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Paying it forward: How Marty Marion helped Luis Aparicio

Posted in Games, Hitters, Managers, Pitchers on January 26, 2026| 12 Comments »

On his way to becoming the first Venezuelan to get elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, shortstop Luis Aparicio received a big early boost from a former Cardinals standout at the position.

Marty Marion was the White Sox manager who brought Aparicio to the major leagues and made him the starting shortstop as a rookie in 1956.

Nicknamed “Mr. Shortstop,” Marion was the starter on four Cardinals pennant winners in the 1940s and the first shortstop to win the National League Most Valuable Player Award.

Aparicio merely had two years of minor-league experience when Marion picked him to be the White Sox shortstop. It was an astute decision. Aparicio won the American League Rookie of the Year Award and went on to have a stellar career. He earned the Gold Glove Award nine times, led the American League in stolen bases for nine years in a row (1956-64) and totaled 2,677 hits. Video

Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984, Aparicio is one of several Venezuelans who have achieved prominence in the big leagues. Others (in alphabetical order) include Bobby Abreu, Ronald Acuna Jr., Jose Altuve, Miguel Cabrera, Dave Concepcion, Andres Galarraga, Freddy Garcia, Ozzie Guillen, Felix Hernandez, Magglio Ordonez, Salvador Perez, Johan Santana, Manny Trillo, Omar Vizquel and Carlos Zambrano.

The first Venezuelan to play in the majors was pitcher Alex Carrasquel with the 1939 Washington Senators. The first Venezuelan to play for the Cardinals was outfielder Vic Davalillo in 1969. Besides Davalillo and Andres Galarraga, other Venezuelans who were noteworthy Cardinals included Miguel Cairo, Willson Contreras, Cesar Izturis, Jose Martinez and Edward Mujica.

Baseball genes

Aparicio was from the seaport city of Maracaibo in northwestern Venezuela. According to the encyclopedia Britannica, “Until petroleum was discovered in 1917, the city was a small coffee port. Within a decade it became the oil metropolis of Venezuela and South America. It has remained a city of contrasts _ old Spanish culture and modern business, ancient Indian folklore and distinctive modern architecture.”

Aparicio’s father (also named Luis) was a standout shortstop in Latin America and was known as “El Grande,” the great one. When the father retired as a player during a ballpark ceremony in 1953, he handed his glove to his 19-year-old son and they embraced amid tears.

While playing winter baseball in Venezuela for Caracas, young Luis Aparicio got the attention of White Sox general manager Frank Lane and scout Harry Postove. Cleveland Indians coach Red Kress also was in pursuit of the prospect. After the White Sox paid $6,000 to Caracas team president Pablo Morales, Aparicio signed with the White Sox for $4,000, The Sporting News reported.

The White Sox sent Aparicio, 20, to Waterloo, Iowa, in 1954. The Waterloo White Hawks were a Class B farm club managed by former catcher Wally Millies. Aparicio “couldn’t speak a word of English,” according to Arthur Daley of the New York Times, but language was no barrier to his ability to play in the minors. Before a double hernia ended his season in July, he produced 110 hits in 94 games for Waterloo and had 20 stolen bases. Wally Millies filed a glowing report to the White Sox: “Aparicio has an excellent chance to make the big leagues.”

On the rise

Returning to Venezuela for the winter, Aparicio hired a tutor and learned English. The White Sox invited him to their 1955 spring training camp. That’s when Marty Marion got a look at him.

After managing the Cardinals (1951) and Browns (1952-53), Marion was a White Sox coach in 1954. He became their manager in September 1954 after Paul Richards left to join the Orioles.

Marion liked what he saw of Aparicio at 1955 spring training and it was he who suggested the shortstop skip the Class A level of the minors and open the season with the Class AA Memphis Chickasaws.

Aparicio responded to the challenge, totaling 154 hits and 48 steals. He dazzled with his range and throwing arm. David Bloom of the Memphis Commercial Appeal deemed Aparicio “worth the price of admission as a single attraction.”

