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Gary Carter died today too soon at the age of 57. It is a sad day for baseball. Hands down the nicest ballplayer I had ever come across. As a kid, our family vacations brought us to St. Petersburg, Florida. We were 10 minutes from the NY Mets Spring Training facility. I was 11 years old back in 1986, the year that the Mets took the championship. I remember spring training very vividly that year. Darryl Strawberry seemed like he was 11 feet high to me. Roger McDowell rode a 10-speed as transportation and donned a hat/ sunglasses as a disquise (we caught him). Dwight Gooden never signed one autograph. Lenny Dykstra and Wally Backman couldn't be bothered. Ed Hearn was doing real estate on the side (he actually handed us his business card). But, my fondest memories were of Gary Carter. Following his rough days behind the plate all day, he would tell us... if you knew how much tape and bandage I had under this uniform, you would buy stock in Johnson & Johnson. Everyone lined up for his autograph. The catchers were typically the last ones to leave. He would come out after unloading his gear in the clubhouse and sign every single autograph until there were no more to sign. If you wanted an autograph on a baseball card or on the sweet spot of a baseball, he would kindly ask for a $25 donation to the Leukemia Society. He loved his Volvo and his golf. He was a superstar, yet the most humble, gracious and generous athlete that I've ever come across.

God Bless the Carter family. The KID was the MAN.

Rest in PeacE Kid. I will never forget that night in 1986 when almsot all of NY and Long Island where i lived had gone to bed at around midnight, because they thought Game 6 was over. all the peope i was did. I stayed up, and lo and behold was jumping and go going crazy when the comeback started and nieghbors and my family all got back up to see what had happened. His at bat was the key one of that inning too....

Rest in Peace Kid.

He managed the OC Flyers to the 2008 championship in a league I'm associated with. He was always saying he was going to finally get a MLB managers job, it was the one of the few remaining dreams he had, that he wanted to accompish, he would say.

This picture says it all... He loved to play the game and was fun to watch play it! Sad day for baseball.