RetroSimba

(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.

During a stretch in the 1960s, Jim Maloney was as overpowering as National League contemporaries Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax, but by the early 1970s, when the Cardinals took a chance on him, Maloney’s pitching skill no longer was the same.

On Jan. 4, 1972, the Cardinals signed Maloney, hoping he could join a starting rotation with Gibson, Steve Carlton and Jerry Reuss.

Three months later, Maloney was gone, and so, too, were Carlton and Reuss.

Fresno fireballer

Maloney was born and raised in Fresno, Calif. For most of his youth, the Cardinals had a farm club in Fresno and Maloney attended the games. He got to see Cardinals pitching prospects such as Larry Jackson (28-4 for Fresno in 1952) and Tom Hughes (20-6 in 1955).

At Fresno High School, Maloney was the shortstop on a team that included a couple of other future big-leaguers: catcher Pat Corrales and pitcher Dick Ellsworth. (Tom Seaver, four years younger, went to Fresno High School after Maloney did.)

On the recommendation of Reds scout Bobby Mattick, Maloney converted from shortstop to pitcher at Fresno City College. The Reds signed him in April 1959 and he got to the majors with them the next year.

A right-hander, Maloney had exceptional velocity.

In his 1968 book “From Ghetto to Glory,” Gibson said, “I don’t throw as hard as Jim Maloney. Nobody throws as hard as Maloney. He’s the only guy who can simply overpower you. You know he’s going to throw the fastball, you set for it, but you still can’t catch up with it.”

Maloney had 15 wins or more for the Reds each season from 1963-68. He remains the Reds’ franchise leader in career strikeouts (1,592).

In 1963, when he turned 23, Maloney was 23-7 with a 2.77 ERA and 265 strikeouts. On May 21 against the Braves, Maloney struck out 16 batters, including eight in a row, in 8.1 innings. “He was faster than anyone else I’ve seen this season,” Hank Aaron told The Cincinnati Post. “Yes, he was faster than Sandy Koufax.” Boxscore

Three months later, after Maloney pitched a two-hit shutout against the Giants, their manager, Al Dark, called him a “right-handed Sandy Koufax,” according to the Dayton Daily News. Boxscore

In the book “We Played the Game,” Reds pitcher Jim O’Toole said, “Maloney had such a great fastball and curve that he was unhittable if he got them both over. He was as good as Koufax.”

In the 1963 season finale, Maloney gave up a pair of singles to Stan Musial, who was playing his last career game with the Cardinals. Afterward, Maloney went to the Cardinals clubhouse to congratulate Musial. When Musial saw him, he said aloud, “Here’s a real tough guy. He had me worried.” Said Maloney to reporters: “I was glad to see him go out hitting.” Boxscore

Hard to hit

In 1965, Maloney finished 20-9 with a 2.54 ERA and 244 strikeouts.

On June 14, he held the Mets hitless for 10 innings before a former Cardinal, Johnny Lewis, led off the 11th with a home run. Maloney struck out 18, but the Mets won, 1-0. Boxscore

Two months later, on Aug. 19 against the Cubs, Maloney got the first of his two no-hitters. He walked 10, hit a batter and struck out 12 in a 1-0 victory in 10 innings. The losing pitcher was Larry Jackson, the former Cardinal who Maloney used to watch pitch for minor-league Fresno. Boxscore and Video

“Basically, every time I went out I told myself I was going to throw a perfect game,” Maloney said to The Cincinnati Post.

Maloney pitched his second no-hitter in 1969 against the Astros, striking out 13. Boxscore (The next Reds pitcher to achieve a no-hitter was Tom Seaver, Maloney’s fellow Fresno High School alumnus, in 1978 against the Cardinals.)

Maloney also pitched five one-hitters in the majors.

Johnny Edwards, the Reds’ catcher before joining the Cardinals in 1968, told The Cincinnati Post, “Jim had what you’d call a light fastball, really easy to catch, because it was a rising fastball, but you’d look at your hand after the game and you’d have a bone bruise.”

Though the Cardinals won three National League pennants during Maloney’s prime years, he was 14-5 against them in his career. In 1968, Maloney was 3-0 with a 1.88 ERA versus the National League champions.

Rough time

An injury on April 16, 1970, sent Maloney’s career into a spiral. In trying to beat the throw of the Dodgers’ Maury Wills on a grounder to deep short, Maloney lunged toward first base and felt intense pain in his left foot. He’d ruptured the Achilles tendon that connects the muscles in the calf to the heel bone.

Fans at Crosley Field booed Maloney as he was carried off the field. “A sad night for Cincinnati baseball,” Bob Hertzel wrote in the Cincinnati Enquirer. Boxscore

Maloney didn’t pitch again for the Reds until September. In seven total appearances for them in 1970, he was 0-1 with an 11.34 ERA. He told The Sporting News, “When I started throwing again in September, I was within a fraction of being my old self. I’m sure I can be just as good as I was before.”

The Reds didn’t want to wait to find out. They offered Maloney to the Cardinals, who were interested “but didn’t feel they could afford what the Reds were after then _ a couple of young prospects,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

In December 1970, the Reds traded Maloney to the Angels for pitcher Greg Garrett. Angels manager Lefty Phillips was a friend and mentor to Reds manager Sparky Anderson. “I told Lefty that Maloney is capable of winning the division for them,” Anderson informed the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Instead, the 1971 Angels finished 76-86. Maloney, sidelined by a groin pull, pitched in 13 games and was 0-3 with a 5.04 ERA. Lefty Phillips and general manager Dick Walsh were fired, and Maloney was released.

Tumultuous time

Maloney, 31, contacted the Cardinals and asked for a chance. Fred Koenig, hired by the Cardinals to manage in their farm system after being an Angels coach in 1971, vouched for Maloney. In his last four appearances for the Angels, covering a total of seven innings, Maloney allowed one run. “Koenig said Maloney threw as well as he ever threw,” Cardinals general manager Bing Devine said to The Sporting News.

Admitting it was “a kind of shaking the dice,” Devine signed Maloney and projected him to compete in spring training with Al Santorini, Santiago Guzman and Jim Bibby for the fifth spot in the Cardinals’ starting rotation. The Cardinals’ top four starting spots appeared set with Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Jerry Reuss and Reggie Cleveland.

“I have more velocity on my pitches than three-fourths of the pitchers in the majors leagues,” Maloney told The Sporting News.

He reported two weeks early to Cardinals camp and made an effort to be in top shape, walking two to five miles daily and jogging on the beach.

The spring of 1972 turned into a time of upheaval for the Cardinals. In February, Steve Carlton was traded to the Phillies for Rick Wise after club owner Gussie Busch became upset with Carlton’s salary demands. In April, Jerry Reuss was traded to the Astros for Scipio Spinks after Busch became upset with Reuss for growing a moustache.

In four spring training games totaling 13.2 innings, Maloney was 0-3 with a 7.07 ERA and was released by the Cardinals on April 9.

Maloney signed with the Giants, who sent him to their Phoenix farm club. He was 5-1 with a 2.61 ERA in seven appearances for Phoenix, but when no team showed interest in bringing him to the big leagues, he retired in June 1972, soon after turning 32.

After leaving baseball, Maloney said he started drinking too much. “I sort of had a hard time sliding back into society,” he told The Cincinnati Post.

The Giants hired him to manage their Fresno farm team in 1982, but the club finished 50-90 and Maloney was out of baseball again. In 1985, he underwent treatment for alcoholism. He completed the program and went on to become director of Fresno’s Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Council.