RetroSimba

(Updated April 28, 2020)

In a meeting with Cardinals players after they won two consecutive National League pennants and a World Series title, club owner Gussie Busch warned them about getting fat, greedy and selfish, and scolded them for backing union leadership he considered disrespectful to management.

Players expecting gratitude and support for achieving back-to-back championship seasons, and seeking encouragement in their pursuit of more success, instead were told they needed to do a better job of conforming and representing the organization.

Busch’s speech on March 22, 1969, played well with some of the public, but backfired with some of the players, who were demoralized rather than inspired by his words. His rant was cited as a turning point in transforming the Cardinals from proud champions to dispirited underachievers.

Playing hardball

In the weeks leading to spring training in 1969, Busch became irritated and frustrated when the players’ union threatened to strike in a dispute with owners over the percentage players would get from television revenue.

Busch also was miffed by the salary demands of his players. The player payroll for the 1969 Cardinals was reported to be the highest in baseball at an estimated total of $900,000 to $1 million.

On Feb. 4, 1969, Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson was a guest on NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” appearing with entertainers Vince Edwards, Redd Foxx, Peter Lind Hayes and Tina Louise. Gibson explained to host Flip Wilson, subbing for Johnny Carson, why players were prepared to boycott spring training and defended their stance.

In his 1994 book “Stranger to the Game,” Gibson said his comments upset Busch. With a 1969 salary of $125,000, Gibson was the highest-paid Cardinals player and joined Stan Musial as only the second to receive $100,000 in a season. In return for such compensation, Busch expected Gibson to be supportive of management.

Though the players’ union called off the proposed spring training boycott after reaching a compromise on percentage of television revenue shared, the amount owners would contribute to the pension fund and the years needed to qualify for a pension, Busch didn’t like what he was seeing and hearing from players and decided to “get it off my chest.”

Busch prepared a speech and previewed it with Cardinals executive vice-president Dick Meyer, senior vice-president Stan Musial, general manager Bing Devine and manager Red Schoendienst.

With those key management people onboard, Busch invited the media to attend his meeting with the players on a Saturday morning in the team clubhouse at the St. Petersburg, Fla., training camp.

Being bossed

“It was unusual for players to meet with the owner and unprecedented, not to mention discomfiting, to do it with reporters in attendance,” Gibson said.

The players gathered in full uniform as Busch took a seat and began speaking.

“Fans no longer are as sure as they were before about their high regard for the game and the players,” Busch said.

“Too many fans are saying our players are getting fat, that they only think of money, and less of the game itself. The fans will be looking at you this year more critically than ever before to watch how you perform and see whether you really are giving everything you have.”

Regarding the players’ union, Busch said, “Baseball’s union representatives made all kinds of derogatory statements about the owners. We suddenly seem to be your greatest enemies. Representatives threw down all sorts of challenges, threats and ultimatums. Personally, I don’t react well to ultimatums.”

When Busch finished his 25-minute talk, players applauded “politely,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Busch invited players to comment or ask a question, but none did.

Meyer spoke next and made remarks tailored to drive a wedge between players and union leader Marvin Miller.

“He works for you,” Meyer said of Miller. “You don’t work for him. You cannot assign your future and the future of your family to someone else. If you do, you’re in trouble.”

Keeping up appearances

Asked by the Post-Dispatch for their reactions, most players stuck to generalities. “It was well said,” offered Tim McCarver. Lou Brock called it “very well put” and Dal Maxvill said “it was first class.” Others, such as Gibson and Curt Flood, declined comment.

In his 1971 book “The Way It Is,” Flood explained, “I feared that if I so much as hinted at the truth about that meeting I would be gone from the team in a week. I was sick with shame and so was everyone else on the Cardinals except Busch and his claque.”

Flood said Busch “depicted us as a rabble of ingrates” and “humiliated us to the best of his ability.”

“Busch was using the occasion not only to revile us but to reassert the uniquely feudal privileges vested to him and other club owners by baseball’s reserve system,” Flood said.

Anheuser-Busch printed 100,000 copies of Busch’s speech and distributed versions to its 21,000 stockholders, about 10,000 employees and anyone else who wanted one, The Sporting News reported.

Changes in attitude

Busch’s remarks made headlines, but “there is no evidence this had any effect” in him getting what he wanted, The Sporting News observed. On the eve of the 1969 season opener, “several key players refused to attend” a civic dinner.

