CARTER : New York’s Exuberant Catcher Is Like a Kid Again--One With the World Series in His Sights

“Mr. Carter?”

“Yes, sir!”

“This is my boy.”

“Well, hello, young man. And how old are you?”

“Ten.”

“Ten. Man, I wish I was 10 again. When I was 10, you know what I was thinking about?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Playing in the World Series. Do you like the World Series?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You do? Well, maybe you’ll get to play in one someday. I still haven’t played in one myself. Can I do something for you here?”

“Could you sign this, please?”

“I sure can. Here you go. What’s your name?”

“Brad.”

“Brad, huh? Well, here you go, Brad. You take good care of that, now.”

“OK, bye.”

“Bye.”

And the kid and his old man are gone, up the aisle, beyond the dugout, to be replaced by another father, another son, for whom Gary Carter of the New York Mets goes through much the same routine, squeezing hands, tousling hair, signing baseballs, posing for Polaroids, using more gees and wows and holy mackerels than a Batman comic book.

Other Mets do their share, manning the railings at Shea Stadium, dealing with the kids, but somehow without the sheer fervor, the passion that Gary Carter brings to the game, long before the game ever begins.

The man can chatter with the best of them. He can summon up thunderclaps of optimism at the drop of a cap, as in “Boy! The World Series, won’t that be something, and what about if we end up going to Boston, man alive! A World Series at Fenway, with the Green Monster and all, though even if we play the Angels, it would still be great, because it’s still the World Series. And hey, don’t forget, that’d bring Reggie back to New York, and wouldn’t that be something!”

There is something contradictory about it, evidently, something cloying about Carter’s zip-a-dee-doo-dah attitude that grates on some of those around him. The guy some of them refuse to trust, the guy they won’t buy, is the one who seems too nice, too polite, too gregarious, too enthusiastic, too confident, too sensitive, too available. They just don’t believe it is too good an idea to be too good.

It was that way with Steve Garvey for some, perhaps because under that shiny veneer, beneath that cool manner, there were supposed to be some foibles lying around, some traumas that were supposed to spill forth now and then, a tantrum here or there, a wart or a gray hair or some sort of small imperfection that would make him, well, normal, like everybody else, not so damned good all the time.

Except that Carter was proud, not ashamed, of the similarities between the two men. He preferred having Garvey’s composure and good nature. “I liked being compared to Steve Garvey,” he said. “I love the guy. He’s himself, he’s genuine. Maybe he’s straight, All-American, and maybe that’s the way people see me. So what?”

It throws people, is what, because it seems almost theatrical behavior, unnaturally charming, unnaturally gung-ho, like a TV game show host’s. Funny how jaded some people can become, being leery, or weary, of too much of a good thing. Gary Carter, admirably, intends to go on being Gary Carter.

“Even if I did bother folks because of my personality, what could I do to change it?” he is left wondering. “I’m me. I go out and try to do a job. If someone doesn’t like the way I talk, or look, they’re just being judgmental.”

Carter, very likely the finest all-round catcher in baseball, 32 and getting better instead of older, is about to live out a boyhood fantasy, one locked away in his head for nearly every minute of the years since he was voted best athlete in the class of 1972 at Fullerton’s Sunny Hills High School. Carter has reached the baseball playoff season at last, with his first World Series in sight.

Baseball has been his game since a knee injury convinced the Sunny Hills varsity quarterback that he might as well forget about that letter of intent he had signed with UCLA. Carter was strictly a baseball man after that, although, considering the way he saved trading cards as a child, a hobby he has never outgrown, one understands where Carter’s heart has been from the start.

Should the Mets take the measure of the Houston Astros in the National League playoffs, which will begin Wednesday, Carter will experience first hand “what I’ve been dreaming about since Little League. I mean, the World Series! The Super Bowl is what, 20 years old? This is the World Series we’re talking about!”

The career already has had high spots galore, not the least of which were most-valuable-player awards at two different All-Star Games. There is a very good chance that Carter will be 1986’s National League MVP for an entire season, not just for one night.

But having spent so much of his career with the Montreal Expos, Carter has nothing but individual heroics to treasure. He was beginning to think that would never change, seeing as how the odds of Montreal trading him seemed so long. You do not easily trade a player with an eight-year contract paying $1.87 million annually, a player whose popularity was such that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s favorite luncheon one-liner had become: “I’m certainly happy that I don’t have to run for re-election against Gary Carter.”

Mr. Popularity, that was Gary Carter. Handsome, cheerful, smart, skillful, rich. What was there not to like?