Memphis had two managers in 1955. Jack Cassini, who was the second baseman and manager, had to step down in early August after being hit in the face by a pitch. Retired Hall of Fame pitcher Ted Lyons, the White Sox’s career leader in wins (260), replaced Cassini. Both praised Aparicio in reports to the White Sox.

Cassini: “He does everything well.”

Lyons: “Aparicio plays major league shortstop right now … Can’t miss.”

Lyons, who played 21 seasons in the majors and spent another nine there as a manager and coach, told The Sporting News, “The kid’s quick as a flash and has a remarkable throwing arm. He’s dead sure on a ground ball and makes the double play as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He’s one of the greatest fielding shortstops I have ever seen.”

Ready and able

Based on the reports he got on Aparicio during the summer following his firsthand observations in spring training, Marion urged the White Sox front office to trade shortstop Chico Carrasquel so that Aparicio could step into the job in 1956. Carrasquel was sent to Cleveland for outfielder Larry Doby in October 1955.

The move was bold and risky. A Venezuelan and nephew of Alex Carrasquel, Chico Carrasquel was an American League all-star in four of his six seasons with the White Sox, and the first Latin American to play and start in an All-Star Game.

Marion and others, however, became disenchanted with Carrasquel’s increasingly limited fielding range. “I was amazed when I watched Carrasquel (in 1955),” White Sox player personnel executive John Rigney told The Sporting News. “He had slowed up so much he didn’t look like the same player.”

Marion said to reporter John C. Hoffman in January 1956, “I know Luis Aparicio is a better shortstop right now than Carrasquel was last year … I saw enough of him last spring during training to know he’s quicker than Chico and a better hustler.”

Aparicio showed at 1956 spring training he was ready for the job. As Arthur Daley noted in the New York Times, Aparicio “has extraordinary reflexes as well as the speed afoot to give him the widest possible range. He breaks fast for a ball and his hands move with such lightning rapidity that his glove smothers the hops before they have a chance to bounce bad. He gets the ball away swiftly to set up double plays and ranks as probably the slickest shortstop in the business.”

Marion was impressed by all facets of Aparicio’s game and his ability to mesh with second baseman Nellie Fox. (Aparicio and his wife Sonia later named a son Nelson in honor of Fox.)

“I’m certain now that he’ll be twice the shortstop that Carrasquel was last year,” Marion told The Sporting News in March 1956.

Rookie sensation

Marion considered putting Aparicio in the leadoff spot, but instead batted him eighth. “He has all the physical equipment for becoming a wonderful leadoff man, but at the moment he still lacks the ability to draw walks,” Marion explained to The Sporting News. “Once he gets that, he’ll be one of the best. Drawing walks is something that comes with experience. He has to sharpen his knowledge of the strike zone and then develop the confidence to lay off those pitches that are just an inch or two off the plate.”

Once the season got under way, the rest of the American League joined Marion in voicing their admiration of the rookie. Aparicio played especially well versus the powerhouse Yankees. He hit .316 against them, including .395 in 11 games at Yankee Stadium, and fielded superbly.

“He is not only the best rookie in the league; we’d have to say he was the best shortstop,” Yankees manager Casey Stengel exclaimed to the Chicago Tribune.

Yankees shortstop Phil Rizzuto, in the final season of a Hall of Fame career, said to The Sporting News, “As a fielding shortstop, Aparicio is the best I ever saw.”

Rizzuto said Aparicio’s superior range reminded him of Marty Marion with the Cardinals. Marion, though, told The Sporting News, “He has to be better than I was. He covers twice the ground that I did.”

In August 1956, Marion moved Aparicio to the leadoff spot. Aparicio batted .291 there in 31 games, with a respectable .345 on-base percentage. “We frankly didn’t think he would come along quite this fast,” Marion told the Chicago Tribune.

Aparicio completed his rookie season with 142 hits and 21 stolen bases. He batted .295 with runners in scoring position and .412 with the bases loaded. He made 35 errors, but also led the league’s shortstops in assists and putouts.

