Steven Norman Carlton (born December 22, 1944), nicknamed "Lefty", is a former Major League Baseball left-handed pitcher. He pitched from 1965 to 1988 for six different teams in his career, but it is his time with the Philadelphia Phillies where he received his greatest acclaim as a professional and won four Cy Young Awards. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994. Carlton has the second-most lifetime strikeouts of any left-handed pitcher (4th overall), and the second-most lifetime wins of any left-handed pitcher (11th overall).

Carlton slumped in 1973, losing 20 games. The media's questioning of his unusual training techniques led to an acrimonious relationship between them and Carlton. In 1976, upon the advice of his lawyer Edward L. Wolf, decided to sever all ties with the media, and refused to answer press questions for the rest of his career with the Phillies. This reached a point where, in 1981, while the Mexican rookie Fernando Valenzuela was achieving stardom with the Los Angeles Dodgers, a reporter remarked, "The two best pitchers in the National League don't speak English: Fernando Valenzuela and Steve Carlton."  Media charges of bigotry and anti-Semitism  In 1994 he agreed to an interview with writer Pat Jordan at his home in Durango, Colorado. The result was the story "Thin Mountain Air" in the April 1994 issue of Philadelphia magazine. This article was noted by the New York Times as being the source of numerous claims about Steve Carlton's political and social beliefs: "According to Pat Jordan, the writer of the article, Carlton alternately said that the world is ruled or controlled by the Russian and United States Governments, which 'fill the air with low-frequency sound waves,' the Elders of Zion, British intelligence agencies, '12 Jewish bankers meeting in Switzerland' and 'a committee of 300 which meets at a roundtable in Rome.' Not only that, but Carlton also charges, according to Jordan, that President Clinton has 'a black son' he won't acknowledge and that the AIDS virus was created at a secret Maryland biological warfare laboratory to get rid of gays and blacks.'" This same New York Times article notes that teammate Tim McCarver defended Carlton against charges of being a bigot and an anti-Semite, though he acknowledged "If he's guilty of anything, it's believing some of the material he reads. Does he become confused with his reading about radical things? Yes. I've told him that. Does that translate into him being anti-Semitic? No."

did carlton enjoy speaking about himself?