Tony Carullo shares inside stories from Mets' visiting clubhouse with The Post after 51-year career

New York Post

8 hours ago

While serving as the Mets' visiting clubhouse manager from 1976 until his retirement in 2019, Tony Carullo warmly welcomed baseball's legends of the game with his unmistakable New Yawk accent. He will be honored by the team with the Hall of Fame Achievement Award on July 19. Post columnist Steve Serby tracked down Carullo down for his weekly Q&A on a golf course near his Port St. Lucie, Fla., home.
Q: What was your boyhood dream?
A: I would have loved to have played baseball. I was a halfway decent baseball player [second baseman], but I never got to play on my high school team or anything because I started workin' at the ballpark. I didn't even tryout for my high school baseball team or anything. All my heroes were baseball players and football players. Growing up in New Yawk [Astoria], Mickey Mantle was my guy. But I loved Yogi Berra, too. And Whitey Ford because he came from Astoria. I grew up a Yankee fan, I didn't become a Met fan until like the mid-'60s when the Yankees went bad.
Q: Did you ever meet Mickey or Yogi or Whitey?
A: Yogi used to come around all the time. I was workin' when Yogi was a coach with the Mets, then he became the manager. I did get to meet a lot of the old-time Yankees that I grew up watchin' at Old-Timers' games. The Yankees played at Shea for two seasons. Even when the Mets were havin' their Old-Timers games, they would bring those guys back. Mickey and Whitey, funny guys. They could tell some stories.
Q: What was it like meeting Mickey for the first time?
A: I was in awe. He'd have a couple of wisecracks like, 'Hey, what are you lookin' at (laugh)?'
Q: What was Yogi like?
A: Yogi was the best. He worked for the Houston Astros when Doc McMullen owned the team. He used to come around and see [Craig] Biggio and [Jeff Bagwell] and all those guys. He'd always come around the clubhouse. My father was a handyman, my father could fix anything. But one time my dryer broke in the clubhouse. And I called up my father, he came out to fix the dryer. And Yogi just happened to be there that day. My father and Yogi sat down for probably an hour, just bull–ittin.' And my father till the day he died, that was one of his best days, just sittin' there talkin' to Yogi.
9 Derek Jeter (l. to r.), Tony Carullo and Joe Torre are all pictured.
Courtesy of Tony Carullo
Q: What drove you?
A: Tryin' to be a good son to my parents, ya know? I had great parents that I never wanted to disappoint, so I was good in school, I didn't roll with a rough crowd. My parents [Cleto and Lillian] are what motivated me.
Q: What did they think when you became visiting batboy in 1969?
A: They were both very proud. They wanted me to stay in school. They said, 'Yeah you can do it, as long as it don't affect your schoolwork.' I never forget them sayin' that (laugh). I was a freshman in high school [Mater Christi].
Q: You were a batboy for how long?
A: I was batboy through the '73 season. About halfway through the season, [clubhouse manager] Mickey Rendine told me he wanted me to stay in the clubhouse all the time, he didn't want me goin' out on the field anymore. I was OK with that. … After the '73 season, I worked one game in the playoffs against the Reds, and I worked the first game as the Oakland batboy when the Mets played Oakland in the World Series. I was the Cincinnati batboy when Pete Rose and Bud Harrelson had the fight. I remember Sparky Anderson took everybody into the clubhouse, they were throwin' stuff at Pete Rose out in the outfield. I remember I was sittin' in the dugout — the only way I got in the dugout during a playoff game (laugh). … I remember the Met batboys were in their dugout like, 'Wanna fight? Wanna fight (laugh)?' I said, 'No, I ain't goin' out there (laugh).' I just stayed in the dugout.
Q: You got to know Pete Rose a little bit?
A: Yeah, oh yeah. I knew 'em all. I used to say every team has a couple of good guys, a couple of guys that I don't like to deal with, but 90 percent of the guys were just good, regular guys.
9 Mets former visiting clubhouse manager Tony Carullo
Mets/X
Q: You told your pal and Mets PR legend Jay Horwitz about the time you were in the Red Sox clubhouse for Game 6 of the 1986 World Series at Shea.
