Bernie Carbo Hit 1975 World Series HR for Boston While High on Drugs

↵↵It turns out, per this feature, Carbo (pictured at right in the 1970 World Series with the Reds) was high as a kite during that at-bat, and for most of his professional career:↵

↵↵⇥“I probably smoked two joints, drank about three or four beers, got to the ballpark, took some [amphetamines], took a pain pill, drank a cup of coffee, chewed some tobacco, had a cigarette, and got up to the plate and hit,’’ Carbo said.↵⇥↵⇥“I played every game high,’’ he said. “I was addicted to anything you could possibly be addicted to. I played the outfield sometimes where it looked like the stars were falling from the sky.”↵⇥

↵↵If Dock Ellis ever pitched to Bernie Carbo, the results could have been transcendental.↵
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Carbo’s story is incredibly tragic to start, with tales of parental neglect and sexual abuse by a member of his family. Even the first time Carbo remembers doing drugs seems like it’s taken from a scene in an after school special:↵↵⇥“When I came to the big leagues in 1970 with the Big Red Machine, the trainer told me, ‘You need to take these vitamins,’ ’’ Carbo said.↵⇥↵⇥Carbo gobbled them down. He hit .310 for Cincinnati manager Sparky Anderson and was The Sporting News Rookie of the Year. He would never do better.↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥In the offseason, he asked his doctor for more “vitamins.’’↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥“These aren’t vitamins,’’ the doctor said. “You’re taking speed.’’↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥That was the beginning of the end, Carbo said. ↵⇥

↵↵And...scene. That’s a wrap folks, we’ll do the flashback where Meredith Baxter-Birney, playing the mom, tells the nine-year old Bernie, “We won’t ever talk about this,” in the morning.↵↵Honestly, imagine something bad happening to a ballplayer and it happened to Carbo. He ended up bouncing around the league until 1980 when he went to, yes, costmetology school and opened up a hairdressing salon which he had for a few years until Keith Hernandez outed him as the guy who introduced him to cocaine. The publicity ruined Carbo’s business and cost him his house. The story glosses over the next decade or so and flashes to 1990 when Carbo wanted to kill himself after his mother had committed suicide, before his never-loving father died a few months later. Carbo estimates he was spending $32,000 a month on drugs at that time. There was no mention of how or where he had that kind of money.↵

↵↵As has often happened in the past with other people struggling with addiction, Carbo found his eventual reclamation through Jesus. Yes, after drinking and drugging himself out of baseball, Carbo’s life was eventually saved by a Baptist minister with whom he shared a hospital room after a rehab-induced panic attack.↵Carbo got clean, moved to Alabama and met his wife. The couple is raising his grandkids, as all three of his daughters – from a previous marriage – ended up in the clink. Now, Carbo preaches a lot and runs a fantasy camp that combines baseball and religion. I’m just going to let that fantasy camp joke dangle there.↵

↵↵Of course, Carbo thinks if it wasn’t for drugs, he could have been a near Hall of Famer. Now he’s nothing more than cautionary tale, and a huge line in the box score of one of the best World Series games ever played. Next week, I hope they tell us the story, “A Home Run for Love”, the plot for which is, per the official after school special Wiki,↵“In 1947, a young white boy and an elderly black man enjoy a warm and wonderful friendship based on their mutual love of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson.” I sure hope that one doesn’t involve drugs.↵

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