Dress for success
As trades go, especially among All-Star players, this one occurs fairly late in the offseason and also brings us to today’s bit of sartorial trivia, as if anything in baseball is trivial.
Talking here about the 1972 trade between Philadelphia and St. Louis that sends raise-seeking pitcher Rick Wise to the Cardinals for another equally disgruntled, raise-seeking pitcher in Steve Carlton.
Carlton understandably wants more from the Cardinals after a 1971 season in which he wins 20 games on a contract that pays him $40,000, which back then is $5,000 less than what St. Louis is paying journeyman outfielder Jose Cardenal.
Same type of headlines in Philadelphia, where pitcher Rick Wise makes a similar argument for himself after reportedly earning $45,000 while winning 17 games for a last-place team.
Old Cardinals-turned-Phillies Tim McCarver, left, and Joe Hoerner, right, welcome Steve Carlton to Philadelphia in 1972
Oh, the two eventually get their raises, but only after the Cardinals and Phillies trade them for each other on Feb. 25, 1972.
Carlton goes on to spend the best part of his Hall of Fame career with the Phillies, while Wise continues with his excellent, but comparatively unheralded, career in the major leagues.
During that time, Carlton wears No. 32, the same number he wears for seven seasons in St. Louis but one that belongs to Phillies pitcher Darrell Brandon at the time of his trade to Philadelphia.
When Carlton arrives at the Phillies’ spring training camp in Clearwater, Fla., he is handed the same No. 38 that Wise wears for the Phillies from 1966-71.
Brandon eventually cedes his No. 32 to Carlton before the 1972 season begins and switches to No. 30 for the next two seasons before his major league career ends in 1973.
After switching jersey numbers with Brandon, Carlton wears No. 32 for the Phillies from the end of spring training in 1972 until his release from the team midway through the 1986 season.
Carlton continues wearing No. 32 for the next 13 months as he bounces from the Phillies to the San Francisco Giants to the Chicago White Sox and then to the Cleveland Indians.
Carlton then spends his final 13 games of his 24-year career with Minnesota, where coincidentally he wears for the Twins the same No. 38 he initially dons for the Phillies in 1972.
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