Today I will conclude the review of Ricardo Carty’s historic performance in the 1965-66 season of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League (LVBP), acting as a reinforcement for the Tigres de Aragua.
When Carty participated in his first meeting, on November 14, 1965, the Tigers, who made their debut in the LVBP in that campaign, had a record of 4 wins and 16 losses. From now on, the team would not improve, but not because of the new import of the club from the Dominican Republic, who in that day’s game went 3-2.
That performance marked the beginning of one of the best campaigns by a foreigner in the history of the Venezuelan circuit. Carty’s hits began to make the news, beyond Aragua’s mediocre campaign, which ended in last place in the tournament with a record of 18-42.
In 34 games, the Dominican batted .392, the result of 49 hits in 125 at-bats, including 13 homers, 6 doubles and a triple, drove in 32 runs and scored 26, with 13 strikeouts and 18 walks. Since his home run total came in 125 at-bats, he finished with an average of one home run for every 9.62 times at bat, a home run frequency that no other player in Venezuela has been able to match.
The tough hitter finished as the leader in home runs and second in RBIs, despite only seeing action in 56.7 percent of regular-series games, and led most of his team’s offensive departments. Carty was able to play about 7 games, but an injury took him out of action between December 23, 1965 and January 3, 1966.
The native of San Pedro de Macorís could not opt for the batting crown by not exhausting the necessary official shifts. The prominent Venezuelan journalist Rubén Mijares, recalling the passage of the legendary Creole baseball player through Venezuelan baseball, wrote, “in all the stadiums in which he played, he was the subject of comments among the players due to the distance of his hits, always with a smile on his lips. and great self-confidence.” That was a brief account of Ricardo Carty’s prodigious performance with the Tigres de Aragua in the mid-1960s and the enormous impact he caused with his bat in Venezuelan baseball.
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