After 10 seasons wearing Kansas City Royals blue, Dan Quisenberry was startled when he slipped on his jersey, walked by a mirror and glimpsed how he looked in St. Louis Cardinals red.
“It’s pretty bright red,” Quisenberry said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “My eyes are going to have to adjust.”
The Cardinals colors soon looked good to Quisenberry. Twenty-five years ago, July 1988, Quisenberry signed with St. Louis a week after he had been released by the Royals.
His departure from Kansas City was emotional for Quisenberry, who, at the time, ranked fourth on baseball’s career saves list at 238, trailing only Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter. Quisenberry, who threw a sinker with a submarine delivery, had been the closer on the Royals’ only World Series championship team in 1985 and had led the American League in saves five times.
In 1986, Quisenberry was signed to what the Royals called a lifetime contract with the team. By 1988, the Royals were phasing out Quisenberry, 35, and grooming younger pitchers such as Steve Farr and Jeff Montgomery for the closer job. When Quisenberry was released on July 3, 1988, he was 0-1 with a 3.55 ERA in 20 games that season.
With tears welling, Quisenberry told Bob Nightengale of the Kansas City Star and Times, “After all of these years, it’s hard not to be emotional … It wasn’t a happy ending and it wasn’t very picturesque.”
Said Royals general manager John Schuerholz to the Associated Press: “The bottom line is effectiveness. It was purely and simply a baseball decision. His effectiveness was just not what it had been, for whatever reason.”
Reunited with Whitey
Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog had been the Royals’ manager in 1979, Quisenberry’s rookie season with Kansas City. The 1988 Cardinals needed pitching help. Herzog and general manager Dal Maxvill reached out to Quisenberry. Though he had been contacted by other clubs, Quisenberry accepted the Cardinals’ offer and signed with them on July 14, 1988.
“A lot of it is being close to my home (in Leawood, Kan.),” Quisenberry told Rick Hummel of the Post-Dispatch. “One of the other reasons is that Whitey is the manager. I have the utmost respect for Whitey. He’s a real straight shooter.”
Quisenberry also was a friend of Cardinals coach Nick Leyva. They had been college baseball teammates at La Verne in California. “He can’t hit,” Leyva said to the Post-Dispatch. “He thinks he can, but tell him I said he can’t hit.”
Pitching primarily in middle relief, Quisenberry was 2-0 with a 6.16 ERA in 33 games for the 1988 Cardinals. St. Louis brought him back in 1989 and Quisenberry showed some of the form that had made him a success in his prime. In 63 appearances for the 1989 Cardinals, Quisenberry was 3-1 with six saves and a 2.64 ERA.
Take that, Nick Leyva
Because of the designated hitter rule in the American League, Quisenberry never had batted in a big-league game with the Royals. To the astonishment, no doubt, of Leyva and most everyone else, Quisenberry got his lone big-league hit on July 6, 1989, when he delivered a RBI-single against Tim Belcher in the Cardinals’ 14-2 victory over the Dodgers at St. Louis. Boxscore
Quisenberry had been hitless in three previous at-bats for St. Louis before his single on a 1-and-2 pitch.
Players in the Cardinals’ dugout “went into hysterics” after Quisenberry reached first base, Hummel reported.
Said Cardinals pitcher Joe Magrane: ”There hasn’t been so much pandemonium since the Oliver North ruling.”
Cardinals fans gave Quisenberry a standing ovation as he stood on first.
”That was embarrassing,” Quisenberry said. ”I was hoping they’d stop. The cordial thing is to tip your hat. But I stuttered. It was a stutter tip.”
Belcher was relieved by Ricky Horton. In the eighth, Quisenberry batted again. This time, Horton struck him out on three breaking pitches.
”I learned I’m a dead-red fastball hitter,” Quisenberry quipped. ”I probably should go back to Triple-A to learn how to hit the curveball.”
Previously: Whiteyball: Willie McGee at shortstop; Ricky Horton in right
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