A Diamond in the Outfield
CBN.com Trailing three games to two in the 1975 World Series the Boston Red Sox were on the verge of hardball extinction. The autumn-like crispness of a potential championship was quickly withering away like the weathered leaves falling to the ground. Behind 6-3 entering the bottom half of the eighth inning, the team that had not won a championship since a young spindly legged pitcher nicknamed Babe wore a Red Sox uniform, was set to square off against Cincinnati's top relief pitcher Rawley Eastwick.
What was about to happen will forever be etched into the memories of devout baseball fans across the nation, especially those from New England. With two runners on and two out, a frizzy haired, former Cincinnati Red named Bernie Carbo strode to the plate to pinch hit. It was evident he was rusty from a game's worth of inactivity sitting on the bench. He quickly fell behind in the count 0-2 on a pair of swings that are widely considered to be two of the worst cuts in Major League history. Reds third baseman Pete Rose declared Carbo looked like a Little Leaguer learning to hit. Hall of Famer Johnny Bench said that Rose's sentiments were being kind.
At any rate, what was about to happen would change Carbo's life forever. With 35,000 fans in attendance and 162 million more watching on television, he lunged into Eastwick's next pitch driving it into the center field bleachers for a game tying home run. Carbo's blast not only sent the game into extra innings but set the stage for teammate Carlton Fisk's now legendary foul pole waving game winner.
Looking back 28 years later, Carbo's historic at bat in the 1975 Fall Classic serves as a perfect metaphor for his life. For every swing of glory he has had, Carbo has endured more than his fair share of heartbreaking, sometimes ugly misses. But it is a decision he made 13 years ago that has changed his life in a positive way forever.
Bernie Carbo grew up on the streets of Detroit playing baseball, a game that in many ways has defined his life on and off the field.
"I just loved the game," Carbo remembers of his early days in Michigan. "My dad played for the old St. Louis Browns. He played third base in the minor leagues. My dad loved baseball so I was surrounded by the love of the game. From very early on, I just knew I wanted to be a ball player."
Drafted in the first round of the 1965 amateur draft by the Cincinnati Reds, Carbo shuttled through the minor leagues for the better part of five years before being called up late in 1969. He burst onto the Major League scene in 1970, a season that saw him not only earn National League Rookie of the Year honors but also an appearance in the World Series against the Baltimore Orioles.
Following three seasons with the Big Red Machine, a contract dispute resulted in his departure to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1972. Two plus seasons later, Carbo arrived in Boston with a world of talent but a closet full of emotional and substance abuse problems that had been lurking beneath the surface for several years.
"I started drinking beer at 16 and by the time I was 19 I was an alcoholic," says Carbo. "When I got to the big leagues I was making bad choices. I was taking just about any drug you can think of. I was playing with and taking drugs every day. I started smoking marijuana at the age of 21 and doing cocaine at the age of 23."
On the field things could not have been better for the 27 year old Carbo. He had found his niche as the fourth outfielder for the championship contending Boston Red Sox. The team was winning and he felt like he was a key component in the team's success. That was personified by his aforementioned game tying home run in the 1975 World Series, a blast that elevated Carbo to cult hero status in New England, a distinction he still carries today.
While the home run appeared to put Bernie on the Major League fast track, the next five seasons proved to be nothing more than a slow decline out of the game he loved. He never reached the pinnacle of success that many people believed Carbo was destined for. Instead, he became a baseball journeyman, bouncing between five teams including Boston, Milwaukee, St. Louis again, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. In 1980, after a seven game stint with the Pirates, Carbo found himself out of baseball with nothing more than some fond memories and a decade of decadence.
"I had played every game involving smoking, drinking, and taking drugs," relates Carbo. "At the age of 32, I found myself out of baseball and I needed to support my drug habit. I had been making $150,000 dollars a year. The first year I was out of baseball I made $7,000. So, I began selling drugs, living in the streets, just living for the drug."
Carbo floated through the next eight years by associating with people heavily involved in the drug scene while owning and operating a hair salon in the Detroit area. During that span, most of those drug associates were arrested in a sting operation and subsequently sent to jail. All of them but one Bernie Carbo.
