Born in Panama, Rod Carew became an icon of baseball in the United States, starting from his Rookie of the Year performance in 1967 and into the peak of his career in the 1970s. Carew, who played 19 seasons in the majors with the Minnesota Twins and California Angels, is considered one of the greatest contact hitters of all time.
How great? He led the American League in batting average seven times and all of Major League Baseball four times, including hitting .388 in 1977. His number of batting titles are second only to Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner. He also led the league in hits three times, triples twice and scoring once. He became the 16th member of the 3,000-hit club in 1985 at the age of 39.
But his manager in Minnesota, Gene Mauch, had already summed up Carew’s career during his amazing run in 1977: “All he has to do is retire and wait for the Hall of Fame to call.”
Which they did. Carew was a first-ballot inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991.
Rod Carew’s Early Life
Rodney Cline Carew was born on a train traveling through Panama on Oct. 1, 1945. His mother, Olga Teoma, named him after a doctor on the train who got her through the delivery, Dr. Rodney Cline. A nurse on board the train, Margaret Allen, also came to her aid. Teoma named her the baby’s godmother.
In his biography released in 2020, One Tough Out, Carew revealed that he grew up in a house where his alcoholic father frequently beat both him and his mother. He said in an interview that he almost killed his drunken father with a machete one night, but his mother pleaded with him not to, shouting at him to “remember baseball.” Carew backed down. “Baseball was the one thing that kept me from killing my father,” he said.
His uncle, a gym teacher at a local school, had gotten Carew into baseball. From a young age, it was clear he excelled on the diamond. What he would have done with that talent in Panama is unknown, because his mother had other plans. She wanted to get away from her abusive husband.
With the help of Allen, who got the necessary paperwork together, Olga Teoma immigrated to New York City, settling in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan. She brought two of her children – Rod was one of them, because Allen was his godmother. It changed his life.
Sandlot Baseball in New York
Carew spent high school not playing baseball. Instead, he worked a job as a clerk in a grocery store and went to school. He also learned to speak English. However, he eventually started playing with the New York Cavaliers, a sandlot team. While playing there, the father of another player saw him play. That man, Monroe Katz, told Herb Stein, a scout for the Twins, about Carew. Katz was what is known as a “bird dog” scout, a volunteer position where it’s possible to get a small fee if a club becomes interested in a player you tell them about.
Through this unlikely chain of events – an abusive father, a determined mother, a helpful nurse godmother, immigrating to the U.S, a bird dog scout who happens to be the father of a sandlot baseball teammate – Rod Carew went from a kid born on a train in Panama to on the radar of a Major League baseball team in Minnesota. He was just 18 years old.
The Twins knew straight away they had found a rare talent. After one tryout, the Twins agreed to give Carew a contract after he graduated high school in 1964.
Rod Carew’s Minor League Career
Carew spent two years in the minors honing his game. In 1964, he played second base with the Melbourne Twins in the Cocoa Rookie League, hitting .325 in 37 games. In 1965, he hit .303 and stole 52 bases for the Class A team in Orlando. In 1966, he played with the Class A team in Wilson, North Carolina.
In 1967, the Twins brought Carew up to the big league club. He joined a team loaded with talent, including Jim Kaat, Tony Olivia and Harmon Killebrew.
Carew’s Major League Career
Carew made his debut on April 11, 1967, on the road vs. the Baltimore Orioles. In a sign of things to come, he got a single in his first at-bat. Facing big league pitching for the first time, Carew hit .292 and won Rookie of the Year in the American League.
He also got named to the All-Star Team, his first of 18 consecutive years as an All-Star. In 1969, he won his first of seven batting titles, hitting .332. That season also marked the beginning of 15 consecutive years of hitting over .300.
Carew did other amazing things, too. In a game on May 9, 1969, he stole every base after earning a walk, only the 20th time that had ever happened in the American League. Carew went on to steal home seven times in the 1969 season. On May 20, 1970, Carew became the first player in Twin history to hit for the cycle.
Carew’s biggest year came in 1977, when he hit .388 for the Twins. By then, though, he was ready to move to a team that might have a better chance at a championship. The Twins had not made the playoffs since making the American League Championship Series in 1969 and 1970. Both times, the Baltimore Orioles swept them.
Knowing he would leave when his contract ended, the Twins traded Carew in 1979 to the California Angels. However, while Carew’s play stayed exceptional, the Angels also were not able to get into the World Series. They lost in the ALCS in 1979 to Baltimore and in 1982 to the Milwaukee Brewers.
Carew left baseball after the 1985 season, settling in Southern California. He later became a batting coach for the Angels for nine seasons and the Brewers for two seasons. During his time with the Angels, he helped develop many of their great young hitters of that era, including Tim Salmon, Garrett Anderson and Jim Edmonds. The Angels retired his number, 29, in 1986. The Twins did the same in 1987.
In 2016, the American League officially renamed its batting champion award after Carew.
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