A: There's not much I remember anymore (laugh), but that's one game I'll never forget. Boston thought they had the game won. We were all ready for a postgame celebration. I can remember Bob Costas was in the clubhouse that day. They had the trophy in the clubhouse, we had the plastic up around the clubhouse. Boston didn't bring any champagne with them, so we had to go down to the Met clubhouse and get their champagne, ice it up in the clubhouse. The platforms were in the clubhouse, TV cameras were in there. Haywood Sullivan and Mrs. Yawkey, they were outside the clubhouse. The Mets started scorin' runs, and I think in five minutes we had that clubhouse cleared out when the Mets tied that game up. The hats and the T-shirts that we had hangin' up in every locker were all down. It was like you didn't even know that it was up.
Q: Did you know Bill Buckner at all?
A: Not really. I knew him for quite a few years when he was with the Dodgers. The thing about the visiting clubhouse, you come in for three days and then they're gone, ya know? You really never get really close to those guys.
Q: After the 1975 season you replaced Rendine after two years as his assistant when he left to work for the Jets. Do you remember 1976 Opening Day?
A: I was lucky enough to be workin' before the players started makin' a lot of money. I caught the end of that era where baseball was … I like to say it was simple. I remember players havin' to work jobs in the wintertime because they didn't make enough money playin' baseball, if you could imagine. One of the things that the old-school equipment managers, like Mickey Rendine, he couldn't grasp the fact that you had to start doin' more for these players, like they became more demanding. And one of the demanding things was food in the clubhouse. He didn't grasp that. They would get pizza one day, fried chicken the next day, and hot dogs on getaway day. So my mother was a good cook, she would make the postgame meals. She would make lasagna and meatballs and sausage, or she would go out and buy steaks and make steaks, and the players appreciated that.
Q: You got along well with the managers and coaches.
A: I would just like to go into the manager's office, sit down and just bull–it with them. Guys like Joe Torre, I spent most of my time in his office with everybody else that used to be in his office. And he didn't mind me being in there. Bobby Cox, Jimmy Leyland, [Tony] La Russa, those were the guys I liked to sit down and talk with … and smoke a cigar with back in the day when you could smoke (laugh). And Dusty Baker was always awesome with me. He used to go up to Sylvia's [in Harlem] and he'd always bring sweet potato pie (laugh), he used to bring a whole bunch of 'em over and he always had one for me. He has his own wines now, and he knows I was a wine collector. And I see him last year in spring training, and he asked me for my address, and next thing I know I had a case of wine.
9 Former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda at spring training 1996.
N.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg
Q: What about Tommy Lasorda?
A: Lasorda was a funny guy. He did a lot of quirky things, especially when it came to food. Tommy Lasorda used to get bags of food from the Carnegie Deli. He had a cheesecake or some kinda cake. And he told me, he says, 'I'm gonna put this in your refrigerator, and don't let anybody touch it, I'm gonna take it on the airplane with me.' It was on a getaway day. One of the players went in and ate the cake. So, at the and of the game, they're out there gettin' on the bus, Lasorda does not ask me for the cake. So I say, 'Oh my god, thank God!' They were gone. About a good 20 minutes later, here comes Billy DeLury, the traveling' secretary runnin' into the clubhouse. 'Tony, Tommy forgot his cake.' Billy DeLury had to go back to the bus and tell Tommy that somebody ate the cake. When they landed in Los Angeles, Billy DeLury called me up and he said, 'Tommy mother-f'd me all the way to Los Angeles (laugh).' They were on their way to the airport, Lasorda made the bus turn around and come back to Shea Stadium.
Q: Joe Maddon?
A: He was an old-school guy in a modern era. The last year that he was managin', I'm a big opera fan, so I had a cup from the Metropolitan Opera that I used to drink coffee out of. The last time that Maddon came in, he asked me, he says, 'Can I have this cup?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'But you need to sign it.' And I signed it for him, and he took it with him.
Q: Jack McKeon?
A: He smoked a cigar in his office even when they told him he couldn't smoke. He didn't care. And it was good because I liked to smoke with him (laugh).
Q: Your best George Steinbrenner story.
