Drinking Coffee With a Fork: The Story of Steve Carlton and the '72 Phillies

by Steve Bucci, Dave Brown, Foreword by Jamie Moyer

During spring training in 1972, southpaw pitcher Steve Carlton, coming off a 20-win season and embroiled in a contract dispute, was traded from the star-studded St. Louis Cardinals to the lowly, last- place Philadelphia Phillies. Surrounded by a squad decidedly lacking in talent, Carlton overcame insurmountable odds. For a Phillies team that won just 59 games, he posted 27 wins a record 46 percent and in so doing captured his first of four Cy Young Awards in a career that culminated in his induction into the Hall of Fame. In Drinking Coffee with a Fork, Steve Bucci and Dave Brown chronicle Carlton s extraordinary and improbable 72 season. Drawing on interviews with Carlton s teammates, coaches, opponents, and the writers who covered the team, as well as newspaper accounts and box scores of the games, Bucci and Brown recreate the phenomenal performance by the man called Lefty his early season duels with superstar pitchers Bob Gibson and Juan Marichal, his brilliant shutout against the Expos in a game marred by a bench-clearing brawl triggered by a retaliatory beanball thrown by Carlton, and a remarkable and exhilarating 15-game winning streak, achieved while the Phils rarely won on days that he didn t pitch. Throughout the book, the authors intersperse memorable conversations and anecdotes involving Carlton from the dugout, the locker room, and the team hotel which illuminate Lefty' s ccentricities, including his intense pregame preparation, his uncanny focus and concentration on the mound, and the sage and sometimes offbeat advice that he imparted to his fellow Phillies. After recounting Carlton s amazing season, Bucci and Brown rely on statistical analysis and opinions solicited from some of the country s foremost baseball experts including Bob Costas, Jayson Stark, and Tom Verducci to dissect this thought-provoking Is Carlton s 1972 season the greatest ever for a pitcher?

Genres: Baseball, Sports

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 13, 2011

Reviews

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the greatest individual seasons by a pitcher is told in rich detail in this recap of the 1972 season of the Philadelphia Phillies and their ace pitcher Steve Carlton. In that season, Carlton won 27 games for the Phillies, a team that won only 59 the entire season. Carlton not only won the most games in the National League that year, but he also had the lowest earned run average and led the league in strikeouts. This earned him the “Triple Crown” of pitching, something that only a handful of pitchers have ever done.

The book covers the season from when the Phillies obtained the left-handed pitcher in exchange for another pitcher, Rick Wise, from the St. Louis Cardinals. The trade was met with disappointment from fans and the media as Wise was a popular player and had thrown a no-hitter the previous season, a bright spot in an otherwise bad season for the Phillies. Now with Wise gone, why would anyone pay attention to the team?

While the team as a whole was even worse in 1972, fans were still interested in the team every fourth day as Carlton took his turn in the pitching rotation. He dominated the opposing team regularly during that season, and had masterful performances throughout the season. Fans who did not see baseball during that time would be amazed at what he did then, such as pitching the entire game when it would go extra innings, pitch every fourth day as opposed to five as is common now, and finish games in under two hours, something very rarely done today. These feats and other descriptions make this book like a time machine, taking us back to a time when baseball was a very different game than it is now.



Did I skim? No

Did I learn something new about the topic? Yes. I did not realize that Carlton was so respected by the media and teammates at that time. Later in his career, Carlton was famous for his refusal to talk to the media, but this was before that self-ban and he was very cordial with them.

Pace of the book: Excellent – I finished this very quickly even with 224 pages

Positives: The stories of the players and coaches were fascinating and rich. Off-the-field aspects were well-researched and written as well, such as the trade that brought Carlton to the Phillies, the firing of manager Frank Lucchesi mid-season, and some of the antics of players after imbibing a little too much.

Negatives: There were none. However, some readers might not like the fact that the book often digresses on tangents when a teammate, coach or other person on that team talks about one of the games in which Carlton pitched. As an example, after the recap of a game in San Francisco, catcher Terry Harmon talked about an incident when Carlton threw at the head of Garry Maddox after Maddox and Bobby Bonds celebrated a Bonds homer too long. That story, not part of the game, took over three pages. I don’t consider it a negative – stories like that make baseball books fun reads. But for those who do not like digressions, this would be a problem.

