Saluting the Sphinx of the Slab.

• Author: Barrett, Wayne M.
• Position: Baseball pitcher Steve Carlton

The ability to live in the here and now may be God's greatest gift-the baseball gods, that is. Steve Carlton knew that special zone like no other left-handed pitcher of the past quarter-century. He's going to Cooperstown this month, and the Hall of Fame is richer for it.

Carlton's ultimate tribute was in his nickname. Think of all the southpaws who have come and gone throughout professional baseball's 125-year history. Yet, the monicker "Lefty" brings to mind just one man-Silent Steve Carlton, the Philadelphia Phillies' legendary Sphinx of the Slab.

The ultimate loner in a lonely man's game, Carlton spent a great deal of his 24-year career not talking to reporters. That alone is worthy of Hall-of-Fame consideration. By not speaking with baseball's beat writers, Carlton's legacy is left on the field, where it belongs. His magnificent performances, which sparkled across three decades, are the only yardstick by which to judge him, and Lefty's ledger reads like those tall tales of baseball lore nestled amidst the crinkled paperbacks one finds heaped in a pile at the flea market: Carlton won four Cy Young Awards, more than any man in history. His first, in 1972, remains his most memorable. That season, Silent Steve tied Sandy Koufax's National League record for wins by a left-hander, with 27. While Koufax did it with a pennant winner, Carlton's cellar-dwelling Phillies won only 59 games. Carlton struck out more batters (4,136) than any other left-hander or National League pitcher. In baseball history, only Nolan Ryan fanned more, and it was Lefty whom The Ryan Express had to overtake for that honor. His 310 strikeouts in 1972 likely will stand as a Phillie franchise record forever. A 20-game winner six times, Carlton (329-244 lifetime) appeared in one division series, five N.L. Championship Series, and four World Series.

The latter category is especially important, for while his first two Fall Classics were for the powerful St. Louis Cardinals (winners of three pennants between 1964 and 1968) his latter trips onto October's stage came for the once-woebegone Phillies, truly destiny's dishrags. The unthinkable happened in 1980, as the Phillies won the East, knocked off the Western Division champion Houston Astros in breathtaking fashion (rallying late against Nolan Ryan in the fifth and deciding game) and topped the Kansas City Royals in six to take the Series, the first and only time the Phillies have gone all the way. Carlton, whose 544...