Homer History: Joe Carter’s World Series winning blast

In our Homer History series, writers re-tell the stories of memorable home runs from their perspective. In this installment, Yahoo Sports NHL blogger Greg Wyshynski of Puck Daddy looks back on Joe Carter’s World Series-winning homer against the Phillies in 1993.

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“Every story has already been told. Once you’ve read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had.” – Anna Quindlen, author.

My favorite thing about baseball is that, for the most part, everything has happened before. Records aren’t records unless someone has already set them. Greatness isn’t greatness without the benefit of comparison. Every season is a variation on a theme; and what separates the moments playing in perpetuity on highlight reels or immortalized in a concrete temple in Cooperstown from ones that slip from memory is how one claims the moment for themselves.

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(Joe Carter's home run won the 1993 World Series) Joe Carter’s home run in 1993 wasn’t the first to win a World Series. That was, of course, Bill Mazeroski in 1960 for the Pittsburgh Pirates, a home run so powerful it swept him up into the Hall of Fame (and onto dozens of “least deserving Hall of Famers” lists).

But Carter’s home run is inarguably the greatest moment in Canadian baseball history, as much as it’s one of the lowest moments in Philadelphia sports history – god’s work, really.

Please understand: I’m a Mets fan. I grew up in Central New Jersey, so I’m also a New Jersey Devils fan. Tears generated from the constant flailing failures of Philadelphia sports franchises were – next to Snapple ice tea and the occasional Rheingold Beer I’d sneak from my dad’s stash – my favorite beverage growing up.

Conversely, I always had an affinity for the Toronto Blue Jays, which might have had something to do with (a) a desire to have an American League team to cheer for and (b) being a pitcher growing up, and appreciating the likes of Dave Stieb and Tom Henke, and later Dave Stewart and Duane Ward (and, for a time, my sweet David Cone).

On top of that, I always liked Joe Carter, whose name I first heard on WFAN from a caller desperately trying to imagine a scenario through which the Cleveland Indians would trade him to the Mets.

Instead, the outfielder was involved in two blockbusters – 1989, when the Indians sent him to the Padres in a package that included Sandy Alomar, Jr.; and then in 1991, when the Padres cut bait and traded him to the Blue Jays with Roberto Alomar for Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez. (Back when trades were trades, i.e. before we knew everyone’s salary was the reason they’re made.)

(AP Images) Carter found himself in Toronto, playing an integral role on a team with more than a few veteran pieces – Dave Winfield, Jack Morris; and then in 1993, Rickey Henderson, Paul Molitor and Stewart.

The Blue Jays won their first World Series in 1992, a series best known for the Atlanta Marine Corps Color Guard marching out with the Canadian flag upside down and the Series ending on … a bunt.

The Jays retooled and returned to the World Series in 1993. Their opponents were the Philadelphia Phillies, a team that, as I mentioned before, I have a deep conflict with.

[Homer History: Dave Kingman hits one out of Wrigley Field]

Lenny Dykstra was, bar none, my favorite baseball player of all-time. His book, “Nails,” sits on my bookshelf, yellowed pages of incoherent obscenities directed at Wally Backman. The Phillies were essentially an experiment: What if you took Lenny Dykstra’s DNA, mixed it with Philadelphia swagger and then poured it on a mullet?

Then you’d get the 1993 Phillies, apparently.

As an American, I should have been rooting for the scrappy, dirty, smelly underdog against the haute Toronto team that already had a ring on its finger. And yet, as a Mets fan … nope.

Still, you had to admire their pluck. The Phillies were down 3-1 in the series before winning Game 5. In Game 6, they were down 5-1 in Toronto entering the seventh inning when they rallied for five runs, three of them coming on a Dykstra homer. You could feel that scruffy, Rocky statue Philadelphia myth making starting to ooze onto the field.

In the ninth inning, Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams took the mound.

God, I hated Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams.

Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams was that mullet-wearing lefty who fell off the mound on every pitch, like the velocity of his fastball was simply too much for his body to handle. He pitched like C.C. DeVille played guitar.

The greatest thing about Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams was that he was nicknamed Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams and had epic control problems. Never was a nickname more appropriate. It’s like if George Herman Ruth was actually a giant baby.

