitched a five-hit shutout in a 5-0 Phillies victory against the Cardinals. The game was completed in one hour, 48 minutes.
Carlton was “received warmly by a crowd of 25,505 in the city where he still makes his home,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Asked about what it was like pitching in St. Louis as the opponent, Carlton told the Post-Dispatch, “There was a little tightness and feeling of anxiety.”
Bill Robinson and Greg Luzinski each hit a two-run home run against Cardinals starter Reggie Cleveland.
The win was Carlton’s 12th in a row. His catcher for the last 10 wins in the streak was John Bateman, who was acquired in June from the Expos for McCarver. Boxscore
On a roll
On Sept. 7, 1972, in his third appearance against the Cardinals, Carlton again made quick work of them, getting his 23rd win of the season in a 2-1 Phillies victory at Philadelphia. The game was played in one hour, 49 minutes.
Carlton displayed a moustache, a symbol of personal grooming independence that must have made Busch choke on his braunschweiger sandwich. Five months earlier, Busch demanded the trade of another talent, starting pitcher Jerry Reuss, because he dared to grow a moustache.
Carlton got his 100th career win against a Cardinals lineup that featured six rookies _ Bill Stein, Mike Tyson, Skip Jutze, Ken Reitz, Jorge Roque and Mick Kelleher. Boxscore
(Years later, reflecting on the trades of Carlton and Reuss, Tyson told Cardinals Magazine, “You know how important pitching is. If we had not traded all that pitching, we would have won three, maybe four, division titles.”)
Traded foes
On Sept. 20, 1972, at St. Louis, Carlton and Rick Wise were matched against one another for the first time since the trade. The Phillies prevailed, 2-1, and Carlton got his 25th win of the season.
“So many of his former comrades have been shuffled away, Carlton feels no extra surge of adrenaline when he faces the Cardinals,” Bill Conlin wrote in the Philadelphia Daily News. “Only the sight of Gussie Busch and Bing Devine at the plate could turn him on.”
The game was played in two hours, 20 minutes before a mere 5,569, the second smallest crowd to attend a Cardinals game at Busch Memorial Stadium since it opened in May 1966.
“St. Louis fans are resigned that the trade was a blunder conceived in spite,” Conlin noted.
Asked by the Associated Press to pose for a picture before the game with Carlton, who agreed, Wise said, “Absolutely not.”
The loss gave Wise a season record of 15-16. Twelve of his losses were by one run _ six by scores of 3-2, three by 2-1, two by 4-3 and one by 1-0.
“Everybody says things even out,” Wise told the Post-Dispatch. “It will take a couple of years to even that out.” Boxscore
Special talent
Wise finished the season 16-16 with a 3.11 ERA. Carlton was 27-10 with a 1.97 ERA and received the first of his four National League Cy Young awards. Carlton had 27 wins for a team that won 59. Video
Carlton went on to have other spectacular seasons against the Cardinals, including 1980 (6-0, 1.38 ERA) and 1982 (5-1, 2.37 ERA). From May 1979 to May 1981, he had 10 consecutive wins versus the Cardinals.
Carlton’s career record against the Cardinals: 38-14, 2.98 ERA, five shutouts.
RetroSimba 
It hurts too much to talk about how bad of a trade this was!! In fairness though, to Steve Carlton, what he accomplished in 1972 for a team that won only 59 games is for the record books. He was involved in 45 percent of the games that Philadelphia won. He won 9 games where the Phillies scored 2 or less runs. With a little more run support he would have easily won 30. As Cardinal fans we can be grateful that Mr. Gussie Busch redeemed himself with the hiring of Whitey Herzog.
Thanks, Phillip. To your point, Steve Carlton allowed more than 4 runs in a game only 3 times in 1972. I should add the only team he beat 4 times that season was the Cardinals.
In the ’80’s there was a late-night radio show from Vegas called The Stardust Line that was popular throughout the west. The host was a guy who had played QB for Woody Hayes before transferring, and his sidekick was a little guy named Donnie, who used to go to Florida for spring training every year. Somehow Donnie had become friends with Steve Carlton. So one year, he’s on the field before a game and Paul Owens tells him to get back in the stands. Carlton says to Owens, “he stays.”
Thanks for the insight, Marty.
In researching this piece, I found an extensive profile of Steve Carlton in a Sunday edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer in August 1972. Carlton talked about his boyhood in the Miami area. He told the newspaper, “All that kept me from being a juvenile delinquent was that I never got caught.”
In talking about about prowling around the edges of the Everglades with his teenage buddies, Carlton said, “I started on vodka and beer when I was a kid back in Florida. We even kicked up a few moonshine stills in the Everglades.”
Steve Carlton was one of the most dominant pitchers I have ever seen. Enjoyed reading this, Mark.
Tim McCarver tells the story of how he was asked to speak about Steve Carlton at a dinner for Hall of Famers in Cooperstown the night before Carlton was inducted. McCarver told the audience, “If Carl Hubbell goes down in the history of the game as having the best screwball, Sandy Koufax with the best curveball and Nolan Ryan with the best fastball, then Steve Carlton will go down as having the best slider.” Afterward, as McCarver and Carlton were sharing a hug, Bob Gibson approached. He got up into McCarver’s face and said, “The best lefthanded slider!”
🤣