Carroll Hardy passed away on August 9, 2020 in Highland Ranch, Colorado from complications of dementia. Hardy was born in Sturgis, South Dakota and after graduating from high school attended the University of Colorado.
As a Colorado Buffalo Hardy was a star in football, baseball and track. In football he scored a touchdown in his first carry as a freshman in 1951 and scored three touchdowns in his final game in 1954. When his collegiate football career ended he had rushed for 1,999 yards averaging 6.87 yards a carry which is a record that still stands. In baseball his .392 average tops the leaderboard to this day and in track he excelled in the 100-yard dash and high jump. Hardy was an incredible athlete earning 10 letters at Colorado.
After graduating from college Hardy was a third round draft choice of the NFL San Francisco 49’ers. Prior to playing in the NFL however; Hardy also signed with the MLB Cleveland Indians and played in their minor league system during the summer and then in the fall played football for the 49’ers. He played football in the NFL in 1955 as a halfback/receiver and scored four touchdowns in his ten game NFL career and played with Y. A. Tittle, Joe Perry and Hugh McElhenny.
Hardy got off to a hot start for the AAA Indianapolis Indians in 1956, hitting .385 in 21 games, before he was called off to military service. When he returned to professional sports in 1958, he was a full-time baseball player. Hardy, an outfielder debuted with the Indians on April 15, 1958 and walked in his pinch-hitting appearance. A low batting average kept Hardy from attaining a regular position in the majors and in June of 1960 he was traded to Boston where he played until the 1962 season ended and he was traded to the Houston Col .45s. It was with the Red Sox when Hardy became a trivia question for the ages when he pinch-hit for Ted Williams. People should also know that he also pinch-hit for HOF Carl Yastrzemski and Roger Maris. Here is what the New York Times wrote about that.
Carroll Hardy, a reserve outfielder for the Boston Red Sox, was on the visitors’ bench in Baltimore late in the 1960 season when Ted Williams, the team’s megastar, fouled a pitch off his right foot during his first at-bat against the Orioles. Hobbled, he left the field. Hardy was told by Mike Higgins, known as Pinky, the Red Sox manager, to pinch-hit for Williams. Hardy proceeded to loft a soft line drive to the pitcher, Skinny Brown, who threw to first base for a double play. It was an ordinary play in a forgettable season for the Red Sox, except for one detail. No one had ever — ever — pinch-hit for Teddy Ballgame.
New York Times – August 12, 2020
The Minnesota Twins traded minor league OF/1B Joseph Christian to the Houston Astros in April 1965 to acquire Hardy and sent him to their AAA Denver Bears team where he spent all of 1965 and 1966 seasons and most of 1967 before getting called up by the Twins in September. Hardy appeared in just eleven games almost always as a pinch-hitter and finished the season with 3 hits in 8 AB’s with one home run and two RBI. The home run was off Yankee starter Fritz Peterson in a losing cause at the Met. Hardy apparently started the 1968 season at Denver again but records only show him appearing in one game before retiring as an active player. Later in 1968, Hardy was one of two managers, with James Merrick, for the short-season Single-A Northern League team in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The Rox led the league with a 43-27 mark. Eventually Hardy left baseball, a couple weeks shy of the achieving his goal of a MLB pension.
Even before his baseball career ended Hardy started working for the Denver Broncos who ere then in the AFL in a variety of roles. Over two decades he worked in PR, scouting and eventually took over as coordinator of college scouting, scouting director, director of player personnel and assistant general manager. He helped assemble the Broncos teams that reached the Super Bowl in 1987 and 1988.
Hardy, for his collegiate and football careers, has been named to a number of Halls of Fame in Colorado and South Dakota. While Cooperstown may be out of his reach, he has achieved the sort of baseball immortality that comes with being the answer to a trivia question. He was once quoted as saying –
“I’d like to have people remember me for hitting 400 home runs and a lifetime batting average of .305, but I didn’t do that,” Hardy said in the Denver Post. “But it’s not bad being remembered as the only man to ever pinch-hit for Ted Williams.”
After retiring from the Broncos in 1987, he worked for a decade at the Steamboat Resort in Steamboat Springs, Colo., in the ticket office and as a golf marshal.
He is survived by his wife, Janice (Mitchell) Hardy; his daughters, Jill Bissell and Lisa Wynn; his son, Jay; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.