Sports History

On This Date: Steve Carlton Strikes Out 19 Mets, Sets the Record, and Loses (Sept. 15, 1969)

On Sept. 15, 1969, a feverish Steve Carlton struck out 19 Miracle Mets, the first pitcher ever to reach 19 in nine innings, and lost 4-3 on two two-strike homers by Ron Swoboda.

AP photos via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On this date in 1969, at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis, a 24-year-old left-hander named Steve Carlton struck out 19 New York Mets, more than anyone had ever struck out in a nine-inning major league game. He threw all nine innings and 152 pitches. He gave up two hits that mattered, both of them two-run home runs by Ron Swoboda, and the Cardinals lost 4-3.

The 19th strikeout, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran it on Sept. 16, 1969: Carlton's windup, and the slider Amos Otis swung through. (AP photos via the Post-Dispatch.)

He'd had a fever all day. He slept an extra hour, got to the park at 7, sat through a 26-minute rain delay before the first pitch and a 54-minute delay in the first inning, and then struck out the side.

The Best Arm on a Staff With Bob Gibson

Carlton was already good. He'd made the All-Star team that summer, he was on his way to 17 wins and a 2.17 ERA, and he was the second-best pitcher on a staff whose best pitcher was Bob Gibson, who'd thrown a 10-inning complete game the day before and had the night off. The Cardinals had won the last two National League pennants and were finishing a bad year, third place and nine games out in the new NL East. The Mets, who had never finished higher than ninth in their seven years of existence, had taken over first place five days earlier and led the Cubs by three and a half.

Gil Hodges stacked his lineup with nine right-handed hitters against the lefty. It didn't help. Carlton struck out the side in the first and the side in the second. He struck out the side again in the fourth. Amos Otis, the Mets' leadoff hitter, struck out four times, three of them looking. By the seventh inning the crowd of 13,086 was standing for every two-strike pitch, the first standing ovation Carlton had ever gotten. After the eighth the scoreboard flashed his strikeout total: 16.

"I didn't know until I saw on the message board," he said afterward. "Then I decided to go for it." He struck out the last four men he faced: Al Weis to end the eighth, then Tug McGraw, Bud Harrelson and, on a 2-2 slider in the dirt, Otis, for number 19. Bob Feller had struck out 18 in 1938. Sandy Koufax had done it twice. Don Wilson had done it the year before. Carlton passed them all in a game he was losing.

Neal Russo's story in the next morning's Post-Dispatch: "Carlton Whiffs 19, But Mets Strike, Too."

Swoboda, Twice

Ron Swoboda was a 25-year-old right fielder hitting .235 who struck out about once every four at-bats. The day before, Ralph Kiner had put him in the cage against a pitching machine rigged to throw sliders. Carlton struck him out in the first inning and again in the sixth.

In between, in the fourth, with nobody out and Donn Clendenon on first after a walk, Swoboda got an 0-2 fastball "right in his wheelhouse," in Carlton's words, and hit it into the left-field seats. Mets 2, Cardinals 1. St. Louis came back and led 3-2 into the eighth. Tommie Agee singled to lead off, Clendenon struck out, and Swoboda, down 2-2 again, got a slider that Carlton "didn't get inside enough" and hit that one out too. Mets 4, Cardinals 3.

Two swings. Four runs. The Mets made four errors and got two hits off Carlton the rest of the night. "It's great to win when you play badly," Hodges said. Tug McGraw threw three scoreless innings for the win. Carlton, who had thrown 106 strikes and struck out 19, took the loss. "Once I had nine, I made up my mind to go all the way with it," he said. "It cost me the ball game." It was after 1 in the morning when Neal Russo of the Post-Dispatch found him in the clubhouse with a beer. "I'm exhausted, stiff and sore," Carlton said, "and I could sit all night."

Carlton, No. 32, at Busch Memorial Stadium.

What the Mets Were Doing

The Cubs lost in Montreal that night, so the Mets' lead was four and a half by the time everyone went to bed. Nine days later they clinched the division, with Gary Gentry, who'd started the 19-strikeout game, beating Carlton 6-0. They swept the Braves in the first National League playoff and beat the 109-win Orioles in five games in the World Series, with Swoboda making the diving catch that saved Game 4. The team that struck out 19 times on a Monday in St. Louis was a month from being the most famous team in baseball.

Otis, who'd gone into the record book as the 19th strikeout, was traded to Kansas City that winter for Joe Foy. "If I'm going in the books, I'm going in right," he said that night. "I wasn't doing any bunting."

The full Post-Dispatch sports front of Sept. 16, 1969, box score included.

What Carlton Was About To Do

Two winters later Carlton asked Gussie Busch for $65,000. Busch offered $60,000, and rather than pay the difference he ordered Carlton traded to the last-place Phillies for Rick Wise on Feb. 25, 1972. Carlton went 27-10 with a 1.97 ERA for a Phillies team that won 59 games, one of the greatest pitching seasons ever, and won the first of his four Cy Young Awards unanimously. He retired with 329 wins and 4,136 strikeouts and went into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 1994 with 95.8 percent of the vote.

The record lasted seven months. Tom Seaver, pitching for the same Mets, tied it in April 1970 with 10 strikeouts in a row to end the game. Nolan Ryan tied it in 1974, David Cone in 1991, Randy Johnson twice in 1997. Roger Clemens struck out 20 in 1986, and Kerry Wood and Max Scherzer have matched that since. But Carlton was the first to 19, he did it against the team that was about to win the World Series, and he lost. Feller had lost his 18-strikeout game too. The record has a habit of that.