Seven years ago, former Toronto Blue Jays superstar Joe Carter decided to host a charity golf tournament in the area to support the Children’s Aid Foundation. The Joe Carter Classic Golf Tournament, June 22 and 23 at the Eagles Nest Golf Club in Maple, Ont., has since become one of the leading charity tourneys in North America.

This year, Bret Saberhagen, George Lopez and Chris Tucker will be at the event. Last year, the tournament raised $340,000. Post City talked to Carter about the roots of the tournament, his favourite moment and, of course, that nasty brawl with the Texas Rangers.

What’s your favourite moment from your tournament?

Well, when Mitch Williams (the Philadelphia Phillies pitcher who threw Carter the pitch he hit for the World Series-winning home run) came three years ago, that was his first time back in Toronto since the World Series. He had a practice round and flew in and went straight to the golf course. He gets out of the car and sees my brother Fred, who looks just like me, and my son Jordan, who also looks exactly like me, and says, ‘Dang, that’s all I need, everyone here in Toronto looks like Joe Carter.’

How did this tournament come about?

Well, you know, I loved to play gold and myself James Dodds and Chris Samdeo got the idea of a charity tournament, but if we were going to do it, we had to make it a very big thing. I wanted it to be the best anyone ever attends. And then we looked around at charities that we all liked and that we had done some work with before, and we landed on the Children’s Aid Foundation.

Are you surprised by how big it’s gotten so quickly?

I knew it would be big, but I didn’t know it would be this big. And I’m thankful to god, we’ve raised a lot of money for a lot of good people there in Toronto who have the odds stacked against them so to speak.

Tell me about the first year.

Let’s see, the first year the big stars were Charles Barkley — Chuck was the big headliner — and Ozzie Smith. The after-party consisted of us sitting at the bar at The Hazelton Hotel in Yorkville, and we were talking about the tournament and we hobnobbed with everybody. The first year was really very good, and we just took it from there. And then we were also able to bring in Charlie Sheen, and when Charlie came in everything just took off. We put on a very good party, a very good tournament. But the biggest thing is the charity, giving these kids scholarships.

So what has changed since then?

After the second year, we just tried to outdo the year before, getting more people in, more notoriety. Now, wherever I go, people are like, ‘Hey, I gotta play your tournament.’ Snoop Dogg who came in and performed, he was talking to Chris Samdeo and he was like, ‘Hey, I gotta come to y’all tournament. I got to go there.’ To this day, everyone wants to come to the Joe Carter Classic.

Who is here this year?

For entertainment, Shaggy is the headliner, and Naughty by Nature, and the Shangri-La is our host hotel. For the tournament we have people like Dr. J, Grant Fuhr, Kelly Gruber, Gerald Henderson, Tony La Russa, Dave Stewart, Barry Larkin, Dan Marino, Tim Raines, Mark Rypien. It’s a very diverse group and that’s the way I like it.

Before you go, tell me about your thoughts on what happened with Rougned Odor and that brawl between the Jays and the Texas Rangers.

I did watch it. It was very cheap of Texas the way they went about it. It was the playoffs and that’s a little bit different than the season. Jose in the playoffs was totally acceptable in my book. The regular season, it would be disrespectful, but it was the playoffs. That’s what you play for. You can celebrate as much as you want. And to do it the last time the teams play this season, the last at bat, shows me they were gutless.