Blue Jays, Tribe connected through Carter

When you hear Joe Carter’s name this time of year, your mind drifts back to that Bill Mazeroski moment that quite literally every Little Leaguer dreams of one day doing. Hit a World Series-winning home run, as Carter did for the Blue Jays on Oct. 23, 1993, and — shocker — people are going to remember you for it.

“Probably the longest I’ve gone without somebody mentioning it,” Carter said Tuesday, “is two weeks. Because I was in Europe on vacation. Two weeks is the longest. But in the country? Nah. I can’t go two days without someone telling me exactly where they were and what they were doing.”

Game Date Time Matchup TV Gm 1 Oct. 14 8 p.m. TOR @ CLE TBS/SNET/RDS Gm 2 Oct. 15 TBD TOR @ CLE TBS/SNET/RDS Gm 3 Oct. 17 TBD CLE@ TOR TBS/SNET/RDS Gm 4 Oct. 18 TBD CLE @ TOR TBS/SNET/RDS *Gm 5 Oct. 19 TBD CLE@ TOR TBS/SNET/RDS *Gm 6 Oct. 21 TBD TOR @ CLE TBS/SNET/RDS *Gm 7 Oct. 22 TBD TOR @ CLE TBS/SNET/RDS *- If necessary | All times listed ET  • Complete postseason coverageShop for postseason gear: Blue Jays | Indians

Carter, now 56 and living in Leawood, Kan., is of course proud to be associated with that truly awesome outcome. But this October, on the precipice of the American League Championship Series that begins Friday night (8 p.m. ET, TBS and Sportsnet) at Progressive Field, we can actually associate him with something other than that singular swing.

We can associate him with the Blue Jays’ ALCS opponent.

The Indians provided Carter’s coming-of-age. Cleveland was the place where Carter, having arrived in the 1984 trade that sent Rick Sutcliffe to the Cubs, found his big league footing with the opportunity afforded him by manager Pat Corrales and first asserted himself as a star.

The greatest moment of Carter’s career is pretty much cemented in our minds. But the greatest season of Carter’s career actually came seven years earlier, on a Cleveland club that finished fifth in the AL East.

Carter nearly became the answer to a trivia question that year — albeit one substantially more obscure than, “Which two players ended a Fall Classic with a blast?” In 1986, he finished one homer, one triple and one stolen base shy of becoming the only player in history to accomplish all of the following in a single season: 30 home runs, 30 steals, 10 triples, a .300 …

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