August 17, 1986: White Sox rookies help Steve Carlton secure first American League win

Ron Karkovice was supposed to be making his major-league debut at Comiskey Park. Instead, he spent most of August 16, 1986, sitting in the terminal of Memphis International Airport, desperate for a flight out.

A week after his 23rd birthday, the catcher was resting in his motel room after hitting his team-leading 20th home run for the Double-A Birmingham Barons. His phone rang and Barons manager Bob Bailey informed him that the Chicago White Sox were calling Karkovice up to start the following night’s game.

The 51-64 White Sox were 12½ games behind the first-place California Angels in the American League West Division and had started calling up prospects to prepare for 1987. When the team used its first draft pick on high school All-American Karkovice in 1982, he’d been immediately tabbed as Carlton Fisk’s successor. Now, the 38-year-old Fisk was struggling to keep his batting average over .200, had just 11 home runs – after a career-high 37 in 1985 – and needed rest after making 19 consecutive starts at catcher, so Chicago decided to assess Karkovice’s development.1

But the Saturday morning flight from Memphis to Chicago was delayed, then cancelled. Karkovice spent hours trying to get on other flights, finally taking off around the time of the first pitch of what turned out to be a 6-5 win for the Milwaukee Brewers.2 By the time he reached Comiskey, the game was in the fifth inning, and Karkovice was told he’d make his first big-league start Sunday afternoon instead, catching one of the greatest pitchers in history.

“When I found out I was catching Steve Carlton, I got a little shaky,” Karkovice admitted. “We talked before the game, and he told me how he likes to throw.”3

“He was really nervous,” White Sox manager Jim Fregosi said with a chuckle. “He must have gone over the signs 15 times.”4

Carlton had joined the White Sox rotation less than a week earlier. In June, the Philadelphia Phillies released their iconic pitcher midway through his 15th season with the team.5 Two weeks later, the 41-year-old signed with the San Francisco Giants, but after six starts, he announced his retirement, which lasted all of five days.6

He signed with Chicago, hoping he might have some advantage against American League batters he’d never faced. But in his White Sox debut, baseball’s only four-time Cy Young Award winner surrendered six runs to the Detroit Tigers in three innings.7

Brewers pitching coach Herm Starrette, who’d been Phillies pitching coach from 1979-81, warned hitters not to take the veteran lightly. “He’s a hell of a competitor. He knows how to pitch, obviously,” he assessed. “He’s just a battler.”8

When Paul Molitor led off the game with a single, Chicago fans might have expected another Carlton implosion, but the White Sox defense got him out of the jam, turning a Robin Yount grounder into a double play. Carlton then struck out Ben Oglivie to end his first scoreless inning in the AL.

Milwaukee’s defense, on the other hand, dug starter Tim Leary a hole from the start. Chicago’s Daryl Boston, who’d been promoted from Triple-A Buffalo two weeks earlier, singled to left field and rounded first, thinking about taking an extra base. Left fielder Glenn Braggs fired the ball to first baseman Gorman Thomas, looking to catch the runner. But the ball sailed into the stands, allowing Boston to take third on the error. Tim Hulett followed with an RBI single to give Carlton a 1-0 lead.

It wouldn’t last, however, as Thomas drew a leadoff walk in the bottom of the second, and Rob Deer followed with his 27th home run, tying him for third-best in the majors.9 The more than 400-foot blast into the left-field bleachers was his fifth against the White Sox, the most he’d hit against any opponent.10 “I heard [Carlton] was awesome,” Deer said, unimpressed by the legend on the mound. “Now, there’s nothing overpowering, nothing like he used to do.”11

Carlton shook off the homer and retired the rest of the side in order, as well as the next four batters. In fact, the old lefty pitched into the eighth inning before surrendering another hit. Walks, however, were a different issue. In the fourth, Milwaukee added another run when Thomas drew a one-out walk, stole second, advanced to third on a ball-four wild pitch to Deer, and scored on a sacrifice fly by Braggs.

