Carlton Fisk never won any nice guy awards.
—Doug Wilson, author of Pudge: The Biography of Carlton Fisk
Carlton is used to this.
As he saunters to home plate with his distinctly erect posture, shoulders square and chin out, he knows he can win this game. Nearly forty thousand hoarse Fenway Park faithful pray his bat will end their agony and let them once again exhale. It’s the bottom of the twelfth inning of Game Six of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds, tie score. All of the gut checks, the forks in the road where Carlton kept on the path of most resistance, refusing to quit—dropping out of the University of New Hampshire after his freshman year; four years in the Minors working off-seasons as a clerk in a clothing store and reporting for duty once a month in the Army Reserve; the shredded knee last season when doctors questioned whether he’d ever be limp-free again, let alone play baseball—were necessary to arrive here, with 75.9 million people (out of a possible 216 million) around the country watching on television, studying every cloud of breath snorted into the crisp autumn air.
Long before he was the star catcher of the Boston Red Sox, he was one of only forty-two in his graduating class at Charlestown High School, a tiny outpost in New Hampshire along the Connecticut River. The second oldest of six kids, Carlton learned the value of hard work from a young age under the strict and demanding eyes of his parents, Cecil and Leona. If the house and yard work didn’t get done, down came the switch that was kept above the back door.
With the frigid weather keeping the season so short, baseball was a mere diversion from Carlton’s true passion, basketball, in which he excelled, leading his high school to the semifinals of the state championship in 1965, his senior year. Despite a heroic effort in which he scored forty points and pulled down thirty-six rebounds, Charlestown High lost by two points to rival Hopkington. Following the game, the first thing that Cecil said to him was, “You missed four free throws.”
It was typical Cecil. Whatever Carlton did, it was never enough.
“I never got a pat on the back,” Carlton would say years later.1
But now as he stands in the batter’s box in the wee hours of the morning (12:33 a.m. to be exact) and peers out at Reds pitcher Pat Darcy, his back doesn’t need any pats—it’s been carrying the Red Sox since his return in late June. Weighing twelve pounds at birth, he had been nicknamed “Pudge” from an early age, but he is anything but soft. He thrives on the responsibility, relishes the individualistic nature of baseball, a pseudo–team sport really, with its one-on-one duels between pitcher and batter. Carlton enjoys being alone because he can control the outcome, not having to worry about anyone else doing their part.
He begins his ritual, patting the dirt with his cleats, reaching up to tug his jersey above his right shoulder with his left hand, jerking both arms back twice in a violent stretch, opening up that back as wide as an aircraft carrier. Now he reaches the bat completely over and behind his head, a yogic salutation to the baseball gods. He shakes his head violently for just a second, his cherubic cheeks rattling at spasm speed, fighting the bite of October. He taps the plate once with the bat, then cocks it behind his head, locked and loaded. Wasting no time, Darcy rocks and throws a fastball over the plate but eye-level, for ball 1. Carlton steps out briefly and takes a deep breath, his chest visibly rising and falling.
Darcy delivers the second pitch, an inside sinker, and Carlton strides forward, planting his right foot forward, his left knee bent low, jerking the ball high with an uppercut swing. It’s clearly got the distance, but will it stay fair? He takes a step toward first base, watching the ball sail, then takes another lateral hop, and then, in what will become one of the most iconic images in sports television history, he waves both arms to the right once, twice, three times, willing the ball to stay fair, and when he sees it collide with the top of the foul pole to signify a home run, he jumps straight up, both arms extended toward the sky. He jogs around the bases, fans pouring onto the field like a spilled drink, disappearing into a mass of humanity by the Red Sox dugout. While the Red Sox will go on to lose Game Seven and the World Series (the Curse of the Bambino remaining intact), this moment delivers Carlton into baseball providence.
But it isn’t just Game Six or just extra innings of the World Series—this game will age so well (considered by many to be the Greatest of All Time) because of its historical context and the accidental shot of Fisk waving the ball fair. The last several World Series were snoozers, football is growing in popularity and threatening baseball’s grip on being the National Pastime, and there is widespread acrimony between the owners and players that has fans calling them all greedy. But the 1975 World Series brings the joy back, delivering close, suspenseful games between two franchises with passionate fan bases. The image of Fisk’s reaction is pure luck. Cameraman Louis Gerard is stationed behind the Green Monster (Fenway Park’s iconic left-field wall) shooting through a hole in the scoreboard and has been told to follow the ball if Fisk hits it, as is the custom. But right before Fisk launches the bomb, a rat scurries onto Gerard’s leg, forcing him to keep the camera trained on home plate and landing the footage of Fisk. The clip forever changes the presentation of sports on TV (it will earn Gerard an Emmy) as editors and executives realize the gold they have in following the players’ expressions and reactions, not just the action itself.
