RetroSimba

In November 1947, Sam Breadon, 71, was thinking about mortality. He had been principal owner of the Cardinals for 27 years, operating the club with a hands-on approach, and he didn’t think he could do the job much longer.

Though his heart favored keeping the business he loved, Breadon chose the path that made the most sense to him. He decided to sell.

By selling, Breadon would acquire the cash to ensure financial security for his wife and two daughters.

A sale also would enable Breadon to handpick buyers who were willing to keep the club in St. Louis and protect the jobs of his top employees.

On Nov. 25, 1947, Breadon sold the Cardinals to Robert Hannegan and Fred Saigh. Hannegan, 44, a St. Louis native, was Postmaster General of the United States. Saigh, 42, was a St. Louis lawyer.

“It is unpleasant for me to dispose of the Cardinals,” Breadon told reporters, “but I believe, in the interest of the Cardinals, a man of the character and ability of Bob Hannegan, a younger man, will be able to do more in keeping the Cardinals in the position they are today than I could do from now on. This is the main reason for disposing of my interests.”

Two years later, both Breadon and Hannegan would be dead and Saigh would be the Cardinals’ majority owner.

Buy low, sell high

Breadon, a car dealer, was part of a group that bought the Cardinals in the spring of 1917. Three years later, he became majority owner and club president.

Together with his top baseball executive, the innovative Branch Rickey, Breadon brought the Cardinals from the brink of bankruptcy to top-tier status as one of baseball’s most successful franchises. From 1926 to 1942, the Cardinals won six National League pennants and four World Series titles.

When Rickey left in late 1942 and joined the Dodgers, Breadon didn’t replace him. Determined to show he could succeed without Rickey, Breadon took on many responsibilities of the top baseball executive. Over the next five seasons, the Cardinals finished first (1943), first (1944), second (1945), first (1946) and second (1947) and won two World Series crowns.

With the franchise’s value at a peak, Breadon made plans to sell. He and Hannegan began negotiations after the 1947 season, Breadon told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Big deal

The purchase price, estimated by the Post-Dispatch and St. Louis Star-Times to be about $4 million, was the “biggest financial transaction in baseball history,” according to United Press.

The buyers agreed to pay all Cardinals shareholders $400 per share. Breadon owned 77 percent of the stock.

“Sam said he would sell at a certain figure and, naturally, it was up to us to accept that price. We did,” Hannegan said to the Star-Times.

By what Saigh termed a “gimmick” in the tax law, he and Hannegan were able to make the transaction for a cash outlay of only $60,800, according to the Associated Press.

In addition to the major-league franchise, the sale included the Cardinals’ 16 minor-league clubs and property in St. Louis on Chouteau Avenue at Spring Avenue. Breadon had purchased that land as a possible site to build a ballpark for the Cardinals, who rented Sportsman’s Park from the American League Browns.

As majority owner, Hannegan “personally will have controlling interest” in the Cardinals, Breadon told the Star-Times. Hannegan was named club president and chairman of the board of directors. Saigh was given the titles of vice president and treasurer.

Well-connected

Hannegan, son of a St. Louis police captain, grew up a Cardinals fan. As a youth, he sold peanuts at Cardinals games and he was a member of the club’s original Knothole Gang.

After he was graduated from St. Louis University, where he played football and baseball, Hannegan became a lawyer and got into local politics as a ward boss for the Democratic Party.

From there, Hannegan steadily grew his political stature at the state level and became friends with Harry Truman. President Franklin Roosevelt named Hannegan chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1944. A year later, Hannegan was appointed Postmaster General in the Cabinet of President Truman. Hannegan also stayed involved in sports as a stockholder and board member of the Browns.

On the day he purchased the Cardinals, Hannegan resigned as Postmaster General. “The country is losing the services of a most efficient public servant,” Truman said.

Saigh, whose father operated groceries and department stores in northern Illinois, developed a law practice in St. Louis and “figured in several important real estate deals involving downtown office buildings,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

Unhealthy situation

Hannegan said leaving Washington, D.C., and returning to St. Louis to run the Cardinals was “the happiest homecoming of my life.”

“From my boyhood, I have held fast to the belief that Sam Breadon and the Cardinals were champions, not only of a clean sport but in the eyes of the nation,” Hannegan said. “They have become, like our churches, schools, hospitals, parks and press, one of St. Louis’ finest civic assets.”

Good to their word, Hannegan and Saigh made no major changes for the 1948 season. The Cardinals again placed second with basically the same roster that had finished second in 1947, featuring manager Eddie Dyer and players such as Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst, Enos Slaughter, Terry Moore and Marty Marion.

Hannegan, however, was in poor health. He had a history of high blood pressure.

By 1949, both Hannegan and Breadon, who had prostate cancer, were in rapid decline. In January 1949, Hannegan sold his shares to Saigh, giving him total control of the franchise.

Breadon, 72, died on May 8, 1949. Five months later, on Oct. 6, Hannegan, 46, died of heart disease.

In April 1952, Saigh was indicted on federal charges of income tax evasion. After being sentenced to 15 months in prison, Saigh sold the club to Anheuser-Busch.

Previously: How close did Cardinals come to moving to Milwaukee?