The Impact of Eight Years of Silence
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
I think “Every Pitcher Tells a Story” by Seth Swirsky is a wonderful book. It’s rare to find such an entertaining and thought-provoking book about Major League Baseball.
This book primarily features answers from Major League pitchers to the author’s questions. Each pitcher’s case is without exception fascinating and thought-provoking, but here I’d like to focus on Steve Carlton’s case.
Steve Carlton was a Major League Baseball pitcher who played for 24 years from 1965 to 1988, primarily for the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies. His 329 career wins rank him 11th in history, second among left-handed pitchers behind Warren Spahn. His 4,136 career strikeouts rank him fourth in history and second among left-handed pitchers behind Randy Johnson. He won the Cy Young Award four times. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.
In short, Steve Carlton is a great pitcher whose name will forever remain in history.
However, Carlton will also go down in history for something extremely unique. He had a poor relationship with the media, and for eight years, from 1978 to 1986, he didn’t speak to the media - not a word. There is probably no other major leaguer like him.
So why did this happen? In the aforementioned book, Seth Swirsky asked Steve Carlton what went into his decision not to speak to the media. Carlton answered: “My decision not to speak to the media was not the result of any one incident.” It seems that he stopped speaking to the media because of a series of unpleasant incidents, such as the media reporting on his personal life and media breaching the trust that came with their access to him.
These things make me think about media coverage and reporting, but what struck me most and made me think deeply were Carlton’s final words: “Looking back, I think that the writing was better and definitely more creative after I stopped speaking to the media.”
These are wonderful, thought-provoking words that make me think about what media reporting really is. Such wonderful words could only come from a man who, despite being a top-class major leaguer, had the courage to not say a word to the media for years, and only someone with a great intelligence could say them.
I can’t help but imagine what would happen to media coverage of Major League Baseball if all major leaguers simultaneously stopped speaking to the media. Would the content be better and more creative than it is now? We’ll never know what would actually happen, because it’s unlikely that any major leaguer will ever remain silent for as long as Carlton.
Steve Carlton was not only a great baseball player, but also a brilliant intellect, and I applaud Seth Swirsky for bringing out Carlton’s intellect so well.
(If I’ve made a mistake or left out something important, please let me know. I’ll try to make corrections or additions.)