Page 157 - 1975 BoSox

150 ’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL
some rest. Don Zimmer got really mad at him and tried to show him up. He woke him up and had him bat, guring he’d do bad. Bernie walked up, hit a home run, ran around the bases, and went back to sleep. Managers hated that.”
Bill Nowlin and Jim Prime, in Tales From the Red Sox Dugout, describe an interview Carbo gave after hitting a grand slam o Mariners lefty Mike Kekich. Upon being asked about the grand slam, he said he had not been aware that the bases had been loaded. When served with a follow-up question asking him the last time he had homered o a left-hander, Carbo thought that the reporters had been playing with him. “Now I know you’re pulling my leg, because he was a right- handed pitcher. Zimmer would never let me hit against a left-hander with the bases loaded,” he declared.
Carbo was a member of an informal fraternity of fun-loving players, called the Bu alo Heads, who annoyed Zimmer, and also included Lee, Rick Wise, FergusonJenkins,andJimWilloughby. enamehad arisen from Jenkins’ un attering nickname for Zimmer. In 1978 Carbo’s recurring pattern of arriving late to the ballpark, behavior often triggered by a slump and the resulting lack of playing time, according to Zimmer, was the reason he was sold to the Cleveland Indians on June 15. Carbo hit .261 in 17 games for Boston in his nal 1978 stint in a Red Sox uniform. His sale to the Indians precipitated a one-day walkout by friend Bill Lee. Upon returning the following day, Lee was ned $500 by general manager Haywood Sullivan. Lee’s response? “Fine me fteen hundred and give me the weekend o .”
Carbo hit .287 in 60 games with the Indians in 1978. On March 10, 1979, he signed as a free agent with the Cardinals, returning to the National League for the balance of his career. He batted .281 in 64 at-bats over 52 games for the Cards in 1979. His major-league career came to a close in 1980, when he played in 14 games with the Cardinals and seven with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Carbo nished his 12-year major-league career with a .264 average and a .387 OBP with 96 homers and 358 RBIs.
After his playing career, Carbo went to cosmetology school and operated a hair salon in Detroit for eight years. However, his longstanding substance-abuse problems led to a downward spiral that got so bad, as he related to Doug Hornig in e Boys of October, that he began to deal as well as consume the controlled substances. He reportedly hit bottom in 1993 after his mother had committed suicide, his father died, and his marriage dissolved. His ex-teammates and fellow Bu alo Heads Lee and Jenkins helped him nd the Baseball Assistance Team (BAT), an organization that helps needy former players and was instrumental in getting Carbo into recovery from his addictions. In 1980 he began a baseball school for high school, college, and pro players. He formed the Diamond Club Ministry, in which he traveled around the country speaking to primarily young adults about religion, baseball, and the dangers of substance abuse. He has also served as a substitute teacher. He remarried and has one son from his second marriage and three grown daughters from his rst marriage.
Carbo was the eld manager of the Pensacola Pelicans of the Independent Central Baseball League from 2003 to 2005. As manager, Carbo’s record was 150-103. In 2006 he left the Pelicans to work full time for Diamond Club Ministry. In 2013 Carbo wrote Saving Bernie Carbo with Dr. Peter Hantzis. e book tells many stories of Carbo’s baseball career, his struggles with alcohol and drug addiction, and the Christianity he found later in life.
Note
A version of this biography was originally published in ’75: e Red Sox Team at Saved Baseball, edited by Bill Nowlin and Cecilia Tan, and published by Rounder Books in 2005.
Sources
Adelman, Tom, e Long Ball (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2003).
Boston Red Sox 1976 Yearbook.
Boston Red Sox 1976 Press-TV-Radio Guide. Boston Red Sox 2005 Media Guide.