Something, apparently.

Little by little, the zingers appeared, sometimes in interviews with teammates, sometimes behind his back. There was the Pete Rose business, Rose, having left the Expos after a brief stay, objecting to Carter’s self-involvement, accusing him of being more interested in endorsements than in winning, saying that Carter’s nickname, Kid, could not have been more appropriate for someone so immature.

There was the fuss that was made after Carter broached the subject of being traded with Expo President John McHale, volunteering to go to the Dodgers, who were handy to his relatives and lifelong friends, or to the Braves, who trained in West Palm Beach, Fla., where Carter made his winter home.

“I was concerned with the club’s fate, that’s all. I just offered suggestions as to how we could fill up our holes in center and at short. I told him if holes could be filled by my being traded, I’d agree to a trade. But my first choice was to stay. I’m serious. Montreal meant the world to me. I wasn’t looking to get out.”

Maybe not, but team owner Charles Bronfman suddenly wanted him out. More to the point, Bronfman wanted out of that whopper of a contract. He called it a mistake, which hurt Carter deeply, since he believed that he had played well and played hurt. His numbers during the 1984 season, even with tendinitis in his left elbow, were .294 with 27 homers and 106 RBIs.

“(Bronfman’s) remarks were definitely the lowest point in my career,” Carter said. “When it comes from the owner’s mouth, it stings.”

What came out next was this: You’re outta here. Carter went to the Mets, in a blockbuster deal that stood Canada on its ear, Dec. 10, 1984, for infielder Hubie Brooks, catcher Mike Fitzgerald, pitcher Floyd Youmans and outfielder Herm Winningham. Carter immediately was given a new nickname by his new teammates in New York. They started calling him Pennant, because they believed he was going to bring them one.

Carter tried to hang onto loving memories of Montreal’s good old days, as when, to relieve the everyday tedium or pressures, the Expos invented and acted out make-believe murders of one another.

Carter can still remember pitcher Rudy May, explaining vividly, in a stage whisper to teammates, how he intended to take a long carving knife and do away with that good-for-nothing Carter, just loud enough to be overheard by unsuspecting visitors to the locker room who had no idea May didn’t mean what he was saying.

The comments that came from the Expos later shook Carter a little. Even the ones where you needed to read between the lines, as when Andre Dawson spoke of the sweet kid from Atlanta, Dale Murphy, saying: “With Murphy, you know it’s not an act. You can tell he’s sincere, unlike some guys I’ve been around.”

Even Tim Raines said recently that he liked Carter’s play more than he liked Carter’s act. And a story in the New York Times quoted an anonymous Met critical of Carter for being overly concerned about his value to the team.

Carter has been accused more than once this season of campaigning for the National League MVP award. “I’m not campaigning for anything,” is his reply. “I just examine the facts and give the most honest opinion I can. The fact is, I’ve had the sort of season that could merit such an award. But that doesn’t mean I’d be upset if I didn’t get it. If Keith Hernandez won the MVP award, I’d be happy for him. Or anyone else.”

Carter considers the trade to the Mets the greatest thing that has ever happened to him, professionally speaking. “New York opened up so many opportunities,” he said. “A different way of life, a huge new audience, exposure to cultural events, broadcasting, endorsements, you name it. But more than anything else, it gave me a chance to finally play for a championship-caliber team. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

The Mets just missed overtaking the St. Louis Cardinals for the East Division title in Carter’s first season, and ran away with it this time.

“Before Gary came last year, we were a pretty good team,” pitcher Ron Darling said. “He made us great.”

And there is still all that goodness, for goodness sake. Carter does public-service spots for charities and against drunk driving, helps raise money for leukemia research, smiles and schmoozes endlessly around teammates, around autograph hunters, around opposing players, around everybody.

It is no effort to be nice, if you ask him. “Look, I like people, and I like to be liked. There’s nothing odd about that. Don’t you like to be liked?”

Remarks like that are made to order for fun-loving teammates such as third baseman Ray Knight, who gushes: “Gary, you’re the nicest man in the whole world!”

At the moment, he is one of the happiest, too. “I just can’t believe what’s happening! Even if we don’t make it to the World Series, and I definitely think we will, think of what a season it’s been!

“I wonder what I’m going to feel like three weeks from now. Will I be telling stories about the great World Series at Fenway Park? The one where I hit one over the Green Monster in the ninth inning to win the game? Or about the time I struck out in the ninth inning to end the World Series? I wonder.”

Not only is he signing autographs for a 10-year-old. He is feeling like one.