Rico Carty: The forgotten Atlanta Braves outfield slugger
When making a list of Atlanta Braves greats, a lot of names come to mind, but there’s one former fan favorite who has been lost to time.
When the Atlanta Braves moved from Milwaukee, besides Hank Aaron, one of the more recognizable names on the roster would have been 26-year-old slugger Rico Carty.
This year’s Braves have a pair of players in Nick Markakis and Freddie Freeman battling for the National League batting title. In Carty’s days in Atlanta, that was a rather common occurrence.
At 24, Carty had come in second for N.L. Rookie of the Year after the 1964 season, hitting .330 with 22 home runs and 150 hits. He also finished second to Roberto Clemente for the N.L. batting title with the second-best average in the majors. Fellow Braves outfielder Hank Aaron finished third, hitting .328 for the year.
In his second full season, Carty hit .310, then .326 in 1966. That season he finished third for the N.L. batting title behind fellow Dominican slugger Matty Alou. Alou’s brother Felipe, also a teammate of Carty’s, finished second, giving the top three spots to Dominican players.
Carty slumped to .255 in 1967 only to find out he’d been battling tuberculosis, causing him to miss the entire 1968 season. He battled back from the serious illness and hit .342 in 1969, then won the batting title with a .366 average the next season.
His 1970 batting title run marked the highest qualifying season average since Ted Williams hit .388 in 1957. That same season, though he didn’t appear on the ballot, Carty started the All-Star game alongside Willie Mays and teammate Hank Aaron as a write-in candidate. He had wrapped up a Braves record 31-game hit streak earlier in the season, a number that stood until Dan Uggla hit in 33-straight in 2011.
Ender Inciarte was the last Braves player to seriously flirt with Carty’s Atlanta record .366 season average when he was hitting in the .370’s as late as the first week of September back in 2016, but Ender faltered late down the stretch, finishing at the .291 mark
Having already battled a whole host of physical ailments throughout his career, Carty suffered a severe knee injury in a Dominican League game the December following his batting title run, causing him to miss the entire 1971 season.
Coming back to Atlanta for the 1972 season, Carty landed in the A.L. with the Rangers in 1973. That same season, he would also play with the Cubs and Athletics. In 1974, Carty hit .363 with the Indians, then .308, .310 and .280 the next three seasons in Cleveland.
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The 1972 trade that sent Carty packing to Texas was not a popular one with Braves fans, but he apparently didn’t have the best relationship with new Atlanta manager Eddie Mathews. Carty had been in altercations with teammates Hank Aaron and Ron Reed.
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Carty finished his career playing in Toronto and Oakland in 1978, then back to the Blue Jays in 1979 and he wouldn’t play in the big leagues again. He retired prior to the 1980 season at the age of 39 with a career. 299 average, 204 homers and 1,677 hits, including missing two full seasons with illness and injury.
These days, now in his late-70’s, Carty resides in San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic where he runs a foundation that helps the poor with basic needs such as food, clothing, and medicine.
Earlier this month Carty’s name was included on the Topps and Beckett 30 Teams in 30 Weeks all-time Atlanta Braves player (by position) list, rounding out the outfield with Hank Aaron and Andruw Jones.
Among Dominican players, Carty is remembered as one of the greatest hitters, but more importantly, he was among the forerunners for that group becoming a mainstay in the majors.
Next. All-time Atlanta Braves Team as picked by Topps and Beckett. dark
Unfortunately, Carty’s name isn’t batted around among Atlanta fans like Ralph Garr, Glenn Hubbard, Joe Torre and other pre-90’s Braves. A former fan favorite and one of the most productive hitters of the 60’s and 70’s, Carty has been somewhat lost to history in Braves Country and that’s a real shame.