“When we had the 3-1 lead, I figured we’d knock Carlton out. I thought we’d win it,” said Brewers manager George Bamberger. “It just shows you that you never know.”12

In the bottom of the inning, Carlton’s teammates got him back in the game. Reigning AL Rookie of the Year Ozzie Guillén led off with a double, and Julio Cruz bunted him over to third. Karkovice then singled for his first major-league hit and run batted in. “[My teammates] told me to relax after the first time up,” he said. “It was a good way to break in.”13

Boston followed with another single, and two hitters later, Karkovice scored his first run in the big leagues on yet another single, this one by Harold Baines. With the game tied at three apiece, a frustrated Bamberger went to his bullpen. “I was not happy with our starter. [Leary] didn’t throw well at all,” he said.14

Designated hitter Ron Hassey put Chicago on top with a leadoff solo homer off reliever Bryan Clutterbuck in the fifth. Guillén then added another run with a one-out double that put him in position to score on a Cruz single one batter later.

In the sixth inning, Yount struck out, then Oglivie hit a ground ball to Guillén. The crowd of 19,064 rose to its feet with cheers that seemed overly enthusiastic for celebrating a routine grounder, leaving Carlton confused. Finally, he turned and saw the scoreboard announcement that with that out, he’d pitched 5,000 major-league innings, the 10th player in history to do so.

Carlton tipped his hat to the crowd, turning to each corner of the stadium, then proceeded to strike out Thomas to end the inning.

The veteran finally lost steam in the eighth, walking Bill Schroeder to snap a string of 11 straight outs. Ernie Riles followed with a grounder to third baseman Hulett that allowed Schroeder to take second. When Molitor singled to center field, scoring Schroeder and cutting the lead to just one run, manager Fregosi went to his bullpen.

Bobby Thigpen, who’d been 20 months old when Carlton made his major-league debut in April 1965, came to the mound for the fifth time since being called up two weeks earlier and zeroed in on a familiar target. As batterymates in Birmingham and with the Single-A Appleton Foxes the previous season, he and Karkovice had become friends. “We spent a lot of time together,” Thigpen said of his catcher. “We went to the movies and to the beach. He even helped with my golf game.”15

Yount singled, sending Molitor to second, but Thigpen retired Oglivie and Thomas to get out of the inning.

When Baines added a one-out single in the bottom of the eighth, then reached second on a groundout, Bamberger pulled reliever Mike Birkbeck after 2⅔ scoreless innings, trusting his own rookie reliever to get the final out.

But 24-year-old Dan Plesac foundered, giving up an RBI single to Hassey, his third hit of the day. Hassey had been acquired at the trade deadline to be Fisk’s backup, but bad knees limited him to just nine more starts behind the plate the rest of the season. “I don’t care for DH,” he told reporters. “Right now, it’s all that I’m capable of doing, but I’d rather be catching.”16

After that, rookie Russ Morman drew a walk,17 and Guillén cracked a single into right field that scored Hassey. Plesac’s only out came when Guillén tried to stretch the hit into a double and overran second base.

Up 7-4, Thigpen came back out for a three-up-three-down ninth,18 earning the first of his 201 career saves, all of which came in a White Sox uniform, including a record-shattering 57 in 1990.19 “The first save is a big thrill,” Thigpen said, “but it’s even bigger when you can save one for Steve Carlton.”20

Carlton’s 320th career win was his first in the AL. He made eight more starts for the White Sox, posting a record of 4-3. He signed with the Cleveland Indians for 1987 and was traded at the deadline to the Minnesota Twins.21 In 1988 he had a 16.76 ERA in four appearances for Minnesota before finally retiring for real and becoming a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 1994.

Karkovice won Chicago’s starting catcher job for Opening Day 1987, but struggled at the plate and was demoted to Triple A. Though widely recognized as one of the top defensive catchers in baseball, Karkovice spent six seasons of his 12 years in the majors backing up Fisk, who continued to play until 1993 in pursuit of the career record for most games played at catcher.22

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Thomas E. Merrick and copy-edited by Kurt Blumenau.

Photo credit: Steve Carlton, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, and Retrosheet.org, as well as the following:

• Steve Daley, “Top Sox Pick Is No Minor Talent,” Chicago Tribune, July 13, 1982: Section 4-1.
• Larry McCarthy, “Karkovice Goal: Make ‘Bigs’ by ’85,” Orlando Sentinel, June 7, 1983: C-5.
• Paula J. Finocchio, “Karkovice Takes Aim at Fisk’s Job,” Orlando Sentinel, March 31, 1985: 25.
• Rubin E. Grant, “Barons Get Big Bang out of Karkovice,” Birmingham (Alabama) Post-Herald, August 12, 1986: B5.
• Larry Guest, “Karkovice Gets His Mitts on the Big Time,” Orlando Sentinel, August 29, 1986: C1.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA198608170.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1986/B08170CHA1986.htm