Do I recommend? Yes – everything I love about baseball books is in this one. Good historical accuracy, meaningful statistics, great stories by players and vivid description of the action on the field.

[Harold Kasselman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Steve Bucci meticulously examines the 1972 Phillies team with special emphasis on Steve Carlton's performance. Carlton won the triple crown of pitching, including winning 27 games. The Phillies team won just 59 games and are considered one of the worst teams in history. Carlton was a laser focused pitcher who literally willed himself to win (Of course his skills are what counted most). On days that he pitched, he would literally walk into the clubhouse and announce, "It's win day boys"! Carlton was such a fast worker that many of his games lasted less than two hours. He completed one game in one hour and thirty-three minutes. Bucci takes the reader through all of Carlton's 40 starts, his 15 consecutive game winning streak, and quotes both Carlton's teammates and opponents. Lastly, he makes a case, which I found most interesting of all, that Carlton's 1972 season was the greatest pitching achievement in modern history. Pedro Martinez, Bob Gibson, and Greg Maddux supporters will differ, but it's a fun argument to chase. 3.5 stars

[James Roller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent enough read, regarding one of the great pitching performances of all time. It is notable how much the game of baseball has changed (for better or worse? ) in the 50 years since Carlton's magical season.

Very well researched and meticulous in detailing Carlton's stellar season, it is a shame the man himself didn't agree to be involved with this project.

[Michael Battista · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lefty

Growing up and watching him as a kid I never fully got the greatness that he is.
He does deserve much more credit but the butt hurt media won't give it to him

[Keith Caldwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Drinking Coffee with a Fork was a fantastic read. As a lifelong Phillies fan, I really enjoyed getting the behind-the-scenes story of Steve Carlton. An all-around great book!

[Keith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let's subtitle this book "Two Authors Desperately Seeking an Editor." This is a book about Steve Carlton's astounding season when he won 27 games for a team that only won 59 in 1972. Oh yes - 1972, that was the year that Richard Nixon ran for re-election for the Presidency. His opponent was George McGovern of North Dakota, whose campaign was plagued with problems (not the least of which was "Tricky Dick's" bugging of his party's HQ). George also had problems when it was revealed that his running mate, Thomas Eagleton had been under the care of a psychiatrist (oh how times have changed - that was a no no back then) and had to be replaced with Sargent Shriver. Nixon won 49 states and later McGovern, looking back on his campaign, reflected, "Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to run for President badly. And that's exactly what I did."

But in 1972, Carlton put together what could arguably be called the best individual pitching season in history. Steve Bucci and Dave Brown set out to chronicle this season, but right off the bat you can tell that this is going to be like when old men get together and tell stories and get distracted and go off on tangents. On the fist page of the book, they get sidetracked and spend 3/4 of a page trying to figure out at which restaurant the discussion about trading for Carlton took place. The book is chock full of meaningless side tracks, and unrelated anecdotes. It's as if they had notebooks full of things people said and felt like they had to use all of it, whether it made sense to include it or not. There are also metaphors so bad that they could never have been used enough to become cliches ("With the U.S. on a moon mission, the Phillies' starter was on a mound mission, and Steve Carlton embarked on it with his own retro-rocket burn of competitive fire"), and just plain bad writing("Carlton's opposite number that night was righty Steve Blass...[that year he] finished as the runner-up in the [Cy Young Award] voting, a distant runner-up, but runner-up nonetheless. And then a funny thing happened to Steve Blass. He contracted Steve Blass Disease. That's how it's referred to nowadays. When a player seemingly forgets how to throw a baseball accurately, they say he's got Steve Blass Disease. Because that's what happened to Steve Blass."

Somewhere in all this mess is a compelling story of a remarkable story of the greatest season by one of the best pitchers in baseball history. I'd love to read a book about it sometime. Because books became popular in the 15th century after the refinement of movable type by Johannes Guttenberg......