Carlton’s life will never be the same.
*
For the next 1,216 miles, I sweat. Not just tingles-at-the-edge-of-my-hairline sweat, but rivulets running down my sideburns and dripping onto my lap, sweat that works like gel each time I reach up with both hands to slick my hair back. I unstick one butt cheek and then the other from the seat of the Accord, then reach down to separate my boxers from the skin of my butt cheeks themselves, the damp fabric suddenly cool when I sit back down again.
I’m not just sweating because I’m driving through oppressive heat in the heart of July. I am also nervous that I’m about to fail. When I missed Gary Pettis back in Houston, he had a reasonable alibi—it’s midseason, he’s with a Major League club, and his boss had issued a gag order. But with Carlton Fisk I’m the nerd in high school asking the head cheerleader to the prom and getting flat-out rejected.
Passing through the Deep South exposes the tortured id of America. While I ruminate on Carlton, playing out wildly fantastic scenarios that end with me getting arrested for trespassing or stalking, a gallery of billboards streams by, alternating salvation and sex: He’s coming, then New Fleshlights!, followed by Evolution is a Lie and Exit Now! Spa!, a tug of war between our chaste and depraved selves. I suddenly long for the banal roadside of San Diego with its ads for George Lopez shows and Kansas concerts.
From the moment I unsheathed his half snarl from the Wax Pack, I knew Fisk would be a problem. The bigger the player, the bigger the ego. One of the greatest catchers of all time and a bona fide Red Sox hero, Fisk reached a level of celebrity that has kept him always in demand. While Jaime Cocanower and Randy Ready are now just two guys on the street, Carlton Fisk never stopped being Carlton Fisk. My initial approach to contacting him before the trip was the same as it was for everyone else: I snail-mailed a letter of introduction to his two addresses on file, one in New Lenox, Illinois, the other in Bradenton, Florida. When that led to radio silence, I went through the proper channel of finding his agent, Kim (Fisk is the only Wax Packer to still need one), to whom I dashed off an email asking for Fisk’s cooperation. Her initial response was encouraging, asking how much time I would need and even suggesting some possible dates in late July when we would both be in the New England area. She said she would be with him in person soon and would approach him with the idea.
A week later, her tone had changed: “Thank you for your interest in Carlton. Unfortunately he is going to pass at this time,” she wrote. I closed my email, swore so loudly that my landlord asked if everything was okay, and knew at that moment that I was going to have to go rogue.
I didn’t take it personally. When the MLB Network recently shot an entire documentary on Game Six of the 1975 World Series, hosted by Bob Costas, Carlton declined to participate. (Who rejects Bob Costas?) In a rare interview at the end of his career, he told writer Pat Jordan, “Why the fuck should I tell them?” when Jordan asked how he felt about the media wanting to know more about his life. When journalist Doug Wilson decided to write an entire book about Carlton, the definitive biography, Carlton once again passed even when his brother Calvin, sister Janet, and ninety-seven-year-old mother, Leona, were happy to cooperate. “Carlton Fisk never won any nice guy awards,” Wilson wrote in the concluding chapter of his book, adding, “As far as anyone knows, he never tried out for one.”2
He was known as private, prideful, and reclusive, his personality matching the salty New Hampshire woods he had emerged from. Players respected him for his intensity and old-school defense of the game’s traditions (he memorably yelled at Deion Sanders when he didn’t run out a pop-up) but kept at a distance.
“Stoic and in control, he spoke what he believed, said what needed to be said and little else. He was Calvin Coolidge in John Wayne’s body,” wrote Wilson.3 While never the social chair in the clubhouse, he was immensely popular with fans in blue-collar Boston; in his rookie season, he was already receiving more fan mail than any of his teammates, including legends like Carl Yastrzemski.
But throughout his career, and it was a long career—twenty-seven years in pro ball, twenty-four of those in the Major Leagues, the story of Carlton is one of longing for acceptance and of pride. He did things that no other catcher in history had ever done, things that enshrined him in the Hall of Fame in 2000. He caught more games, hit more home runs, probably got in more shouting matches with opponents and teammates who didn’t play the game “the right way.” He could talk the talk and walk the walk (shoulders square and chin out). But no matter how many games he caught, how many home runs he hit, it was never enough. He never felt appreciated enough, never respected enough. He did have legitimate gripes: every time his contract expired with the Red Sox and later the Chicago White Sox, management seemed to lowball him. In his later years, it became an absurd recurring dance, with the White Sox thinking he was through and Carlton defying time, doubling his effort in the gym and tripling his discipline to extend his career. The very end says it all. In 1993, at age forty-five, everyone but Carlton knew it was time. The White Sox kept him on the team long enough to break Bob Boone’s record for most games caught, 2,225, even holding a special ceremony to commemorate the night, and then a week later delivered the call that every athlete fears most—we’re letting you go. Carlton was sad and furious—how can they treat people like this? But reality bites: he was hitting .189 and could no longer throw out base stealers.
