Page 33 - 1975 BoSox

26 ’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL
at the Boston Garden, Fisk made such an impression in a victory over the Winooski, Vermont, team that Walter Brown, owner of the Boston Celtics, leaned over to a local reporter and asked, “You have got to tell me — who is that kid?”3 In 1965, playing against Hopkinton in the New Hampshire Class M semi nals, the 6-foor-2 Fisk scored 42 points and yanked down 38 rebounds against an opposition front line that included players who were 6’10”, 6’8”, and 6’3”. When he fouled out with a minute left, Fisk received a stand- ing ovation from the Portsmouth crowd, as Charlestown went on to lose by two points.4 An oft-told story is that after his son’s memorable performance, his dad Cecil’s only comment was that Carlton had missed four free throws.
But Cecil wasn’t being harsh or overbearing — he simply understood that to truly excel as an athlete, mental toughness was essential. Cecil’s philosophy on child-rearing was simple: “I expected them to do as well as they could, whatever they did.” Cecil and Leona Fisk sat behind the bench during basketball games but never said a word to Coach Silva, never criticized his strategy, and never let on if they disagreed with how their sons were coached. “No Hall of Famer ever had a better start than Fisk,” said Bellows Falls American Legion coach Tim Ryan, “and it was because of his parents.”5
Pudge’s baseball exploits began in the corn elds of his family’s farm. Learning the game together, he and his talented brothers would play for hours as time and chores permitted. e long and cold Northern New England winters reduced Carlton’s high-school base- ball career, permitting no more than 17 organized games a season. In fact, the team’s early-season prac- tices often began with Carlton and his teammates shoveling snow o the Charlestown High School baseball eld, which was shaded from direct sunlight. Sometimes the team simply moved practice to the nearbyFiskcorn eld.“I’dletthempracticeforaslong as they wanted, long after we would have otherwise gone home,” said Coach Silva. “Of course, they don’t do that anymore.”6
Carlton was an intense athlete, and demanded that practice be taken seriously to mimic game-like condi- tions; on one occasion he punched out a teammate for “goo ng o .” e competitive nature of those practices resulted in Carlton’s rst experience as a catcher. During batting practice, with Carlton manning third base and Calvin behind the plate, a foul pop drew the attention of both of them. With the entire team yelling, “Fisk! Fisk! Fisk!” both attempted to make the catch; the resulting collision rearranged Calvin’s dental façade (only one of the two teeth re- trieved could be saved). Because the catcher’s mask no longer t over Calvin’s swollen jaw, the catching responsibilities fell to Carlton. (In typical Fisk fashion, Calvin played the next day, only in left eld.)
Calvin, Carlton, and Conrad all pitched for the Charlestown team, which went 49-17 including playo games during Carlton’s high-school career. One of those losses came in the Class M state championship against a strong Woodsville, New Hampshire, team. Despite striking out 14, Carlton was a victim of his own aggressiveness. With one out and the winning run on third, the Woodsville batter laid down a perfect squeeze bunt that hugged the third-base line. Not hearing his teammates’ cries of “Let it go foul!” Carlton leaped o the mound, picked up the ball, and threw across his body, making an amazing play to nail the batter at rst as the winning run scored.
Because of the short high-school season, American Legion baseball takes on special importance in New England. Carlton played for Claremont in his rst year of eligibility, but in 1965 he switched to Bellows Falls Post 5, coached by Tim Ryan, which had won the Vermont State Championship the previous year. In one game with Bellows Falls, so the story goes, Carlton was at the plate and behind in the count, fooled by two consecutive curveballs. When the catcher called for a fastball and was emphatically shaken o by the pitcher, the manager called time and approached the mound. “ ere’s no way I’m throwing him a fast- ball,” the hurler said. But the manager insisted that he throw what the catcher called for, and Fisk hit the next pitch (a fastball) on a line over the center- eld