A: Do you remember we had that flood in the clubhouse during the [2000] World Series? First game that they played at Shea Stadium, Steinbrenner was concerned that the players, all they had were stools in the lockers at the time. There were no couches in the clubhouses. So Steinbrenner was in the clubhouse, he said, 'These guys, they gotta sit on stools? And where's the couch?' Steinbrenner actually stayed in the clubhouse the whole game. I had a couple of tables in the clubhouse. The next day he sent over those locker chairs that the Yankees had and he sent over a couple of couches. We had that flood in the clubhouse? By the end of the game, you didn't even know that there was a flood in the clubhouse. The stadium operations crew came in, they got all the water out, they dried it up, they put down runners for the players to walk on. … Steinbrenner was so impressed, when the Yankees won the World Series, he got ahold of me and said, 'How many guys you got working in here?' I said, 'I got five kids workin' with me.' He was very happy, he handed me an envelope with a couple of bucks in it and said, 'This is for you and your guys. I'm really impressed with the way you guys took care of things with the flood and everything.' And he started to walk away and he kinda came back to me, he got me in a headlock and he says to me, 'You see these couches over here? I want you to keep 'em. You know they're real leather,' he told me (laugh). The next day was the truck day to pick up all the Yankees' equipment. I told the guy, 'Steinbrenner wanted me to keep the couches, but the ballpark people don't want me to keep 'em,' and I had to put 'em back on the truck. The ballpark operations people didn't want me to keep Steinbrenner's couches. But the next year I got couches in the clubhouse, they got me some nice couches (laugh). They bought some new couches for me because I told 'em that Steinbrenner wanted couches in the clubhouse. The Mets bought me couches.
9 George Steinbrenner after the 2000 World Series.
HELAYNE SEIDMAN
Q: Did you have any dealings with Derek Jeter?
A: He was always classy. I never tried to bother the guys, if they needed somethin,' they knew where to find me.
Q: Bob Murphy?
A: There were years where Bob Murphy used to come down and do a show in the clubhouse. He used to go in my old laundry room at Shea Stadium and interview players. And he used to set the little tape recorder on top of the washing machine. And there were many times I hear Bob go, 'And here, high atop the washing machine in the visitor's clubhouse, I'm here talkin' with' so-and-so. Bob probably asked me 10 times, 'Tony, you're gonna do it with me this year?' I said, 'No Bob, I'm sorry.' He wanted to talk to me durin' a rain delay, I can remember (laugh).
Q: Tom Seaver's return to Shea as a visitor.
A: It was nice havin' him in the clubhouse. You had to take care of him. Seaver was so well-respected, ya know? I was happy to have him in there, ya know? I'd do anything for Seaver. Then years later, after he started his winery, whenever he came back we'd talk about wine, I was a bit of a wine collector at the time.
9 Willie Mays of the New York Mets poses for this portrait during batting practice in 1973.
Getty Images
Q: Did you have any dealings with Willie Mays?
A: I used to say that Willie Mays gave me the best tip I ever got. When I started workin' with the Mets, I was makin' 5 dollars and 40 cents — a day. Willie Mays had me runnin' around for him for a couple of days. He gave me 50 bucks one day when he was walkin' out the door.
Q: How many of those '86 Mets did you get to know well?
A: A few. [Lee] Mazzilli was always a really good friend of mine. He had an old Porsche and he was gonna sell it, and I bought his car. I still have it, it's still down here in my garage in Port St. Lucie … a 1978 Porsche.
Q: How many miles on it?
A: It has 46,000 miles on it. I think I gave him $11,000 for it at the time. And he still asks me, he says, 'I want my car back (laugh).' I don't even know how long I have it, maybe 30 years now, probably.
Q: Gary Carter?
A: He was the best. He knew I liked [Frank] Sinatra. So he would always want to dance with me in the clubhouse. He would want to drape himself over me and dance to the Sinatra song. He would tell one of the kids to queue up — it was 'Fly Me to the Moon' (laugh). And the kid would queue it up, and when I would have my back turned or I would be doin' something, they would just play it on the CD player or the cassette deck, whatever it was at that time. And as I soon as I heard the first chords to that song, I would literally just jump around and look and see where Carter was 'cause I knew he was just about to jump on me and want to dance with me (laugh).