[Robert Morrow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing like a well-written baseball book after a very long and somewhat academic historical tome! Steve Bucci has written a solid book about the very unusual Philadelphia Phillies' season of 1972, when Steve Carlton won almost half of the games for this gruesomely pathetic last-place team. While many authors have written books about special seasons, few have succeeded in maintaining a solid narrative; often, you find yourself reading verbal versions of box scores. Mr. Bucci never loses the essence of the story; so much so that even though you know what's going to happen, the story of Steve Carlton's winning streak is filled with tension and excitement.

One of the many lessons of the book is that you don't have to let the team drag you down. Many of us wind up working at crappy organizations at one time or another, and too often we allow ourselves to work to the level of the organization. Carlton refused to let that happen. He had confidence that he and his team would win whenever he pitched, and his leadership raised the team to a higher level on those occasions. Unfortunately, the Phillies always reverted to form when Carlton was not on the mound, but some of those same players learned the lesson and eventually brought the Phils their first world championship in 1980.

Carlton was indeed a true original and the book explores his outside-of-the-box thinking and behavior while emphasizing how popular he was with his teammates. It goes to show that accepting diversity and allowing people to be who they are is a much more productive leadership and team strategy, especially in today's world where baseball players are no longer well-paid slaves.

[Blaine DeSantis · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, let's be honest. Unless you are a Philly sports nut like I am this book will hold little interest for the average reader. As a Phillies fan who was 19 way back when Steve Carlton had his amazing season this was a walk down memory lane and for that it is a 5*****. But the writing is pretty poor, the editing worse and there are a lot of disjointed things in the book, Plus the authors digress onto other Phillies issues or baseball issues at the wrong time. Lots of quotes but from the same 8 or so sources. Too much made up play calling by Harry Kallas and the authors try to hard to justify Carlton's season as the best ever for a pitcher. Trust me, unless you lived through this nightmare of a season you have no idea how good Lefty was. He was the only reason people came to the games. The other big thing in this book is that it shows how inept the Phlllies front office was in terms of personnel moves. They traded away so many good players and brought in little in return, They also over evaluated what was coming out of the PCL and their team in Eugene, OR. Lots of bad decisions, but there was one great decision - the day they brought Steve Carlton to Philly! He was great and todays pitchers can learn a whole lot about the game by reading this book and realizing that a pitcher can log lots of innings and pitches and have long and prosperous careers.

[Bob Koelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was written by guys who know more about sports than writing, so it is often clunky. The material it covers rates 4 stars. I had known about Carlton's amazing year, but there were many facts still to be learned, like the number of incredible pitching duels during that season. If I had a time machine, I'd have to go back to that Spring night at the Vet, when only 8000 or so showed up to watch Carlton vs Bob Gibson, his former teammate with the Cardinals. Unbelievable. Lots of funny little stories, including Carlton golfing in the hallway of a San Francisco hotel, his bizarre pre-game rituals, and how he still interacted with the press back then. How he hated mound conferences and shouted Bowa back to short, and the incredible pacing of his games; the aforementioned duel with Gibson lasted 93 minutes. Very entertaining for any baseball fan, but especially for the die-hard Phillies fans, which you had to be back then. And many years since, like now.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spring training is right around the corner, and this book is the perfect way to prepare for the 2012 Phillies World Series run. It documents Steve Carlton's 1972 season; a season which many baseball historians consider to be the finest season ever by a pitcher. "Lefty" won 27 games for a Phillies team that won a paltry 59 games. Whether your a baseball stats geek, or just want to brush up on your Phillies history, check it out!

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was like reading box scores from 1972 about one of the worst Phillies teams ever. The discussion of Carlton rarely went beyond things covered in the box score or newspaper accounts of the game. Also, I know it is a few years old, but there was little to no discussion of advanced baseball stats commonly used now, which I thought also detracted from the book. The one caveat is that I didn't finish it, so maybe the latter half of the book got really good...I guess I'll never find out.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me back to the wonderful summer long ago when I became a true baseball fan