Unlike Rance Mulliniks and Randy Ready, who knew when their time was up and graciously volunteered to step down, Carlton didn’t want to go. In a rare moment of vulnerability during that final season, he told Men’s Journal, “I’m afraid to leave the game because I’m afraid there’s nothing out there for me. I have no burning desire to do anything else. Baseball has been so much of my life. Will anything else be that rewarding?”4
He was forty-five, but in many ways he was still that twelve-year-old back in Charlestown, he and his five siblings always fighting for the love and respect of his father, Cecil, and never getting it. In his Hall of Fame speech in 2000, the pain surfaced. He first thanked his mom, Leona, saying, “She was the warmth in our family. She was the warmth and the comfort and the love. And we wouldn’t have made it without her.” Then he paused, pivoting to his father, thirty-two minutes into a thirty-seven-minute speech. He kept his eyes low, moving his arm and leg back and forth, gripping the podium and trying to stay in control. He exhaled, making a shallow sound, then said, “You know, sometimes good didn’t seem to be good enough.” Long pause. The crowd of twenty-five thousand assembled on a grassy knoll in Cooperstown, New York, waited silently. “But . . .” Another long pause as he folded his handkerchief, another shallow breath, then a small sniffle. “I always wanted you to be proud of me, Dad. Sometimes, just because you could have done better doesn’t mean you’ve done badly. Through the years you always made sure that people knew that I was your son and I’m proud of that. But this weekend, guess what, you’re Carlton’s dad.”
In his twenty-two years of retirement, Carlton has largely remained a recluse. Unlike every other Wax Packer I’ve met so far besides Jaime, he never went back to the game despite many opportunities (other than a stint as a goodwill ambassador for the White Sox and Red Sox). Now sixty-seven, he will show up now and again for a paid autograph appearance and is active in charity work with his wife, Linda, but the only recent news item I find in my research is a story from 2012 that states that he was charged with DUI after police found him asleep in his truck in a cornfield in New Lenox, Illinois, with an open bottle of vodka on the floor. Never one to shirk responsibility, he pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge and accepted his consequences, retreating back into seclusion.
So where are you, Carlton, and what are you so afraid of?
*
What do you do when someone you’re writing about doesn’t want to talk to you?
I’ve hunkered down for a couple nights in the West Florida city of Tampa, within striking distance of Carlton’s home in Bradenton. While many write off Florida as a converted swamp that’s home to Disney World, it’s a remarkably complex state, a mash-up of old South, northeastern snowbirds, and Latinx immigrants. Following a visit to the Tampa Bay History Center, I sip on a strawberry lemonade at Ruby Tuesday and look at a map, spotting Bradenton sixty miles to the south. I have an address for Carlton’s house from public records searches but imagine I won’t get anywhere close to the front door. But I have another lead: I’m texting with a source, a sports agent whom we’ll call Gene who’s familiar with many of the athletes who frequent the area. Tampa’s warm climate is ideal for grooming ballplayers, and it’s no coincidence that Wade Boggs, Gary Sheffield, Wax Packer Doc Gooden (who now lives in New York), and many others grew up here. Gene is familiar with these various celebrity personalities and is sympathetic to my conundrum.
“Carlton golfs almost every day at this private course called the Founders Club in Sarasota. He likes to drink after he plays; you can probably find him at the clubhouse bar,” he types.
“Can I get onto the property?” I reply.
“You can ask for a tour of the club. You tell them that you are interested in buying a home there and would like to check out the golf course first,” he says.
So that’s it—to catch Carlton, I’m going to have to ambush him. But before that, I need to somehow convince the staff of one of West Florida’s poshest real estate developments that I belong there to begin with.
Let me remind you that I’m currently eating my dinner at a Ruby Tuesday.
This could go very, very badly.
*
While I drive down the West Florida coast to Sarasota, my mind swirls. For the first time on the trip, I am truly scared. One of my long-standing OCD compulsions is being way too honest (my therapist Tom termed this “hyperscrupulosity,” a fairly common type of OCD), and so lying to get to Carlton has my heart racing. One incident from childhood stands out. One day after school, I walked into our kitchen to find a glass broken on the floor and reported it to my mom. When she asked me if I knew what had happened, I told her that maybe I had broken it, potentially confessing to something I knew I hadn’t done. The OCD brain can be a sinister thing.
