Personal Catchers: A Lite Primer

There’s a long list of historical baseball subjects that we still, after all the great work that’s been done, don’t know nearly enough about. And near the top of that list, I might argue, is the history of “personal catchers” in the major leagues.

How many have there been? Do such relationships “work”? And hell, what does a fella have to do to qualify as a personal catcher...

The answers could fill a book. Probably not a popular book, mind you. But a book that I would read.

You don’t get a book. Today you get this quick primer on personal catchers, starring Tim McCarver and a bunch of guys who specialized in corralling knuckleballs and a bunch of guys who have largely been lost to memory.

Let’s start with McCarver, whose professional relationship with Hall of Famer Steve “Lefty” Carlton must be the most famous catcher-pitcher combination in MLB history (there’s even a book about them). As McCarver once wrote, “When you thought of Carlton, you automatically thought of McCarver. It was like ham and eggs, or grass and dirt. I even told a newspaper guy once that when Steve and I die we’re going to be buried sixty feet six inches apart, the distance between pitcher and catcher.”

Their relationship began in 1965, when a 20-year-old Carlton debuted with the defending World’s Champion St. Louis Cardinals. By then, the still-young McCarver was well-established as the Cardinals’ No. 1 catcher, a job he would hold through the ’69 season. Meanwhile, Carlton was establishing himself as a good pitcher, but hardly a great one.

The Cardinals traded McCarver to the Phillies after the ’69 season; two years later, they traded Carlton there, too. But the reunion lasted for just a few months, as the Phillies traded McCarver to Montreal—for a different catcher, no less—in June of 1972.

Carlton, even with McCarver gone, pitched tremendously in ’72, going 27-10 for a terrible team and earning his first Cy Young Award (ultimately he would win four of them).

But Carlton wasn’t nearly as good over the next three seasons, going 44-47 with an ERA hardly better than league average from 1973 through ’75.

Re-enter Tim McCarver, who actually signed with the Phillies in the middle of the ’75 season after the Red Sox released him. By that point, McCarver (by his own admission) couldn’t throw. What he could do was work with Carlton.

Now, the Phillies already had a great defensive catcher in Bob Boone. But Carlton just didn’t like pitching to Boone. “I don’t like to have to keep shaking a catcher off,” he said of Boone. “It bothers my concentration. I like to get it over with. I only have three pitches and we’re always four pitches apart.”

Boone remained the Phillies’ No. 1 catcher. Just not for Carlton. In fact, from 1976 through ’78, Carlton started 105 games, and McCarver started 101 of them. Oh, and McCarver started 27 of Carlton’s 35 starts in 1979, too.

The Phillies released McCarver after the ’79 season, and it should definitely be noted that three of Carlton’s best seasons, Hall of Fame-style seasons all of them, came in 1980, ’81 and ’82, with McCarver long gone.

Still, there’s an argument to be made for McCarver giving Carlton the push toward career greatness that he just wouldn’t have gotten anywhere else. And their practically exclusive relationship, lasting for four full seasons, remains unique in the game’s history.

Another, more recent example of the McCarver-Boone syndrome involves Gred Maddux and longtime Braves catcher Javy Lopez. And while Maddux rarely (if ever) criticized Lopez publicly, it became abundantly apparent that Maddux simply didn’t like pitching to Lopez. Which is obvious when you see the parade of No. 2 catchers whose biggest job, year in and year out, was simply to get behind the plate whenever Maddux was starting: Paul Bako, Eddie Perez, and Henry Blanco all owed much of their playing time to Maddux’s distaste for Lopez.

You can hardly fault Maddux, who played a particularly cerebral game and presumably knew exactly what he needed from his catcher. But you can’t really fault Lopez, either; after all, he did serve as primary catcher for Hall of Famers John Smoltz and Tom Glavine. Sometimes a relationship just doesn’t work, even if we can’t understand why.

Aside from the famous cases involving Carlton and Maddux, when most people think about personal catchers, they think about knuckleball pitchers. It’s not abundantly clear that some catchers are significantly better at catching knuckleballs than other catchers, but the perception has long been in place.

In 1953, for example, the Pittsburgh Pirates summoned outfielder-turned-knuckleballer Johnny Lindell from the minor leagues, at least in part, because they already had Lindell’s minor-league catcher Mike Sandlock on the roster. And half a century later, Doug Mirabelli made a small career of serving as Tim Wakefield’s personal catcher. Even while the Red Sox’ No. 1 catcher, Jason Varitek, was regarded as one of the game’s best-fielding backstops.

One forgotten name along these lines: Brooklyn Dodgers catcher Hank DeBerry, a part-timer who caught the great majority of Dazzy Vance’s games during the 1920s. Would Vance be in the Hall of Fame today, without DeBerry?

Probably! Just as Maddux would probably be in Cooperstown without his collection of backup backstops, and Carlton would be there without McCarver. Probably. Still, the story of Dazzy Vance is a good one, and too often it’s told without his favorite catcher.

And speaking of good stories, let us close this subject with the story of catcher Bruce Kimm. From 1976 through ’80, Kimm played for three teams and hit just one home run in 186 games. But as a rookie in ’76, Kimm was behind the plate for fellow rookie Mark Fidrych’s first start, on the 15^th of May.

That was just a spot start, so despite tossing a two-hitter, Fidrych had to wait 10 days for another start. Kimm was behind the plate again, and Fidrych pitched well again. Now he was in the rotation for good, and ultimately started 29 games on his way to 19 wins, the cover of Sports Illustrated, and a Rookie of the Year Award.

Bruce Kimm didn’t win any awards. But he did get off one of the season’s best lines: “Every time I catch, we draw 50,000 people.” He also got the priceless memories of catching all 29 starts of Fidrych’s legendary season.