Remembering Former Batting Champion Rico Carty

Defensively, Rico Carty rates in the bottom five percent among the 100 left fielders of all-time. But at the plate, the man who called himself “Beeg Boy” could swing the lumber with the best of them. From 1964 (Rico’s rookie season) to 1970, his batting average of .322 ranked second to only Roberto Clemente in all of baseball. During that stretch he also ranked in the top ten in on-base percentage, OPS, and he was 12th in slugging. His career was marked with several confrontations with teammates and managers. One such scuffle with Hank Aaron hastened Carty’s departure from Atlanta.

There’s something about left fielders and ballpark nicknames. While Rico was slashing line drives into the left field seats at Fulton-County Stadium in Atlanta, they started calling that section “Carty’s Corner,” In 1970, when he won the batting title, Rico hit .363 with 19 of his 25 homers at the Braves’ home field. 

Carty was one of the first of the players from San Pedro de Macoris. As of 2021, 51 players born in that city in the Dominican Republic, have made it to the major leagues. Carty was the third player from San Pedro de Macoris, and the first to have success. The city has a population under 200,000 (and was less than half that when Rico was born) but has produced seven MLB All-Stars, including Carty, Tony Fernandez, Mariano Duncan, Sammy Sosa, Alfonso Soriano, and Robinson Cano.

Throughout his career, Carty was labeled a troublemaker, but some of it was a result of the cultural differences between the U.S. and Latin America. Once in the minor leagues he got into an altercation with the general manager of the team over his meal money. But Rico, poor in his use of English, misunderstood that the allowance was only for a three-game series, not the entire month. When he was assigned to Austin, Texas, he experienced racist taunts from a fan who had too much to drink, and Rico went into the stands and punched the man, drawing a suspension. Carty also desperately missed his family and he was frustrated when the Braves opted to switch him from catcher to the outfield. He was rockhanded in the outfield, and very slow afoot even as a young player, so the organization was constantly scratching their head trying to find a spot on the field for him. His bat always justified a place in the lineup: Rico won two minor league batting titles and he terrorized pitchers in the Mexican and Dominican winter leagues.

Many of the problems Rico experienced in baseball were of his own making. He made a disparaging comment to Hank Aaron when the two men watched a baseball drop between them in the outfield. The teammates had to be separated in the dugout. Carty also had a bad relationship with Eddie Mathews, who took over as manager of the Braves and was happy to see Rico traded. Later, when Rico was with the Indians, Carty criticized manager Frank Robinson during an awards ceremony, when Big Frank was sitting only a few feet away. That poor decision got him fined. 

Carty got his break in 1964 when Felipe Alou was injured, easing his way into the Braves’ lineup. The team was overflowing with great young hitting prospects in the early 1960s, but Carty was at the top of the pecking order, and as a rookie he provided dividends, hitting .330 for the team, which was at that time still in Milwaukee. He finished second in NL Rookie of the Year balloting to Dick Allen.

Twice, Carty suffered serious injuries, the first an illness. He missed the entire 1968 season when he contracted tuberculosis. When he returned the following spring, he was used as a pinch-hitter, but after producing four straight hits off the bench in a 12-day stretch, he earned back his job in left field. In a remarkable comeback from the disease, Rico batted .342 in 1969 and .366 in 1970 when he won the batting title. But in the Dominican league that December, bad luck found him when he collided with Matty Alou and broke his knee. He underwent surgery and missed the entire 1971 season. When he returned in April of 1972, the “Beeg Boy” hit .438 with two home runs for the month. But after the knee surgery, Rico was never the same hitter, he couldn’t get around on a fastball the way he once had. 

Carty was made for the designated hitter rule, but it didn’t come along until 1973. He performed in that role with four AL teams as an aging bat for hire. With Cleveland in his late 30s, Carty experienced a renaissance, batting .303 over four seasons. In 1978 at the age of 38 he split the year between Toronto and Oakland, but his bat wasn’t fazed: Rico belted a career-best 31 homers and drove in 99 runs. He should have hung it up, at that point his career batting average was .303, but Carty accepted an invitation to play one more year for the Blue Jays as their exclusive designated hitter. The old Dominican hit .256 and his career average fell to .299, two hits shy of the magic mark. In his final big league at-bat, Carty faced Goose Gossage, who fed him nothing but fastballs, but Rico could only manage a flyball to center. 

Carty died last November in Atlanta at the age of 83.