Even if my ruse succeeds and I get to Carlton in the clubhouse bar, I have no clue what I’m going to say. Thanks for blowing me off? Nice home run? Can you pass me a coaster?
A bloom of bright pink flowers on the side of the freeway streaks by my window, and it hits me—orchids! In my research on Carlton, I stumbled across a surprising and odd fun fact: the Hall of Fame catcher also happens to be a devoted orchid collector. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that he would find a passion for orchids. They are among the most finicky of all cultivated plants, demanding constant attention from growers to keep environmental conditions just so. Only the most dedicated, disciplined horticulturists dare to enter the orchid trade. But Carlton is up to the challenge, having expanded his collection to more than forty varieties and three hundred plants during his retirement.
Orchids, I decide, will be my entry point. A taxonomist myself (although of insects, not plants), I can bond with him over a common language—Latin—as I inquire about his favorite genera and species, talk shop about our favorite pollination techniques. I won’t even bring up baseball.
I exit onto Fruitville Road, a wide, two-lane street lined with drive-in churches and the occasional strip club (more sin and salvation!), scanning for signs of the Founders Club. It’s way too hot for coffee, yet I can’t stop drinking it, somehow believing that the caffeine is going to make lying easier. I’ve got bullet points for my story—I’m a biology professor at UC Berkeley who’s obsessed with golf and just really want a second home on the East Coast where I can get away and play. About 25 percent of that is true, which will hopefully make it slightly easier to pull off. The club’s website has a page dedicated entirely to its dress code, which reads in that perfectly passive-aggressive tone, “It is expected that members and their guests will choose to dress in a fashion befitting the surroundings and atmosphere provided in the setting of The Founders Club.” I’ve brought out the only semidressy attire I have on the trip, a seafoam green polo shirt and khakis, which I desperately hope are “befitting the surroundings.” I look in my trunk, and beneath a pile of old towels I find a pair of golf shoes I had bought for a round of golf at my sister’s wedding five years ago, the last time I saw them. The Founders Club features not just an eighteen-hole, Robert Trent Jones Jr. golf course; it also has custom-built London Bay homes scattered about its premises.
I see a sign for the club, turn in, and am immediately stopped at a gate.
“Welcome to the Founders Club!” says the immaculate attendant, his white-glove service perfected.
Here we go.
“Hi!” I say too excitedly. “I’m interested in seeing some of the homes at the club. Big golfer!”
I feel the sweat start to run down my back, which stirs up anxiety and makes me sweat more, my follicles tingling.
But he waves me in, telling me to park outside reception. I ease the Accord down the private road lined with palms and bright flourishes of ornamental plants, waving to groundskeepers. There is a single spot outside the reception building marked “Future Residents,” which I pull into. I kill the ignition, check my face in the rearview mirror, swig the last drops of my coffee, and then catch a glimpse of my own backseat. I’ve become so used to spending time alone in the car, lost in my own thoughts, that I’ve forgotten what it looks like to an outsider: yesterday’s McDonald’s wrappers are strewn on the front seat, an empty coffee cup lies on the floor, the backseat is full of open Staples file boxes overflowing with printouts and old newspaper articles, and all of this is inside a thirteen-year-old Honda Accord with peeling paint on the driver’s-side door.
Future resident? Not a chance.
I scramble to clean up the scene, stuffing the wrappers and coffee cups in the glove compartment, putting lids on boxes that have never been closed, generally doing the exact opposite of what someone who does not want to draw attention should do. By the time I get out of the car and approach the front door, an older woman elegantly dressed in an ankle-length dress has come out to greet me.
“Hi! Sorry, we don’t normally come out and stare at people, but we were wondering if something was wrong,” she says, shaking my hand.
I laugh a little too hard. “No, no, just getting some stuff in order,” I reply. “I’ve heard a lot about your club and am interested in buying a home here.”
“Of course!” she says, snapping back into professional mode. “Come inside, and I’ll get you a sales associate.”
Another of the office staff, a matronly woman with curly hair, brings me a bottle of water as I avail myself of the free chocolates sitting in a decorative dish on a coffee table.
A few minutes later I’m in one of the showrooms with Janelle, a shapely sales associate around my age who is trying to get a read on me.
“So you’re a big golfer?” she asks as I try to avoid looking her square in the eyes, not wanting to reveal my lies. I settle my gaze somewhere on her forehead. It is a very nice forehead.