The Cardinals played poorly in the first half of the 1969 season, posting records of 9-12 in April, 12-13 in May and 14-16 in June. After the Cardinals were swept by the Pirates in a three-game series to open the season, coach Dick Sisler said, “If we don’t win one pretty soon, we are going to have the first million-dollar bench.”

In summarizing the 1969 Cardinals, Sports Illustrated wrote, “The Cards threw to the wrong bases on defense and sometimes did not throw at all. Opposing runners stole with impunity and the St. Louis bullpen collapsed almost completely.”

The Cardinals finished at 87-75 and in fourth place in a six-team division. The Cardinals wouldn’t return to the postseason until 1982.

Gibson cited Busch’s speech as “defining a moment as any” in the Cardinals’ decline. “It seems our deterioration as a ballclub traced back to the fact the Cardinals, as an organization, were simply not willing or prepared to keep up with the times,” Gibson said.

Said Flood: “We Cardinals became a morose and touchy team. Our concentration suffered. So did the remarkable spirit of fraternity that had helped us dominate the league for two years in succession.”

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Bill White, a leader on and off the field as a Cardinals player, was a natural to take those skills to the executive level.

On Feb. 3, 1989, White was named president of the National League, succeeding Bart Giamatti, who became commissioner of baseball.

Two years after Dodgers executive Al Campanis told a national television audience blacks lacked the necessities for management, White became the highest-ranking African-American sports official in the United States and the first black to head a major professional sports league.

White’s hiring came 42 years after Jackie Robinson integrated the major leagues as a player for the 1947 Dodgers. In 1989, White became leader of a league with no black managers and no black general managers. Frank Robinson of the American League Orioles was the only black manager in February 1989 and Hank Aaron, a vice president of the National League Braves, was the only black executive of a major-league club.

“I don’t think they could have found anyone more qualified than Bill White,” Aaron said to the Associated Press.

Success in St. Louis

White played 13 seasons in the National League for the Giants (1956 and 1958), Cardinals (1959-65 and 1969) and Phillies (1966-68). With the Cardinals, White hit 20 or more home runs in five consecutive seasons and had more than 100 RBI three years in a row. In 1964, when the Cardinals were World Series champions, White batted .303 with 191 hits. As a first baseman, he won the Gold Glove Award seven times, including six with St. Louis, and he was an all-star in five of his Cardinals seasons.

In 1961, White successfully led an effort to end segregation of players at spring training in Florida.

“When Bill was first with the Cardinals, blacks could not stay in the same hotel as whites,” teammate Tim McCarver said. “Bill spoke up and said it was wrong. The next season, blacks were in the same hotel as the whites.”

Cardinals general manager Bing Devine reacquired White from the Phillies in 1969 and wanted him to learn to be a manager. White, however, wasn’t interested. “I didn’t want to manage,” White told me in 2011. “I didn’t want to try to tell 25 other guys how to play the game. I’d rather do something where the success depends on me, not on other people.”

White became a Yankees broadcaster in 1971 and was in that role when he got a surprise call from Dodgers executive Peter O’Malley in 1988.

Courting a candidate

O’Malley told White a search committee wanted to interview him for the National League president job. White replied, “Thanks, but I’m not interested.”

A week later, O’Malley called again, White recalled in his 2011 book “Uppity,” and said the committee still wanted to interview him.

“I thought it wouldn’t hurt to meet with them, even though I still wasn’t interested in actually taking the job,” White said.

White was interviewed in New York by the committee of O’Malley, Giamatti, retired National League president Chub Feeney and executives William Bartholomay of the Braves and Fred Wilpon of the Mets.

“My first reaction was, ‘Are these people serious?’ ” White said. “In meeting the people, I found out they were dead serious. Once I found that out, we went forward.”

The finalists were White and Simon Gourdine, director of labor relations for the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York and former NBA deputy commissioner.

The committee recommended White to the 12 National League team owners, who unanimously approved him and awarded a four-year contract.

White said he accepted because “it was a challenge, and throughout my life, a challenge has been something that is hard for me to resist.”

Stellar reputation

Reaction to White’s hiring was overwhelmingly positive.

Bob Broeg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said the National League would find White to be “a most responsible as well as respectable president.”

Frank Dolson of the Philadelphia Inquirer called White “a man of character, a man of conviction, a man of determination.”