Changing times

The 1956 White Sox finished in third place at 85-69, 12 games behind the champion Yankees. On Oct. 25, White Sox vice-president Chuck Comiskey summoned Marion to a meeting. When it ended, Marion no longer was manager.

“The White Sox called it a resignation and Marty, always agreeable, went along with this label,” Edward Prell of the Chicago Tribune noted. “Marion’s official statement of resignation, however, sounded like one of those Russian confessions,” departing “in the best interest of the club.”

According to the Tribune, “It was known that Marion’s insistence on keeping Aparicio eighth in the batting order did not set well with some of the White Sox officials. They thought Marty should be … having him lead off.”

Days later, the White Sox hired Al Lopez, who led Cleveland to a pennant and five second-place finishes in six years as manager. In the book “We Played the Game,” White Sox pitcher Billy Pierce said Marion “did a very good job with us. I didn’t know why he didn’t stay with us longer, other than that Al Lopez was available.”

Marion never managed again.

With Aparicio the centerpiece of a team that featured speed, defense and pitching, Lopez led the White Sox to the 1959 pennant, their first in 40 years.

Traded to the Orioles in January 1963, Aparicio joined third baseman Brooks Robinson in forming an iron-clad left side of the infield. In “We Played the Game,” Robinson said, “Luis was just a sensational player … He was the era’s best-fielding shortstop. He had so much range that I could cheat more to the (third-base) line.”

With their pitching and defense limiting the Dodgers to two runs in four games, the Orioles swept the 1966 World Series.

Aparicio was traded back to the White Sox in November 1967. He spent his last three seasons with the Red Sox.

Tradition of excellence

When Ozzie Guillen was a boy in Venezuela, he idolized Luis Aparicio. Guillen became a shortstop. In 1985, he reached the majors with the White Sox and won the American League Rookie of the Year Award. He eventually became an all-star and earned a Gold Glove Award, too.

In 2005, as White Sox manager, Guillen led them to their first pennant since the 1959 team did it with Aparicio. Before Game 1 of the World Series at Chicago against the Astros, Guillen got behind the plate and caught the ceremonial first pitch from Aparicio.

The White Sox went on to sweep the Astros, winning their first World Series title since 1917.

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Browns, Cardinals joined race to sign Jim Thorpe

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Prospects on January 19, 2026| 10 Comments »

St. Louis tried to attract the nation’s best athlete at a time when its teams, Browns and Cardinals, were the worst in major-league baseball. Jim Thorpe, however, chose to enter the majors at the top, with the 1913 New York Giants.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist in track and field as well as a football standout, Thorpe wasn’t as prominent in baseball. For six seasons in the National League with the Giants, Reds and Braves, he mostly was a spare outfielder.

The team Thorpe did best against was St. Louis. A career .252 hitter, Thorpe batted .314 overall versus the Cardinals and .339 in games played at St. Louis.

Bright Path

A citizen of the Sac and Fox Nation, James Francis Thorpe and a twin brother, Charles, were born in what is now Oklahoma. (Charles died of pneumonia as a youth.) Jim Thorpe also was known as Wa-Tho-Huck, which in the Sac and Fox language means “Bright Path,” according to the Oklahoma Historical Society.

After attending schools in Oklahoma and Kansas, Thorpe enrolled at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania when he was 16 in 1903 and excelled in athletics, especially football and track, for coach Pop Warner.

Thorpe also was proficient at archery, baseball, basketball, canoeing, handball, hockey, horsemanship, lacrosse, rifle shooting, skating, squash and swimming, according to The Sporting News.

Carolina in my mind

Taking a break from Carlisle in 1909, Thorpe, 22, signed to play minor-league baseball for the Rocky Mount (N.C.) Railroaders, a Class D club in the Eastern Carolina League. He was paid $12.50 to $15 per week, plus room and board, team secretary E.G. Johnston told the Rocky Mount Telegram.

A right-hander, Thorpe pitched and played right field. Speed was his main attribute. Eyewitness accounts told of him scoring from first on a single to right and racing to the plate from second on an infield out. His statistics that season were nothing special (9-10 record, .254 batting mark), but he was the talk of the town. A local sports reporter, Sam Mallison, noted, “Few Rocky Mount citizens had ever seen one of these original Americans.”

