Steve Carlton had a 24-year career in Major League Baseball, 15 of which came with the Phillies between 1972 and 1986. He won four Cy Young awards in 1972, ’77, ’80, and ’82, and led the Phillies to their first ever championship in 1980. He also helped the Phillies back to the World Series in ’83 when they lost to the Baltimore Orioles.
Carlton was notorious during his playing career for his avoidance of the media. However, he wanted to get some good press out as he was on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time and agreed to speak with Pat Jordan of Philadelphia Magazine. It was with Jordan’s piece that we really found out the inner machinations of Lefty’s mind.
Deadspin republished the article today with postscripts from Jordan himself as well as editor Eliot Kaplan. If you have never read it, it is worth your time. Here is a snippet:Built under the house is a 7,000-foot storage cellar. He’s stocked it with canned foods, bottled water, weapons. “Do you know if you store guns in PVC pipe, they can last forever underground without rusting?” he says.
He glanced sideways again. “The Revolution is definitely coming.” He believes in the Revolution, only he isn’t precisely sure which of a myriad of conspiratorial groups will begin it. Possibly, he says, it will be started by the Skull and Bones Society of Yale University. Or maybe the International Monetary Fund. Or the World Health Organization. There are so many conspiracies, and so little time. Sometimes all those conspiracies confuse him and he contradicts himself.