“Some men have to grow into a job; in this case, the job will become bigger simply because of the man occupying the office,” Dolson wrote.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Al Campanis sent a congratulatory telegram to White and hailed him as “articulate, intelligent and a gentleman who has the capability to become an outstanding league president.”

Lou Brock, White’s teammate with the Cardinals, said, “This is a great step, almost equal to Jackie Robinson’s entry into baseball.”

Another Cardinals teammate, Bob Gibson, said, “There are a lot of Archie Bunkers in the world that never really have experienced just being in the same room with a (black) person. The more jobs that are gotten, acquired, the more you are going to be able to dispel the myths that have been going on for years.”

White fully understood the significance of being the first African-American to hold the position but he downplayed the racial aspect because he wanted to be judged on skills, not skin color.

“If I didn’t think I could do the job, I would have been foolish to take it out of some historic significance,” White said.

Red tape

White said he wanted to improve relations between players and umpires and between players and club owners.

Soon after he started, White had to deal with the Pete Rose betting scandal and later with Reds owner Marge Schott, who got suspended for making insensitive comments.

Among White’s successes were his role in guiding expansion of the league into Denver and Miami, keeping the Giants from leaving San Francisco and reestablishing authority of the league president over the umpires union.

White retired in 1994 after some of the team owners he’d supported failed to back his recommendations.

“I was tired of the politics, tired of the behind-the-scenes maneuverings, tired of the lies,” White said in “Uppity.”

In his 1994 book “Stranger to the Game,” Gibson said White confided to him the difficulties he faced as league president.

“White has been frustrated by his inability to push through change and otherwise get things done,” said Gibson. “When he was telling me this over drinks one night and explaining why he felt compelled to resign his position, I said, ‘Why don’t you just stay in it for the money?’ He replied that he couldn’t do that. I said, ‘Hell, I can. Give the job to me.’ In reality, though, I couldn’t work under those conditions any more than Bill could.”

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The process of acquiring players is imperfect and misjudgments always will occur, so the Cardinals routinely do critical self-analysis to learn how to adjust and adapt their approach, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said.

In December 2018, Mozeliak answered questions from Cardinals bloggers by e-mail. The opportunity to ask questions of Mozeliak came about through the efforts of Daniel Shoptaw, founder of United Cardinal Bloggers.

Mozeliak answered two of my questions and he did so thoughtfully. His answers provide good insights.

Q: How do you determine whether you’ve had a successful year with respect to player acquisitions?

Mozeliak: “Fair question. There are a lot of questions of, ‘How do you measure yourself?’ I think you have to have an honest assessment because not every decision we make works.

“When you look at the nature of player acquisitions, is it more of an aggregate question _ did we have a winning season or did we get to the postseason _ or is it more specific on individual decisions _ were they successful or were they smart?

“One thing I think we do fairly well in this organization is we’re willing to ask those questions, willing to understand the why and not afraid to change. There are a lot of things in this industry you might be a part of that you never actually do _ in other words, you may be in negotiations where you hope to get a player, but you don’t. You think about, ‘What was the strategy? How could we have done something different?’

“The same can be said for the misses and the hits. There is the 50,000-foot view you can look at and there is the much lower, in-the-weeds approach. All those are fair approaches and I think we try to do both.”

Q: What’s one aspect about the Cardinals baseball operations department you wish more people would understand or appreciate better?

Mozeliak: “I feel like, in this day and age, our fan base understands why and how we make decisions. When you ask about a specific department, I think most people know who Randy Flores is as our scouting director, most people know who Gary LaRocque is as our farm director.

“Most people are aware of Luis Morales as our international director, but he might have less recognition just because he works out of Jupiter _ and not out of St. Louis.

“That’s a department, if you look back just five or six years, between Luis and Moises Rodriguez, they’ve advanced that department light years. As a matter of fact, we have our first graduating class from high school in the Dominican Republic, I believe, on Jan. 27.

“When you think back 10 to 15 years ago, we weren’t even providing education, now we have young men graduating from high school. That’s just a great compliment to what those guys have done and also shows that we truly are invested in the Dominican, not just as a place to mine talent, but as a place to try to improve young men’s lives.”

Editor’s note: According to the Cardinals’ media guide, the Cardinals have personnel in five countries outside of the United States and operate a baseball academy in the Dominican Republic as well as two rookie-level summer teams. The Cardinals’ international personnel scout for baseball talent in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, the Dutch Antilles, Mexico, Panama and Venezuela. Also, the Cardinals have increased their involvement in Asia and Cuba.

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