leitch:

Gary Carter, Hall of Fame catcher for the Mets and Expos, has malignant brain tumors. I had the good fortune to spend three full evenings with Carter filming The MSG Network’s “The Lineup,” and found him to be cheerful, friendly and full of opinions. He appeared to be a little befuddled as to why I was on the panel with him, but then again, I was a little befuddled by that as well.

One thing I learned from Carter during those two days: Baseball players are obscenely hyper-competitive, irrationally so, even decades after they’ve retired. We all went out for dinner and drinks before we went on set, and I mentioned to Carter that, because I was a Cardinals fan as a kid, I once foolishly thought St. Louis catcher Darrell Porter was a better player than he was. (I have a thing for Darrell Porter.) Now, Carter was a dramatically better player than Porter; the difference between Carter and Porter as a ballplayer is roughly analogous to the difference between Porter and, oh, Senator Rand Paul. That Carter was better than Porter is an obvious fact, which is thought my youthful subjectivity would be amusing to Carter.

It wasn’t. Carter just couldn’t believe it. “Darrell Porter? DARRELL PORTER? Are you crazy?” I explained to him that I was, you know, a seven year old Cardinals fan. He still couldn’t get over it. He honestly brought it up every hour or so. “Darrell Porter. Darrell freaking Porter. Were you high?”

I found this impressive, if a little sad. Gary Carter is one of the best catchers in baseball history, and he couldn’t get over the fact that a seven-year-old kid once liked the catcher for his favorite team more than he liked Carter. I guess you probably need that drive to be great.

Best wishes to him and his family during this difficult time.

If a comedian has a room filled with people laughing their asses off and spots a single person in the crowd with an indifferent reaction, that comedian will focus all of their insecurities on that one person, forgetting everyone else in that room.

I think Carter’s reaction is a combination of the competitiveness that Will describes above and the same emotional trigger you see from performers and entertainers.

I’m also jealous Will got to spend an evening talking baseball with one of my childhood idols.