Seemingly Just a Lightweight, Kid Carter Lands the KO Punch

“ ‘Bout time!” Gary Carter said.

Calm as always, shy by nature, reluctant to talk--yeah, sure, and Joan Rivers is a nun--Gary Carter of the New York Mets reacted to Tuesday’s winning hit in Game 5 of the National League playoffs just the way everyone expected he would, by hugging and grabbing and gabbing and grinning from ear to ear.

“I just thank the Lord for this!” he said after the 12-inning, 2-1 win over Houston. “I guess there really is justice in this world!”

Amen, brother Gary. And congratulations on your deliverance, now that you no longer have to go through the hell of letting your team down at the worst possible time.

.048.

That was Gary Carter’s batting average in this series when he stepped to the plate in the 12th. One for 21. Terry Puhl of the Astros had more hits than that--and he had been up to bat twice.

“I am not an .050 hitter,” said Carter, taking a cue from that ever-popular Met fan Dick (I Am Not a Crook) Nixon, who has been hanging around Shea Stadium because he likes to see Dwight Gooden pitch.

Darn right Carter’s not. That single to center off Charlie Kerfeld sent his playoff average zooming to .091.

It also got back at Kerfeld for wagging a finger in Carter’s direction in Game 3 after robbing Carter of a hit with a behind-the-back stab. Not only did Carter get a hit this time, it went right up the middle, right past Kerfeld.

Gooden said on his catcher’s behalf: “I don’t think Kerfeld should have done that. A thing like that can kind of come back and haunt you.”

It was suggested to Carter that Kerfeld, the large, fun-loving rookie from Knob Noster, Mo., hadn’t meant to taunt him the other day, and was merely gesturing enthusiastically to his own catcher, Alan Ashby.

“Well, how am I supposed to know that?” Carter asked. “ ‘Hey, Alan, I’m showing this to you !’ It’s not like he’s going to yell out something like that.

“I don’t know. You read things and hear things about the crazy life of Charlie Kerfeld, maybe it was innocent. He caught the ball behind his back and maybe it surprised him. But there are certain things you’ve got to be careful to do to an opposing player, and pointing fingers is one of them.”

Kerfeld tipped his cap to Carter, figuratively, after this one.

“I’ve faced Gary a lot this year and that’s the first time he’s got a hit off me,” he said. “I challenged Gary and he beat me. He won the bet.”

Carter can understand enthusiasm, or even overenthusiasm. He is the original Mr. Bubbly. Gung-ho Gary, that’s he. Talkative, demonstrative, hyperactive. Teammates call him Kid, because he acts like one. Heck, his hobby is collecting baseball cards.

Some guys go into a slump and sulk and stomp off and tell everyone around them to take a hike. Gary Carter licks his ice cream cone a little harder. Before Game 4, he was doing interviews at the batting cage before the game and kept talking as he took his stance at the plate. Infield chatter was one thing, but batter chatter? That was a new one.

“There’s one thing I will never do, and that’s lose my enthusiasm,” Carter said after Tuesday’s game. “I’ll never curl up and die.”

Not even when his luck is running bad. Not even when pitchers catch potential hits behind their backs. Not even when he makes the last out of a 3-1 loss with a teammate on base, as he did in Game 4.

Not even when he finally cracks one toward the left-field line, only to have it happen in the 10th inning of a 1-1 game, when the third baseman is guarding the line, as happened Tuesday.

“The other day I hit one good to right field off (Bob) Knepper, but the wind had changed and held it up,” Carter said. It seemed a conspiracy. Somebody up there didn’t like him anymore.

Carter, deeply religious, knew better. He kept telling himself that catchers can do a lot for their teams just by helping pitchers, and that you don’t have to get a hit to have a good game.

He also told himself that the Mets had played the Astros five games and that Mike Scott and Nolan Ryan had pitched four of them. None of the other Mets were exactly stinging the ball.

As evidence, consider some of their batting averages after five games: Darryl Strawberry, .235; Wally Backman, .211; Ray Knight, .167; Mookie Wilson, .105. In his head, Carter was wondering why no one was mentioning Mookie’s 2 for 19 as loudly and prominently as his own sorry average.

His heart, though, wasn’t buying it. He is a hitter. Has been one all his life. He is the Mets’ clean-up man. He led them in RBIs with 105. Carter’s bat plugged a hole in the Met lineup where sub-immortals such as Ron Hodges and Mike Fitzgerald and Ronn Reynolds had been. A five-game slump in a playoff series can feel like 50. It is no fun to have people discussing what you haven’t been doing. Boston’s boomers were struggling through the first five games of the American League series. Reggie Jackson hadn’t yet changed into his Capt. October costume for the Angels. Even Glenn Davis, Carter’s rival for the league MVP honor, had completed five playoff games with a grand total of four hits.

Carter is coming through at last, and hopes to continue to do so when the Mets play Game 6 today at the Astrodome.

That is, if he gets there.

When last seen Tuesday, Carter was still in uniform, patting backs, hugging his daughter, slapping teammates’ palms and doing his 1,986th interview. The consensus seemed to be that Kid Carter might still be chattering in New York when Game 6 gets under way in Houston.

Who could blame him?

He finally had something to talk about.