So, true to form, he walks Rickey Henderson to lead off the ninth with the Phillies up a run, because why not put the greatest leadoff hitting in baseball history on first with just four pitches? Devon White flew out, Paul Molitor followed with a one-out single, and that brought Joe Carter to the plate.

Carter hadn’t had a hit in his last seven at-bats. He stood in against Williams and worked the count to 2-1, before he swung poorly at a slider. Which, it turns out, was a defining moment of the at-bat.

(AP Images) Carter told MLB.com in 2013 that the slider had him thinking slider again for the 2-2 pitch.

“He jerked a fastball down and in — more like a cut fastball — and because I was thinking breaking ball, I kind of stayed back on the ball,” said Carter. “Normally, if I’m looking fastball, I’d either swing and miss at that ball and nine times out of 10 times I hook it into the third-base dugout and scatter my teammates.

“But in that particular moment, because I was looking breaking ball, I kept my head down, and when I made contact … I never saw the ball. All I saw was the bank of lights. I knew I hit it good, but I didn’t know if I hit it high enough to get over the fence.”

[Elsewhere: A Japanese team is going to wear plaid uniforms this season]

What’s interesting about that pitch – which Williams now maintains was a “mistake” – was that it was made with the Phillies closer using a “side step” windup. He was instructed to pitch using it in order to keep Henderson from stealing in a one-run game. Williams says that kept him out of his comfort zone.

“I knew if I had gone with my full leg kick and actually rushed because I know how to elevate a fastball and throw a fastball up and away, he either swings through it or he hits a fly-ball out,” Williams said in 2011.

Instead, it cleared the fence. SkyDome erupted as the Blue Jays stormed the field. For just the second time in Major League Baseball history, the World Series had been decided on a home run. As Tom Cheek’s immortal call went: “Touch ’em all, Joe! You’ll never hit a bigger home run in your life!”

Spoiler: He didn’t.

Carter spent a few more productive years with the Jays before the lure of money and a loaded lineup took him to Baltimore. Things didn’t work out for that 1998 Orioles team, and Carter was traded to the Giants for his last hurrah. His final at-bat was the final at-bat of a one-game playoff series against the Cubs: a player whose postseason heroism defined him, ending his career with a postseason out.

As for Williams, the home run defined him even more than Mazeroski’s did Ralph Terry, as at least Terry closed out a World Series win a few years later for the Yankees.

Williams reportedly received death threats after the Game 6 loss; but then again, he had already received them after blowing a save in Game 4 of the World Series.

[Elsewhere: Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta received a record raise in arbitration]

(AP Images) “I was scared. I stayed up until 8 a.m., walking around, holding my gun,” he told Sports Illustrated. “But I couldn’t hit anything with that thing. If I had to shoot, I’d let. my fiancèe do it.”

Now that’s love.

(For more on Williams’ strange post-career journey, read this.)

Mazeroski wrote the story first. But Carter’s moment has its own unique place in Homer History. Because of who he was, whom he defeated and the way a nation still celebrates it to this day.

How important is it to Canadians? Consider that Drake used it as the cover image of his diss track for Meek Mill.

Toronto’s own Drake. Philadelphia’s own Meek Mill. Damn.

COMING TUESDAY: Todd Helton’s walk-off blast helps Colorado sweep the Dodgers, and comes in the middle of an amazing run.

PREVIOUSLY IN HOMER HISTORY
– The night a hobbled Kirk Gibson broke my heart (by Mike Oz)
– Cal Ripken Jr. wowed us yet again on Iron Man night (by Lauren Shehadi)
– When Albert Pujols silenced Minute Maid Park (by Jeff Passan)
– Bill Mazeroski’s great walk-off World Series winner (by Kevin Iole)
– The Big Papi grand slam that still haunts Detroit (by Al Toby)
– That time Joe Blanton hit a home run in the World Series (by Sam Cooper)
– When Jim Leyritz halted hopes of a Braves dynasty (by Jay Busbee)
– Bryce Harper and the home run almost no one saw (by Chris Cwik)
– Shane Robinson and the home run on one predicted (by Tim Brown)
– The shot heard ’round the world (by Larry King)
– The night Reggie Jackson became Mr. October (by Scott Pianowski)
– Tony Fernandez’s extra-innings postseason blast (by Joey Gulino)
– Dave Kingman takes one out of Wrigley Field (by Andy Behrens)