RetroSimba

(Updated Feb. 21, 2022)

Big-league scouts touted catcher Ted Simmons as a can’t-miss prospect. The Cardinals chose him in the first round of the 1967 amateur draft and were rewarded. In 13 seasons with the Cardinals, Simmons hit .298, compiled 2,626 total bases and had an on-base percentage of .366.

In June 1967, Simmons, 17, was a highly regarded athlete at Southfield High School in Michigan. According to Sport magazine, Simmons, a fullback, was offered football scholarships to schools such as Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Purdue.

“The pressure my senior year was intense,” Simmons told Sport. “Everyone around me was always speculating about my prospects and options as if I were a hot stock. They were all whispering in my ear and trying to pull me this way and that.”

In an article for The Sporting News, writer Jack Lang polled major-league scouts for their choices on the nation’s top 12 baseball draft prospects and Simmons ranked ninth.

Simmons told Sport, “I knew what was happening to me by around 14, 15 years old. By that time, I was already working out with the Tigers and hitting balls into the upper deck at Tiger Stadium.”

With the 10th overall choice in the first round, the Cardinals caught a break when two teams selecting ahead of them took catchers but bypassed Simmons.

The Senators, with the fifth overall selection, took Johnny Jones, a high school catcher from Tennessee. The Angels, just ahead of the Cardinals with the ninth overall pick, seemed certain to choose Simmons, but instead took Mike Nunn, a high school catcher from North Carolina.

Simmons, two months shy of his 18th birthday, had hoped to be chosen by his home state Tigers, who had the 14th pick of the first round.

After the Cardinals chose him, Simmons said, “The contract will have to be big enough to make it worthwhile for me to pass up college. I’d have to say I’d want about $50,000, although some people have told me it should be $75,000 and some say $100,000.”

Simmons ended up with the best of both. The Cardinals scout who recommended him, Mo Mozzali, signed Simmons for $50,000 and Simmons enrolled at the University of Michigan as a physical education and speech major, beginning classes in the fall of 1967.

In a 2013 interview with Cardinals Gameday Magazine, Simmons recalled, “I got first-round money, which was a ton of money then, and got my school paid for. I bought a Dodge Charger, brand-spanking new. For a poor kid from Detroit, (the money) was huge _ I mean huge _ for me and my family.”

After signing, Simmons reported to the Cardinals’ Gulf Coast League team, managed by George Kissell, in Sarasota, Fla.

On Simmons’ first day there, Kissell met with a group of players and diagrammed a relay play on a chalkboard. According to Cardinals Gameday Magazine, Kissell asked, “Does anyone know what to do or where to go here?”

When no one responded, Kissell said, “I bet Mr. Simmons knows. Mr. Simmons, why don’t you come up here and diagram the play for all of us?”

Simmons looked at the chalkboard and said, “I don’t know.”

“OK, Mr. Simmons, you can sit back down then,” Kissell said. “I’ll tell everyone where to go.”

Years later, Simmons told Cardinals Gameday Magazine, “Yes, I was the No. 1 pick, everyone knew that and I got more money, but I didn’t know anything more than anyone else in that group and George thought it was important to point that out to everyone, especially to me.”

In his debut game as a professional on July 1, 1967, Simmons, playing the outfield, hit a two-run home run in the eighth inning, lifting Sarasota to a 4-2 victory. The Sporting News reported the feat in a story headlined, “Simmons Sock Star In Opener Of Gulf Coast.”

In six games for Sarasota, Simmons batted .350 (7-for-20) with two home runs and eight RBI. That earned him a promotion to Cedar Rapids, where he hit .269 (46-for-171) before reporting to the University of Michigan.

In the book “The Ted Simmons Story,” author Jim Brosnan said a report Cedar Rapids manager Jack Krol sent to the Cardinals on Simmons suggested “wherever he plays, he’ll hit. He’s a natural. From both sides of the plate.”

Three years later, on Memorial Day weekend in 1970, Simmons took over for Joe Torre as the Cardinals’ everyday catcher. Simmons stayed in that starting role for the next decade.