Rocky Mount was a segregated town of about 8,000 in 1909. It had a prominent railroad yard, cotton mills and tobacco farms. At that time, “The horse and buggy still provided the principal method of transportation between points not connected by the railroad,” Sam Mallison recalled in the Rocky Mount Telegram. “There were no hard-surfaced highways and few paved streets.”

As for baseball, Thomas McMillan Sr. wrote in the Telegram, “In those days, the players dressed for the game in their rooms (and) walked to the ballpark. Many stayed at the new Cambridge Hotel, a short block north of the passenger train station. The players would be met by a crowd of little boys as they came out of the hotel. Each boy sought the privilege of carrying the shoes or glove or bat for one of the ballplayers. Carrying a glove or a pair of shoes meant free admission to the game. I was one of those little boys and big Jim Thorpe seemed to favor me as his shoes and glove caddy. I remember Jim perfectly. Black hair, black eyes, high cheekbones in a mahogany face, and a physique that gave an impression of strength rather than mere size. His movements were quick and lithe.”

Thorpe returned to Rocky Mount in 1910, but the luster was lost. According to Sam Mallison, “(Thorpe’s) custom, in the early evening, was to take a snoot full … As time went on, (drinking) took hold of Jim earlier in the day, occasionally before the noon hour, and this, plus the fact that opposing pitchers had learned he was a sucker for a curveball on the outside (corner), diminished his speed and caused his batting average to plummet … (Thorpe) had ceased to be such an enormous gate attraction, and his antics were the despair of both the field manager and the front office. He ignored the rules and was wholly unresponsive to managerial direction. In short, he became a problem child.”

That summer, Thorpe was traded to the Fayetteville (N.C.) Highlanders and finished the 1910 season with them.

Glory and scandal

Thorpe re-enrolled at Carlisle and rocketed toward his athletic peak. He gained national fame as a consensus first-team football all-America in 1911 and 1912. He rose to worldwide prominence at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, winning gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon. Thorpe was the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States.

“To a whole generation of American sports lovers, Jim Thorpe was the greatest athlete of them all,” the New York Times declared. “No one has equaled the hold that he had on the imagination of all who saw him in action … He was a magnificent performer.”

In January 1913, after the International Olympic Committee learned of Thorpe’s minor-league ballplaying, it was determined he had competed in the 1912 Games as a professional, violating the rules of amateurism. He was stripped of his medals and his achievements were erased from the Olympic records. “The committee’s insistence that the Olympics are amateur is as fatuous as its insistence that sports should never be soiled by politics,” the New York Times opined.

(In July 2022, 69 years after Thorpe’s death, the International Olympic Committee declared him sole winner of the 1912 Olympic decathlon and pentathlon.)

Looking to extend his athletic career, Thorpe saw big-league baseball as offering the best path. (The American Professional Football Association, which became the NFL, wasn’t established until 1920).

On the money

Thorpe got offers from five big-league clubs _ Browns, Giants, Pirates, Reds and White Sox, the New York Times reported.

The Browns had more than 100 losses in three consecutive seasons (1910-12) and would finish in last place in the American League at 57-96 in 1913, but club owner Robert Hedges was serious about a pursuit of Thorpe. Hedges had scout Pop Kelchner try to woo Thorpe to St. Louis. On Kelchner’s recommendation, the Browns acquired a minor-league shortstop, Mike Balenti. He and Thorpe played together in the Carlisle football team backfield. The Browns hoped having Balenti would help them land Thorpe.

On Jan. 24, 1913, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported, “It was learned yesterday that Jim Thorpe … had promised Hedges that if he played ball in professional circles he would join the Browns.”

A week later, though, Thorpe signed with the Giants. Led by manager John McGraw, the Giants won National League pennants in 1911 and 1912. They’d go to the World Series again in 1913. Perhaps most important of all to Thorpe was the money. The Giants offered a salary of more than $5,000, the New York Times reported. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Thorpe got a $6,000 salary and a $500 signing bonus, and Carlisle coach Pop Warner got $2,500 from the Giants for steering Thorpe to them.