"God had a reason for me not going to jail," he says. "Everyone who was in that circle of people was involved in that bust. I was able to step away from it. At this same time, people were telling me I needed to go to church and I knew I needed to change my life."
It all boiled over for Carbo in 1989. In the span of one year, his mother committed suicide, his father died of a heart attack, and his wife divorced him. He had officially hit rock bottom.
"I was contemplating suicide but a couple of my old teammates, Bill Lee and Ferguson Jenkins urged me to get help," remembers Carbo. "So, I ended up in rehab but I didn't want to be there. I was in denial that I even had a problem. I had this counselor who came in and asked me whether I was an alcoholic and a drug addict? I looked at him and said, Wow, I am. He asked me whether I wanted to rid myself of all that pain. He asked, Do you know God? I said, No, I don't know God. He said, Do you know Jesus? I said, No. He said, Well, your life can be changed by taking Jesus into your heart. I said, You don't know who I am. You don't know what kind of life I have lived. I'm not going to be forgiven for what I have done. He said, Oh yes you will. Come sit with me.
Carbo proceeded to spend the next two days with this man discussing the abysmal mess that his life had become. But something special happened on that second day.
"I prayed to take Jesus into my life," shares Carbo, who says he was diagnosed as bi-polar, manic depressive, and addicted to everything in the world. "I asked him when I was leaving what his name was and he said the name to remember was Jesus. Then, he handed me my first Bible. Of the 700 people in that hospital with me I ended up with a guy who could look past the crud, the dirt, and the filth, the adultery, the drugs, alcohol, and the lying. He saw my heart as God sees my heart."
His trip to rehab was not only fruitful in developing a better understanding of Christianity but also in mapping out a blueprint for his life. Little did Carbo know but this trip would be career changing as well.
"When I got out of rehab after three months, I was walking to my car and God said to me, You are going to be a servant of mine. I said to Him, Well, Ive only known you for three months. He said, Just make it simple. Just tell people about Jesus."
Carbo was certainly obedient. On the very day of his rehab release he was approached by a gentleman named Carl Schilling who proposed that Bernie become an evangelist and create his own ministry designed to teach baseball and tell children about Jesus. Thus, Diamond Club Ministries was born.
But like so many recovering drug addicts, Carbo had a relapse just 14 months later. Despite his newfound faith and his willingness to serve Him, he had stumbled once again. But this time there was a difference. He met a woman (who later became his second wife) who told him that God still loved him no matter how much he had regressed. She explained that God was a loving and merciful God. Previously, Bernie believed that because of this relapse God would not forgive him and thus never love him again.
It was quite easy for Carbo to believe these notions considering he had never heard about the word of God and the atonement of Christ's blood until he entered the rehab clinic for the first time.
"Because my parents had never heard the Word, and not knowing the Word, and not knowing salvation and how to receive it, I had no idea (what is was to be a Christian)," explains Carbo. "At the age of 45, when I took Jesus into my life I didn't know what salvation was. I had no idea. That was never told to me."
Since then, he has never looked back. For the better part of the last decade, Carbo has spoken to thousands of children and adults from around the world about the simple message of receiving Jesus into their hearts. From Owls Head, Maine to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, he has shared about his life, the mistakes he has made, but most importantly the all powerful love of Jesus Christ.
"My greatest thrill of being an evangelist is that God can use a person like me to tell people about God, about Jesus, about salvation, and be able to plant seeds," Carbo shares. "God will bring those people to Him by putting other people in their path to be able to pray with these people, to take Jesus into their lives. My biggest thrill is being able to plant seeds. When God enables me to pray with someone to bring Jesus Christ into their lives, that is better than any World Series that has ever been played."
For someone whose first Little League, Major League, and World Series hits were home runs, Bernie Carbo will be the first to tell you that the greatest hit he ever got was the day he connected with Jesus Christ.
For more information on Bernie Carbo's Diamond Club Ministries please contact:
Diamond Club Ministries
6352 Woodside Drive South
Theodore, Alabama 36582
(251) 653-5621
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