(Updated Sept. 27, 2019)
Bob Uecker, unable to supplant Joe Torre as the starting catcher, was traded by the Braves to the Cardinals for outfielder Gary Kolb and catcher Jim Coker on April 9, 1964.
The Cardinals needed a backup for Tim McCarver and they liked Uecker’s throwing arm.
“We got Uecker to help Timmy and make our catching solid,” St. Louis manager Johnny Keane told The Sporting News. “We’re certainly not vulnerable behind the plate anymore. Our bench could be stronger, too, with Uecker available.”
Though Uecker, 29, was used sparingly during the season, he strongly contributed to a significant win against his former team in the Cardinals’ late surge to the 1964 National League pennant.
On Sept. 1, 1964, in a game at St. Louis, the Braves took a 4-0 lead in the second inning against the Cardinals and knocked out starter Ray Sadecki. Behind the relief pitching of Ron Taylor, the Cardinals fought back. Uecker hit his only home run of the season, a solo shot in the fourth off Denny Lemaster, to get the Cardinals within a run at 4-3.
In the bottom of the ninth, with the score tied at 4-4, Julian Javier laced a one-out double and Lemaster intentionally walked Carl Warwick to get to Uecker, hoping to induce a double play.
Uecker, who hit .198 that season, foiled the strategy by pulling a single to left, scoring Javier from second and giving the Cardinals a 5-4 walkoff victory. Boxscore
“I wasn’t trying extra hard just because we were playing the Braves,” Uecker said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I was just happy to get some hits. I’d been hitting the ball good, but right at somebody.”
In the clubhouse after the game, as Uecker waited to be interviewed on television, his road roommate, pitcher Roger Craig, playfully approached him with a handful of shaving cream and a razor. “You’ve got to look right when you’re going on television,” Craig said to Uecker.
Spurred by the comeback, the Cardinals posted a 21-8 record in September, clinched the pennant on the final day of the regular season and won the World Series championship in a seven-game classic with the Yankees.
In his 1987 book, “Oh, Baby, I Love It,” McCarver recalled the scene in the clubhouse after the Cardinals beat the Yankees in Game 7 of the 1964 World Series: “I remember Bob Uecker, without a stitch of clothing on, dancing to the dumbest song I’d ever heard _ ‘Pass the Biscuits, Miranda.’ He was dancing all by himself, somehow putting modern moves to this idiotic song that, for some reason, had been the 1946 Cardinals’ rallying song. Uke could dance, too.”
Uecker was McCarver’s backup again in 1965, batting .228 in 53 games. Uecker hit two homers that season, against future Hall of Famers Gaylord Perry of the Giants and Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers.
On Oct. 27, 1965, the Cardinals traded first baseman Bill White, shortstop Dick Groat and Uecker to Philadelphia for outfielder Alex Johnson, pitcher Art Mahaffey and catcher Pat Corrales.
In his book “The Spirit of St. Louis,” author Peter Golenbock said Uecker was traded because he routinely entertained his teammates with humorous imitations of Cardinals general manager Bob Howsam, who wasn’t amused.
Howsam also was a protege of Branch Rickey, who had opposed the deal that brought Uecker to the Cardinals.
“When it came time to deal Bill White to the Phils,” Golenbock wrote, “Howsam refused to OK the trade unless Philadelphia accepted Uecker as well. For Howsam, it was addition by subtraction.”
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“Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy” by the immortal Spike Jones is on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pgn_aNCBXKw
Thanks for sharing, RetroSimba!
Good stuff. Thanks for the link to the song, Rich.
Uecker was worried that Koufax would be kept out of the HOF for giving up a HR to him. He said he found his WS ring out in the LF grass where they had thrown it when his name was called.
Funny stuff. Thanks for sharing.