Beeg Boy

One summer morning in 1970, my dad was waiting in the kitchen with a souvenir from his prior evening at Fulton County Stadium. It was a baseball, tanned with ballfield mud, and a carefully written signature across one side: "Rico Carty".

As Dad told the story, Carty had hit a home run the night before, which Dad said he'd caught. After the game, Dad came down on the field and told Carty his little boy would love an autographed baseball. Carty obliged.

One could never be too sure about Dad's stories. Years later, when he was vice president of operations for Whataburger and we were living in Corpus Christi, he appeared one Friday evening obviously in his cups. With him was one of his work buddies, Gene Borowski, a concentration camp survivor with the tattooed numbers on his wrist as mute evidence of a horrific childhood. Mr. Borowski was also a little unsteady.

"Where've you been, Dad?" I asked, a credulous middle schooler.

"Grappling for sharks," he replied. Borowski solemnly nodded, glassy eyed and trying to keep a straight face.

"Grappling for sharks. What's that?"

"Well son, we went out on the bay in a john boat with a raw roast and a Bowie knife. It had to be a full moon, so we could see what we were doing.

We tied a string around the roast and dropped it over the side. Once some blood was in the water, those sharks just came swirling. Borowski and I eyeballed the biggest one, and as he swam by I'd jump on his back and pull his head up to the boat so Borowski could stab him between the eyes."

I puzzled. Why no blood? Before I could ask, Borowski turned away and started to snort. I was being had.

Which is a long way of saying Dad's stories were sometimes just that.

But this really did seem to be a baseball autographed by Rico Carty. And Carty, or "Beeg Boy" as he liked to call himself, was a star in those days. He played for the Bravos in the 1969 season when they won the Western Division pennant only to be swept by the Miracle Mets in the National League Championship Series. Carty won the league batting title that year, and played in the 1970 All Star game, sharing the outfield that day with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. High cotton for a guy from the Dominican Republic, a rarity when he started playing in the late '50s.

I bet you've never heard of Rico Carty, and I bet I know why. Carty was hurt a lot--he blew out a knee in a catastrophic collision while he was home playing winter ball in the DR. He had tuberculosis. He missed whole chunks of seasons due to injuries. But an even bigger issue was that, for want of a better phrase, Beeg Boy was sort of a jerk.

His manager didn't like him. His teammates didn't like him. In fact, he managed to get into a fistfight with the otherwise phlegmatic Hank Aaron in 1967. It seems that Carty did not consider himself black because he was from the Dominican Republic. His photo at the top of this post suggests otherwise. One day as the team was boarding a plane, the only open seat was next to Hammerin' Hank. Carty demurred, calling Aaron a "black son-of-a-bitch." Aaron replied, "Well, you aren't exactly pink yourself."

Carty dropped Aaron with one punch.

My guess is that one punch is why you've likely never heard of Rico Carty. Aaron stayed in the Braves organization as part of the management team and a goodwill ambassador for the rest of his life, until just a few months ago in fact. It seems Aaron never forgot the altercation, which he likely found doubly offensive given his quiet leadership in the civil rights movement. Carty may have won the NL batting title, may have played in the championship series, may have been an all star--but he was never inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame.

Carty bounced around for a few years after leaving the Braves in 1973, finally retiring in 1980. Beeg Boy is 80 years old now. Maybe there's still time for redemption.

As for that baseball, I couldn't tell you where it ended up. We moved pretty much every year back then, and although it was on display on my bedroom shelf in Marietta, and then in East Cobb, and in Tustin, and in Orange, and in three different houses in Corpus Christi by the middle of the eighth grade, it disappeared at some point during the Dallas years, maybe when my parents split and my old bedroom was cleared for a new occupant. A shame. I bet it's worth something now.

Meanwhile, the Braves lost 10-1 in spring ball yesterday. Their pitching is becoming a worry already, although it's still the preseason. One of last year's aces, Max Fried, starts today against the Red Sox. Maybe I'll find the game on my mlb.com app while I'm driving down from Nashville to Fort Payne.