Bernardo Carbo (born August 5, 1947) is an American former professional baseball outfielder and designated hitter who played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). He began his career with the Cincinnati Reds, and went on to play with five other teams, including two stints with the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox.
Early life
Carbo was raised in the Detroit suburb of Livonia and graduated in 1965 from Franklin High School, playing for the school's baseball team while there. He batted left-handed and threw right-handed.
Career
An outfielder, Carbo was the Cincinnati Reds' first selection (16th overall) in the inaugural 1965 draft, ahead of Johnny Bench, and his first major league hit was a home run. In his 1970 rookie season, Carbo posted career highs in batting average (.310), home runs (21), runs batted in (63), hits (113), on-base percentage (.454), slugging average (.551), OPS (1.005) and games played (125). Carbo was selected Rookie of the Year by The Sporting News, but he slumped in the next two seasons and was sent to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Boston Red Sox
thumb|left|200px|Carbo with the [[Boston Red Sox]]
After the 1973 season in late October, St. Louis traded Carbo and Rick Wise to the Boston Red Sox for Reggie Smith and Ken Tatum. He said of coming to Boston: "When I first met [Red Sox owner] Mr. Yawkey, he was shining shoes in the clubhouse," said Carbo, "and I went up to him and gave him $20 and told him to get me a cheeseburger and fries." While playing for the Red Sox, he was a part of the "Buffalo Heads", with Bill "Spaceman" Lee and Ferguson Jenkins. Carbo would also carry around a giant stuffed gorilla that was named Mighty Joe Young. The gorilla sat next to him in the middle seat on planes. Carl Yastrzemski wanted the gorilla placed on the bat rack in the dugout.
The 1975 World Series matched the Red Sox with the heavily favored Cincinnati Reds, who were looking for their first title since 1940. Boston had also suffered a drought by not winning a Series since 1918. The clubs battled back and forth, with the Reds winning three of the first five games. Carbo was excited to see some of his old teammates. Carbo would be on the bench, and his former teammates were sympathetic. Clay Carroll inscribed a picture for him and it read "Good luck in the World Series." After Game 3, when Carbo hit a home run off him, Carbo said, "They told me Carroll was in here and just went crazy, ripping up the picture into little pieces."
Game 6 was postponed three days because of rain. Carbo did not join his teammates for batting practice at Tufts University because he said he couldn't find it. He spent the early part of Game 6 working on his Louisville Slugger. "I’m sitting there and I’m whittling this bat, I took a lathe and took all the polish off. It's nice and smooth. Rick Wise is sitting next to me and says, ‘You know, you can’t use that bat. It doesn’t have an emblem on it.’ So as the game was going I took a magic marker and wrote ‘Louisville Slugger’ on it. That's how I kept myself amused."
Tom Yawkey would pass away in 1976, and Carbo wept. Carbo saw Yawkey as a father figure, because his father did not really care about him. Even after his game tying home run in Game 6, he waited all night for a call and did not receive one. New owners Haywood Sullivan and Buddy LeRoux hired a private detective to follow Carbo.
Later career
Carbo's contract was sold to the Cleveland Indians in June 1978. This made Bill Lee mad, and he called the owners "gutless" and staged a walkout. Carbo's major league career ended in 1980 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. In a 12-year career, Carbo was a .264 hitter with 96 home runs and 358 RBI in 1,010 games.
In 1989–90, while playing in a senior league in St. Petersburg, Florida, Carbo hit rock bottom. His mother had committed suicide, his father died two months later, and his family was disintegrating. He was spending $32,000 a month on drugs (mostly cocaine). Dalton Jones, a member of the Red Sox 1967 Impossible Dream team, took one look at Carbo and said, "You need Jesus."
After baseball
After retiring, Carbo went on to cosmetology school and opened a hairdressing salon. In 1985, in a federal drug distribution trial, former Cardinal Keith Hernandez said Carbo was the man who introduced him to cocaine in 1980. Carbo subsequently lost his house and his salon because of the bad publicity. and now spends his time ministering to families and their children through his love for the game. He says he has not used drugs or alcohol in over fifteen years.
On April 1, 2010, in an interview with the Boston Globe, Carbo admitted to doing drugs during the 1975 World Series. He states, "I probably smoked two joints, drank about three or four beers, got to the ballpark, took some [amphetamines], took a pain pill, drank a cup of coffee, chewed some tobacco, had a cigarette, and got up to the plate and hit." It was not just a one-time binge, however. In the same article, Carbo states, "I played every game high. I was addicted to anything you could possibly be addicted to. I played the outfield sometimes where it looked like the stars were falling from the sky."
"I threw away my career", said Carbo. "If I knew Jesus Christ was my savior at 17, I would have been one heck of a ballplayer, a near Hall of Famer. Instead, I wanted to die."