“Yeah, I love Florida. Come here all the time for the golf,” I say with as big a smile as I can muster. “When I’m not teaching at UC Berkeley, that is.”
God I’m bad at this.
“People out in California complain about the humidity back east, but I actually like it. That’s why I want to have a place back here where I can come during the summers and relax,” I add, unprompted.
I glance at the fees for a golf club membership here at “Sarasota’s premier golf and country club community”: a $25,000 one-time contribution, $11,950 in annual dues, and a $75 “capital fee.”
The one-time contribution is about what I make in an entire year.
“What kind of square footage are you thinking about for the house?” Janelle asks, her soft brown eyes tugging me back from her forehead.
Fuck, how much square footage do homes even have?? I’ve been renting rooms my whole life.
Trying not to panic, I steal a glance at the display mounted behind her, looking for an approximate figure.
“I’m thinking three thousand, thirty-five hundred,” I finally say, hoping my face looks less guilty than it feels.
She nods. “I think you really might like our Clara model,” she says, directing me to a poster with details.
I scrutinize the floor plan, scrunching my eyebrows for effect, trying my best to look picky and elitist. The Clara appears to be one of the more modest styles of custom London Bay Homes built on this seven-hundred-acre forced imitation of Eden—only three bedrooms to go with the private pool and spa.
“Do you know what kind of granite you want for your kitchen countertops?” she asks.
Is there more than one kind? I want to reply.
While we chat, I think about how I am going to slip away to look for Carlton. It’s about 11:00 a.m., and I figure he should be done with his round of golf (assuming he’s here today) and at the clubhouse bar in an hour or so. My only chance is to somehow get away from Janelle for a bit, to be left on my own in this palace.
“So you want to buy here because you have a lot of friends in the area?” she asks, still digging.
“Yeah, I have some buddies in Tampa. Came down here to golf a few years ago and fell in love with the area.”
“If you want to try out the course, I might be able to set up a tee time for this afternoon,” she offers, catching my eyes, which makes me feel naked.
Shit. If she or anyone sees me hit a golf ball, the jig is up.
“Aw, I’d love to, but I have to be back in Tampa by three for a meeting,” I lie. “But thank you.”
She drives me around the grounds of the club, shows me all the sites where custom homes are slated to be built, and, taking a cue from my biology profession, adds bits of color to entice me. (“We have one woman here who is president of a birdwatching group who’s making a list of all the species spotted on the property. I think she’s up to sixty.”)
I find my opening: “Hey, do you think you might be able to drop me off in the clubhouse for a bit so I can try the food? I’m kind of a foodie and would really like to see what the menu is like.”
I’m relieved when she says yes, going so far as to drop me off at the clubhouse while giving the chef instructions to give me whatever I want, on the house.
“Here’s my number. Text me when you need me to pick you up,” she says.
Maybe I’m a better liar than I thought.
I have about forty-five minutes on my own, plenty of time to find Carlton. I wander the halls, trying not to look like I’m snooping, reading the WASPy names of all the past tournament champions on various plaques and trophies, ducking my head into the pro shop. No Carlton.
I walk back into the restaurant, where Wimbledon is playing on the TVs, and grab a seat at the bar near two guys in their fifties, fresh from their morning round. The dining room is stately and somber, empty save for a table of six ladies. I nosh on a gourmet fried chicken sandwich and chips, looking up suddenly every time someone walks by the doorway, hoping to see that distinctive gait, shoulders up and chin out.
But no Carlton.
I consider asking the bartender in that I-know-I-shouldn’t-ask-about-your-celebrity-members-but-c’mon kind of way but don’t want to draw any more attention to myself than I already have.
I stretch my allotted forty-five minutes to the max and then give up, texting Janelle. She comes back within five minutes.
“How was your lunch?” she asks.
“Outstanding. Amazing how good a fried chicken sandwich can be.”
When she drops me off back at my car, she sees the license plates and turns back to me, her tone suddenly curious.
“You drove here from California?” she says, her eyebrows raised slightly.
What kind of millionaire drives a beat-up Honda Accord from California to Florida just to look at houses?
“Uh, yeah. It’s summer, so I’m off. I figured, why not make a road trip out of it?”
I thank her for her time and generosity and get back on the road. Once I’m safely away, I pull over and take out my phone to text Gene: “I managed to sneak my way all the way to the clubhouse bar, but Carlton was not there,” I type.
“Sorry. Everything is timing and luck!” he replies. Then a minute later, “He’ll probably be in Cooperstown for the Hall of Fame in a couple weeks.”
Yes! A second chance. It’s the bottom of the ninth, but I’m not out yet.