Notes

1 Fisk opened the 1986 season as Chicago’s starting left fielder. The team awarded the starting catching job to Joel Skinner, a longtime prospect who’d been up and down between the majors and Triple A since making his big-league debut in 1983. When he faltered in the position, Skinner was demoted to backup and Fisk took over as starting catcher. At the trade deadline, the White Sox traded Skinner to the New York Yankees in a deal that included Ron Hassey, who was supposed to be Fisk’s new backup. As mentioned in the article, doctors wouldn’t clear Hassey to catch, leaving Fisk the team’s only catcher for nearly three weeks.

2 The victory raised the Brewers to a .500 record, but in the highly competitive AL East, their 58-58 mark left them stuck in last place.

3 Ed Sherman, “Sox Newcomers Belt the Brewers,” Chicago Tribune, August 18, 1986: Section 3-1.

4 Sherman, “Sox Newcomers Belt the Brewers.”

5 When the Phillies released him, Carlton was 4-8 with a 6.18 ERA, more than double his career ERA of 3.08 through 1985. He was also 18 strikeouts shy of becoming the second pitcher in history to record 4,000 career Ks. Nolan Ryan had been the first to do so in 1985. Carlton would earn the distinction in his final game with the Giants.

6 Technically, Carlton didn’t retire despite announcing he would. Instead, he was put on waivers, which allowed him to sign with Chicago. Had he officially retired, he would have needed to wait 60 days for reinstatement before he could sign with any team.

7 Greg Maddux, who made his major-league debut across town for the Chicago Cubs three weeks after this game, became the first pitcher to match Carlton’s feat when he won his fourth Cy Young Award in 1995.

8 Tom Flaherty, “Carlton Lets His Pitches Do the Talking,” Milwaukee Journal, August 18, 1986: 1C.

9 Tied with George Bell of the Toronto Blue Jays. They trailed Toronto’s Jesse Barfield (30) and Dave Kingman (28) of the Oakland A’s. Mike Schmidt of the Phillies led the NL with 26. Deer went on to hit 33 homers, finishing tied with Oakland’s José Canseco, the AL Rookie of the Year, for fourth in the AL and fifth in the majors.

10 In Deer’s first at-bat of the season, he hit a solo home run off White Sox ace Tom Seaver, who had been traded to the Boston Red Sox in June and was no longer with the team for this game, meaning his first and last homers against Chicago were both off active 300-game winners. Phil Niekro was the only other man pitching in 1986 with at least 300 career wins, but Deer failed to homer in his five plate appearances against him that season.

11 Flaherty, “Carlton Lets His Pitches Do the Talking.”

12 Tom Haudricourt, “Carlton Tops Brewers for First AL Win,” Milwaukee Sentinel, August 18, 1986: Part 2-1.

13 Sherman, “Sox Newcomers Belt the Brewers.”

14 United Press International, “Carlton Closes Down Brewers,” Chippewa (Wisconsin) Herald-Telegram, August 18, 1986: A7. Leary surrendered three runs on nine hits and two walks in 3⅔ innings.

15 Jerome Holtzman, “Karkovice Keeps His Own Counsel,” Chicago Tribune, September 11, 1986: Section 4-1.

16 Ed Sherman, “Dawson Free Agency Status Puts Deal on Hold,” Chicago Tribune, August 18, 1986: Section 3-3.

17 Morman had been called up from Buffalo at the same time as Boston.

18 Rookie John Cangelosi came in as a defensive replacement for George Foster – another longtime National Leaguer who had just joined the White Sox – in left field to start the ninth, making Baines and Cruz the only players on the field with at least two years of major-league experience.

19 The record Thigpen broke was a work in progress at the time of this game. Dave Righetti had 28 saves for the Yankees when this game was played. He added 18 more to finish the 1986 season with 46, one more than the record set by Dan Quisenberry in 1983 and matched by Bruce Sutter in 1984.

20 Sherman, “Sox Newcomers Belt the Brewers.”

21 The Twins won the 1987 World Series, but Carlton was left off the postseason roster after going 1-5 with a 6.70 ERA down the stretch.

22 When the White Sox won the AL West in 1993 and returned to the postseason for the first time in a decade, Karkovice and Guillén were the only players who remained from this youth-movement roster. Thigpen began the year with Chicago but was traded to the Phillies in August.