“There are very few $6,000 ballplayers in the game today,” St. Louis columnist Sid Keener noted. According to Keener, that select group included Ty Cobb, Ed Konetchy, Nap Lajoie, Christy Mathewson and Tris Speaker.

Though McGraw never had seen Thorpe play, he told the New York World, “A wonderful athlete like Thorpe ought to have in him the makings of a great ballplayer. He has the muscle and the brain, and it is up to me to locate the spot where he will be of most value to the team.”

Cardinals calling

After seeing Thorpe in spring training, McGraw determined the best spot for him was on the bench, or maybe the minors. Thorpe, who turned 26 that year, was plenty fast and strong, but he misjudged fly balls, didn’t slide properly and couldn’t hit the curve consistently.

In April 1913, before the regular season got under way, McGraw apparently considered placing Thorpe on waivers. If Thorpe was available, Cardinals manager Miller Huggins was determined to get him.

“Jim Thorpe … may become a Cardinal,” the Bridgeport Times of Connecticut reported. “All that is needed for (Thorpe) to join the (Cardinals) is for John McGraw to accept an offer made by Miller Huggins. It is believed that waivers have been asked on Thorpe because Huggins sent the following telegram to McGraw: Will take Thorpe off your hands. What is his salary?”

According to the New York Herald, Huggins said the Cardinals, destined to finish with the worst record in the majors (51-99) that year, would spend “the extreme limit” for Thorpe.

Huggins told Sid Keener, “I believe Thorpe can be developed into a ballplayer. He has what I want _ speed. It may be that he will need plenty of seasoning, but I would be willing to carry him a year or so as a utility player.”

The Cardinals’ eagerness to take Thorpe apparently gave McGraw pause. He decided Thorpe would remain with the Giants. “I can make a first-class player of him,” McGraw said, according to the Montpelier (Vermont) Morning Journal.

Playing on

Thorpe stuck with the Giants in 1913 and 1914, but rarely played. He spent most of 1915 in the minors. Sent to minor-league Milwaukee in 1916, Thorpe made significant progress. He led Milwaukee in total bases (240) and hits (157).

In 1917, the Giants loaned Thorpe to the Reds. McGraw’s friend and former ace, Christy Mathewson, was the Reds’ manager. In a game against the Cardinals, Thorpe had two hits and two RBI. In another, at St. Louis, he totaled four hits, three RBI and scored twice. Boxscore and Boxscore

Thorpe’s highlight with the Reds, though, came in a game at Chicago. Fred Toney of the Reds and Hippo Vaughn of the Cubs each pitched nine hitless innings. In the 10th, Thorpe’s single versus Vaughn drove in a run and the Reds won, 1-0. Boxscore

After four months with the Reds, Thorpe was returned to the Giants. He played for them in 1918, then was traded to the Braves. Thorpe hit .327 for Boston in 1919 and .354 versus the Cardinals. It wasn’t enough to keep him in the majors, but he wasn’t through with baseball. Thorpe played three more seasons in the minors and thrived, batting .360 for Akron in 1920 and .358 for Toledo in 1921.

Meanwhile, when the American Professional Football Association began in 1920, Thorpe was welcomed in as player-coach of the Canton Bulldogs.

In 1925, Thorpe, 38, was a running back with the NFL New York Giants. He is one of two men who played for both the NFL and baseball New York Giants. The other, Steve Filipowicz, was an outfielder with the baseball Giants (1944-45) and a running back with the football Giants (1945-46).

Thorpe finally got to play for the Cardinals, too. His last NFL game was with the Chicago Cardinals in 1929.

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Picture this: Fran Tarkenton as a St. Louis Cardinal

Posted in Football, Games, Opponents, Trades on January 12, 2026| 12 Comments »

Throughout the NFL in 1971, quarterbacks with big reputations and colorful nicknames swaggered across the playing fields. Broadway Joe (Namath, of course) with the New York Jets. Mad Bomber (Daryle Lamonica) in Oakland. Captain Comeback (Roger Staubach) for Dallas.