9 Chipper Jones is welcomed at the plate after being driven home by Andre Galarraga's three-run homer in 2000.
N.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg
Q: Chipper Jones?
A: When he was retirin,' they asked him, 'What are you gonna miss about comin' to New York?' It was somethin' had to do with the fact he said, 'Ah, the one thing I'm gonna miss is Tony Carullo said, 'Hey Chippah!' I used to call him Chippah (laugh).
Q: Chase Utley?
A: A lot of Met fans probably don't like him, but he was always good to us clubhouse guys.
Q: Albert Pujols?
A: In spring training, the teams used to set up food for after the game. The Cardinals, being that they just came from down the road in Jupiter, they didn't have any food, they figured the guys would just get on the bus and go. Pujols used to tell me what to get and he used to pay for the spread for all the players after the game. And when Pujols wasn't on the road, [Yadier] Molina would pay for the spread.
Q: John Kruk?
A: (Laugh) One of the funniest men I ever met. When you say John Kruk, I smile.
Q: Lenny Dykstra?
A: (Laugh) Another guy, I smile. He was unique. He treated us really good in the clubhouse, except when he was spittin' tobacco on the floor (laugh).
9 Lenny Dykstra of the Philadelphia Phillies makes a practice swing before game six of the
1993 World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays at the SkyDome on October 23,1993 in Toronto, Canada.
MLB Photos via Getty Images
Q: Rickey Henderson?
A: I used to love the fact that he always talked to himself in the third person. We used to get a kick out of that.
Q: Willie Stargell?
A: He was the first guy that I used to have to go and buy wine for, and he would send me with some very specific wines that he wanted. And I would go from one liquor store to another tryin' to find these wines for Willie Stargell. He got me goin' on really good wines.
Q: Dave Parker?
A: He was loud and bombastic. He used to get on [me] quite a bit — in a harmless way. Ya know the old adage that they get on you if they like you? And if they don't talk to you at all, if they don't bother with ya, then you know there might be somethin' wrong. I was always very happy when these guys used to get all over me, which they did quite often, ya know? I knew that was their way of showin' to me that they liked me.
Q: Were there any other stars that you either liked or remember being in awe of?
A: Bein' a fan of baseball growing up, I used to like the Old-Timers' games more than anything. The guys that I was actually in the clubhouse workin' with, not too many guys impressed me, I was more impressed with the old Yankees that came back. Casey Stengel. What a funny sonavabitch he was … the old Dodgers, ya know? Jackie Robinson … the way he carried himself. The way he was respected. … Satchel Paige I saw. You only read about these guys — and here they were, in the locker room with ya. Wow. Those are the guys that impressed me. … My mother was a huge Brooklyn Dodger fan. I showed up at home one day after an Old-Timers' game, I had Pee Wee Reese and Carl Furillo and all these guys on a baseball, all these old Dodgers on a baseball … Duke Snider … Carl Erskine … they all signed a baseball for me. My mother was just 'Wow, Pee Wee Reese, I love Pee Wee Reese!' That was great.
Q: The 9/11 game?
A: That's another game I'll never forget. I think even the Atlanta Braves were happy about the way it ended, ya know? Even the Braves ended up pretty emotional over it.
9 Tony Carulo, (c.) is the long-time former visiting clubhouse manager for the Mets.
Mets/X
Q: Three dinner guests?
A: Sinatra, Mozart, Alexander Hamilton.
Q: Favorite movie?
A: 'Casablanca.'
Q: Favorite actor?
A: Humphrey Bogart.
Q:.Favorite actress?
A: Meryl Streep.
Q: Favorite singer/entertainer?
A: Sinatra's on all the time in my car. I don't even change the channel.
Q: Favorite meal?
A: A bone-in ribeye, garlic mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. If I was on Death Row, that would be my meal.
Q: Favorite New York pizza?
A: Amore was my go-to while livin' in College Point, but if you want the best pizza that I've ever had? King Umberto makes a pizza in there that is unbelievable — they call it the Metro, it's like a big rectangular shape pizza but the dough is the lightest dough that you're ever gonna eat. It's fluffy. It's just so good.
Q: What are you doing these days?
