By that time, according to Carbo, about 80 percent of his teammates were aware he was using drugs. As for Zimmer, Carbo says, “When somebody loves you, like Don loved me and wanted the best for me, I don’t think he wanted to believe it.”
“I wish I hadn’t failed Don Zimmer twice,” Carbo says. “I wish I would’ve been more like a son to him where he could say I was a good man.”
After Zimmer became Red Sox manager, he successfully advocated for Carbo’s reacquisition from Milwaukee. But in 1978, Carbo’s chronic lateness and failure to play to his capability became too much to handle. “I had to get rid of him,” Zimmer says, “and it broke my heart.”
“When I run him out of there, I didn’t know he was on drugs,” says Zimmer. “He was late to the park and he was there, but he wasn’t ‘there.'” Zimmer also says, “Bernie would never try to hurt anybody, he was never malicious. He was a great kid.”
Carbo says Zimmer would often ask him if he was OK and Carbo would always reply that he was, no matter the truth. “Sometimes,” Carbo says, “when he didn’t play me, he didn’t want me to make a fool of myself.”
When Zimmer was told that Carbo had described being in solitude and in tears, hours after his momentous Game 6 home run, Zimmer said, “It’s very sad, but I would’ve thought that we were close enough that if he were alone, he would’ve called me,” adding that he would’ve come to console Carbo.
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