(Updated July 22, 2020)
Knowing Duke Snider wasn’t enamored with the new home of the Dodgers, the Cardinals made a bid to acquire him, but the price was deemed too high.
On April 25, 1958, the Cardinals played the Dodgers in Los Angeles for the first time in the regular season. The Dodgers left Brooklyn after the 1957 season and relocated to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum while waiting for Dodger Stadium to be built.
Snider, a left-handed pull hitter who thrived at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, was frustrated by the dimensions of the Coliseum. The distance from home plate to the fence in right-center was 440 feet and it was 390 feet from home plate to straightaway right. Snider found drives hit to right that would have been home runs at Ebbets Field were outs at the Coliseum.
The Coliseum was much friendlier to right-handed pull hitters, with a distance of 251 feet down the line from home plate to the left field fence. Though a screen stretching 42 feet high and 140 feet long was erected along the left field wall, hitters reached the seats with routine fly balls.
Musial as mentor
Snider, the Dodgers’ highest-paid player at $42,000, was batting .231 with one home run when the Cardinals arrived in Los Angeles for the first time in 1958. A gimpy left knee was bothering him and he was being booed by hometown crowds who expected the outfielder to hit with the kind of power he displayed in Brooklyn.
Asked by the Los Angeles Times about his knee, Snider replied, “It hurts like the dickens.”
Asked about the booing, Snider said, “I’m used to it and I expect it when I’m not going good. I’d boo, too. I’m supposed to be a hitter, a long ball hitter. When I don’t hit, the fans certainly are entitled to boo.”
Before the opening game of the series with the Cardinals, Snider and his St. Louis counterpart, left-handed hitter Stan Musial, met at the batting cage, and Musial tried to console him. In his book “Stan Musial: The Man’s Own Story,” Musial recalled the conversation. “You can’t let this thing throw you,” Musial told Snider. “You can’t beat a park like this, so join it.”
In the game that night, Musial practiced what he preached. He produced a double and three singles in four at-bats against a left-hander, Fred Kipp, and raised his batting average for the season to .533 in nine games.
Snider was 0-for-4, but the Dodgers won, 5-3, Boxscore
In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Bob Broeg wrote, “If the Cardinals can’t win with Stan Musial hitting as though he had invented the game, what’s going to happen to the Redbirds when the man cools off to _ oh, say, a simple .400?”
High stakes
The game, however, was overshadowed by Broeg’s Post-Dispatch exclusive, reporting how the Cardinals discussed with the Dodgers a proposed trade involving Snider.
According to Broeg, Dodgers general manager Buzzie Bavasi offered Snider to the Cardinals for third baseman Ken Boyer and outfielder Wally Moon. Though Cardinals general manager Bing Devine wanted Snider, whose power stroke was suited for St. Louis’ ballpark, he thought Bavasi was asking too much in return.
Cardinals manager Fred Hutchinson said, “Sure, we’d like to have Snider. He’s not hitting in this heartbreak park (the Coliseum), but he’d rattle that fence at Busch Stadium. Still, he’s damaged goods _ with that operated-on left knee _ and we wouldn’t give Boyer for him, let alone both Boyer and Moon. Besides, (at 31) he’s nearly five years older than Kenny.”
Asked by the Los Angeles Times about the Post-Dispatch scoop on the proposed Snider deal, Bavasi said, “Somebody’s been smoking the wrong stuff.”
According to the Times, Bavasi said he and Devine were being facetious when they talked about a deal involving Snider, Boyer and Moon. The Times said Devine wanted Snider, “but realizes that the chances of getting him are as remote as northeastern Nepal.”
Devine continued to shop for a left-handed hitter and admitted discussing a proposed deal with the Reds for either of their catchers, Ed Bailey or Smoky Burgess.
The Sporting News, meanwhile, acknowledged the Cardinals’ interest in Snider was sincere, telling its readers, “The Cardinals appeared unwilling to give up Boyer, Moon and others as requested by Los Angeles for Duke Snider.”
Snider snapped out of his slump and batted .312 for the 1958 Dodgers, but his 15 home runs were far below the 40 or more he hit in each of the previous five seasons. Musial, 37, hit .337 in 1958, placing third in the National League behind Richie Ashburn of the Phillies (.350) and Willie Mays of the Giants (.347).
After the 1958 season, the Cardinals traded Moon and pitcher Phil Paine to the Dodgers for outfielder Gino Cimoli.
Seven years later, in March 1965, Joe Becker, who joined the Cardinals’ coaching staff after serving as a Dodgers coach, said the Cardinals in 1958 tried to trade Ken Boyer and pitcher Larry Jackson to the Dodgers for Duke Snider and pitcher Roger Craig, but the deal fell through, the Dayton Daily News reported.
RetroSimba 
Duke’s OPS+ didn’t change all that much when he went to LA; but the Colliseum had a large impact on his production. That said, no way I trade Boyer for Snider. And you want Moon, too? Absurd.
Thanks for the comments. I would love to have known what Bing Devine countered with in his bid to land Duke Snider for Cardinals.
I dunno. The 1958 Cards didn’t have a whole lot to offer after Boyer, Moon, and Flood. Maybe a package of Moon and Vinegar Bend Mizell. And I still cringe at even that deal.