Ranking the Catchers With a commanding presence behind the plate and a rocket arm, Johnny Bench was the best defensive catcher in history. But that wasn’t all. The powerful right-handed slugger won a pair of Most Valuable Player awards and led the Reds to six division titles, four pennants, and two championships. He hit…
The trade for Gary Carter, 36 years ago this week, turned out to be the final piece that turned the mid ’80s Mets into a juggernaut. Mike and Bill recount the career of one of the best catchers in history, and what he brought to the Mets that made them so great, and simultaneously led…
Gary Carter Essentials Positions: Catcher and RightfielderBats: Right • Throws: Right6-2, 205lb (188cm, 92kg)Born: April 8, 1954 in Culver City, CADied: February 16, 2012 in West Palm Beach, FLBuried: Riverside Memorial Park, Tequesta, FLDraft: Drafted by the Montreal Expos in the 3rd round of the 1972 MLB June Amateur Draft from Sunny Hills HS (Fullerton, CA).High School: Sunny Hills HS (Fullerton, CA)Debut: September 16, 1974 (11,196th in MLB history)vs. NYM 4 AB, 0 H, 0 HR,…
Major league baseball is back in Montreal, QC for the first time since 2004 as the Blue Jays play the first of two exhibition games against the Mets. More than 46,000 fans, most sporting the colors of the defunct Montreal Expos, pack Stade Olympique to pay tribute to Hall of Famer Gary Carter and to their beloved former team. The Jays win, 5 – 4, on minor league veteran Ricardo Nanita’s run-scoring single with two outs in the 9th. Tomorrow, over 50,000 fans will be at the game in what will become an annual tradition to close out the Jays’ schedule of pre-season exhibition games.
2013 – The National Hockey League’s St. Louis Blues pay tribute to a local icon. On the day after Stan Musial’s funeral, every player on the team comes out for the warm-up skate before its game wearing jersey number 6, with Musial’s name in place of their own. The Montreal Canadiens had paid a similar tribute to Gary Carter last year, with everyone wearing his number 8 in the warm-up.
On their Twitter account, the Mets send out an image of the patch the team will wear this season in memory of Gary Carter, who died earlier in the month of brain cancer at the age of 57. The black oval will feature the nickname of the former New York catcher, Kid, and his number 8.
Before a 3-1 loss to the Devils at the Bell Centre, the NHL’s Canadiens pay an emotional tribute to the late Gary Carter with a five-minute video set to The Eagles’ New Kid in Town. The players don No. 8 Carter jerseys during warmups, and the team’s mascot Youppi!, who once represented the city’s National League team, wears the Expos colors in place of his usual bleu-blanc-rouge (blue, white, and red), honoring the memory of the only Montreal player enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
2012 – Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter dies of brain cancer in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. After becoming a perennial All-Star with the Montreal Expos, Carter led the New York Mets to a World Series title in 1986.
Joining Jim Hickman (1965), Dave Kingman (1978), Caudell Washington (1980), Darryl Strawberry (1985), Gary Carter (1985), and Edgardo Alfonzo (1999), Jose Reyes, in an 11-4 loss to the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, becomes the seventh Mets player to hit three homers in a game. Like all his predecessors, his trifecta is accomplished on the road.
The Montreal Canadiens pay tribute to the departed Expos team by raising a commemorative banner to the rafters of Montreal’s Bell Centre. Displaced mascot Youppi, working in his first game for the NHL team, and former players Gary Carter and Andre Dawson are on hand to assist in the hoisting of the blue and orange banner that features their retired numbers, 8 and 10, respectively, as well as the numbers for Tim Raines (30) and Rusty Staub (10).