RetroSimba

Just as with Covid today, Cardinals team members in 1996 were urged to be responsible and get inoculated to help protect themselves and others from a contagious disease.

On Oct. 23, 1996, St. Louis County health officials said four employees of Bartolino’s South restaurant at 5914 South Lindbergh Boulevard were diagnosed with the highly contagious hepatitis A disease.

Health officials recommended that everyone who ate food from the restaurant between Oct. 9, 1996, and Oct. 20, 1996, should receive an injection of immune globulin, which contains antibodies to the disease.

As many as 4,000 people, including players and other team members of the Cardinals, were at risk, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

At risk

On Oct. 13, after the Cardinals beat the Braves in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series at St. Louis, Bartolino’s South served the team a catered meal of salad, pasta and chicken, the Post-Dispatch reported.

Also, the night before, the restaurant catered a party at the house of Cardinals catcher Tom Pagnozzi, according to the Post-Dispatch.

Unknown at the time was that a Bartolino’s South salad maker and three busboys had hepatitis A, health officials said.

Hepatitis A, a viral infection of the liver, can be passed by eating food prepared or handled by an infected person.

After the Cardinals lost Game 7 of the series at Atlanta on Oct. 17, team members dispersed to their homes.

Six days later, Cardinals officials learned the team may have been exposed to the viral infection. A club spokesman said the team was trying to contact all players, coaches and other personnel who shared the dinner and urged them to get a immune globulin shot.

Doing the right thing

“What we’re trying to do is to focus on preventing future cases,” said Dr. Linda Fisher, medical director of the St. Louis County health department. “The most important thing right now is that people who ate in the restaurant during that period of time need to promptly get these shots.”

To be effective, the immune globulin shot must be received within 14 days of exposure to the virus, the Post-Dispatch reported.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the immune globulin shot provides immunity for about 90 days. The immune globulin shot is different than a vaccine. Hepatitis A vaccine provides long-term protection and requires two inoculations six months apart.

On Oct. 23, the day it was revealed the restaurant workers were afflicted, the St. Louis County health department and area hospitals administered more than 2,500 doses of immune globulin to customers of the restaurant, the Post-Dispatch reported.

Among those who said they received the free shots that day were Pagnozzi and Cardinals trainer Gene Gieselmann.

According to the book “Cardinals Journal,” players, coaches and staff followed the advice of health officials and began a round of antibiotic shots as a precautionary measure, even though no one on the club had been reported ill.

The total number of restaurant customers who got the shots to protect them from hepatitis A reached 3,400, according to the Post-Dispatch.

In December 1996, the greater St. Louis chapter of the Missouri Restaurant Association and local health groups started a program to help prevent the spread of hepatitis A. According to the Post-Dispatch, the association arranged for restaurant employees to get vaccinations at a discount of $5 per person.