Baseball Remembers: Rico Carty

He couldn’t run. Like, at all. For his career he only stole 21 bases and was thrown out trying 26 times. Metrics show that he took extra bases on the base paths just 36% of the time, fully 10% less than the league average.

He also couldn’t field. He started as a catcher, was pretty quickly moved to the outfield, and for a couple of years when he was young he was passably good in left field, but for the most part he was a hazard to himself and others. Eventually he became a full-time designated hitter, a position he wasn’t moved to sooner only because it didn’t exist before then.

He also had a miraculous inability to stay healthy. In 15 big league seasons he managed to stay on the field over 150 times in just two of them. The injuries ranged from a horrific broken knee with ligament damage, suffered during an outfield collision with Matty Alou, to a bout with tuberculosis. In between were chipped bones and pulled muscles and an assortment of other ailments.