A: I'm learnin' how to play golf. Let me tell ya, if I have one regret, it's the fact that I never played golf until about a year ago. Now I can't get enough of it. … I got a 25 handicap and they like playin' with me because I get a lot of strokes when I play. I get a stroke a hole and some holes I get two strokes, so they like playin' with me. And we play for money. [In May] I think I made six bucks. For June I lost four bucks (laugh).
Q: What's the best part of your game?
A: Smokin' a cigar and havin' a beer, maybe (laugh)? Eighteen holes, I'm good for three cigars.
Q: You thought it was Steve Cohen from Rawlings calling to tell you about your Hall of Fame Achievement Award.
A: Then a couple of days later, I got a call about the naming of the [Tony Carullo Visiting] Clubhouse, also. Totally unexpected. But I'm very appreciative of it. It was 51 years. I should be thanking them for lettin' me stay there. I should be thankin' the Mets for giving me the opportunity to stay there, ya know? And like I said, it was somethin' that I woulda done for nuthin.'
Q: David Wright's jersey retirement will be on the same day you're being honored.
A: If you want to talk about one of the good guys in baseball, David Wright. One of the very best. I'm completely floored by the fact that I'm gonna be there with him. I totally don't deserve to be there. I'm honored to be there. Not sure I deserve to be there. I don't need to be even the smallest distraction from his day.
9 Mets manager Carlos Mendoza speaking with former Mets David Wright (left) and Mike Piazza during the Mets workout at London Stadium in 2024.
Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post
Q: Will you be emotional that day?
A: I probably will be, yeah. My family'll be there. I don't get emotional too often. Maybe watchin' an old movie I'll get emotional (laugh). I'll probably be emotional, yeah.
Q: Who from your family will be there?
A: My sister, my brother-in-law, my niece, a bunch of cousins and some friends, aunts. The Mets were nice enough, they gave 'em a suite.
Q: What are you most proud of about your career?
A: I'm most proud of the fact that I lasted there a long time. … I kept my head down, and I kept my mouth shut. And I didn't have any controversy followin' me around, ya know? I was happy to just show up, do my job and go home. And be proud of what I did. And I was able to earn a lot of respect from people that I worked with, people that I've dealt with over the years. I had a lot of clubhouse guys that instilled a lot of … a lot of knowledge came my way from them. Pete Sheehy, the Butch Yatkemans, the Kawano brothers, Bernie Stowe, John Hallahan, Mike Murphy. There were so many good guys that I got to know that gave a lot of advice. … Pete Sheehy was in the Yankee clubhouse every day at Shea Stadium. I would go down there all the time and just sit there and talk to him. He'd sit at a table in the middle of the clubhouse and I would just talk to Pete Sheehy about the Yankees. The old Yankees. … Other people in the ballpark, they used to come to me and say, 'Hey Tony, could you get ballpark operations to help me with this?' because they knew if I asked, they would do it. If other people asked, maybe they wouldn't do it as fast. So I had a lot of respect like that. … When I started workin' there, Lou Cucuzza [Sr.] was the umpire's room attendant at Shea Stadium. He became a good friend. He always watched out for me. I remember I was drivin' to work on the Grand Central Parkway one day and I got a flat tire. Lou Cucuzza was the guy who came out to help me fix my flat tire. Lou Cucuzza would have done anything for anybody. I'm really sorry that he passed. … I'm very appreciative to Steve and Alex Cohen, even though I've never worked for them. I worked for Mrs. [Joan] Payson, who was a grand lady, she was just a nice person. I worked for her kids, the de Roulets. And I worked for Nelson Doubleday, and Nelson was a fun guy. But more than anything, I would thank the Wilpon family because the Wilpon family really treated me with a lot of respect. They left me alone, they let me do what I needed to do, and I respect them. They were always good to me.
Q: What do you think you would have done if you didn't have this career you had?
A: I woulda been a businessman. I went to Baruch, I got a business degree. When Mickey Rendine left, he said to me, 'If they offer you this job, take it, but stay in school, don't make this job your life.' Mickey gave me a lot of good advice that I took — that's one advice I'm glad I didn't follow. I'm glad I stayed in baseball.