Then, almost, there was … the St. Louis Scrambler.

In his 1976 book “Tarkenton,” Fran Tarkenton revealed the New York Giants nearly dealt him to the Cardinals during the 1971 season. “The Giants tried to trade me … and they came close to dealing with St. Louis,” Tarkenton said.

Much like he did in scrambling out of reach of defenders, Tarkenton managed to dodge a trade to St. Louis.

Fran the Man

Tarkenton first got the attention of St. Louis football fans as a junior at the University of Georgia. Facing Missouri in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 1, 1960, Tarkenton threw two touchdown passes in Georgia’s 14-0 triumph. “Tarkenton showed aerial marksmanship and important ability to elude charging Missouri linemen,” Bob Broeg noted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

An expansion franchise, the Minnesota Vikings, took Tarkenton in the third round of the 1961 NFL draft. Their head coach, The Dutchman, Norm Van Brocklin, was the quarterback who led the Philadelphia Eagles to the 1960 NFL championship.

In the Vikings’ first regular-season game, Tarkenton came off the bench, threw for four touchdowns and ran for another to beat the Chicago Bears. “A star was born,” the Associated Press declared.

Tarkenton was the Vikings’ quarterback their first six seasons (1961-66). He didn’t have a strong arm, but he was smart, accurate, creative, agile. As Jon Nordheimer of the New York Times noted, “He developed the role of scrambler into an art form, a quarterback who ran out of the protective pocket of his linemen a step ahead of grasping tacklers, crisscrossing the field on broken plays that often turned into long gains for his team.”

Tarkenton’s helter-skelter style produced thrills but gave Van Brocklin chills. According to Newsday, the coach said, “No scrambler will ever win a championship.” Tarkenton bristled and the relationship deteriorated.

After the 1966 season, Van Brocklin resigned and Tarkenton was traded to the Giants for four draft picks.

Talk of the town

With Tarkenton, the Giants sought to regain some of the flair they lost when Joe Namath made the Jets the glamour football team in New York.

It was an ideal Gotham storyline. Namath was Times Square. Tarkenton was Wall Street. The playboy versus the preacher’s boy. Or, as the New York Times put it, the swinger and the square.

Tony Kornheiser of Newsday wrote, “In a town where the other quarterback is Joe Namath, Tarkenton could run naked down the streets of New York with a pound of marijuana in one hand and a gallon of wood alcohol in the other and still the people would say, ‘He’s conservative.’ ”

Some of Tarkenton’s best performances for the Giants came against the Cardinals. He threw a career-high five touchdown passes versus St. Louis on Oct. 25, 1970. Two other times _ in 1967 and 1969 _ he had four touchdown throws in a game against the Cardinals. Video

“It’s as if he waves his magic wand and the Big Red defense disappears,” Jeff Meyers of the Post-Dispatch observed. “The ball has some mystical attraction to his receivers’ hands. There are some Cardinals who swear he wears a turban, not a helmet.”

Prodigal son

Entering the 1971 season, his fifth with the Giants, Tarkenton said he asked club owner Wellington Mara for a $250,000 loan. When Mara said no, Tarkenton left the team on the eve of the first exhibition game and went home to Atlanta. Mara was miffed and told the media Tarkenton retired.

A couple of days later, a contrite Tarkenton returned and signed a contract. In his book, Tarkenton said the deal called for a salary of $125,000 and a $2,500 bonus for each game the Giants won, but no loan.

Privately, Mara couldn’t forgive Tarkenton for abandoning the team. As Tarkenton noted in his book, “A breach had been created. What I had done, in Wellington’s mind, was to commit an act of disloyalty.”

Tarkenton played poorly (two touchdown passes, nine interceptions, 43 percent completion rate) in the Giants’ remaining exhibition games. When the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Giants, 20-3, in the exhibition finale at Yankee Stadium, Tarkenton and his teammates were booed. “It was a reception we deserved,” Tarkenton told the New York Daily News.

Gotta have Hart

At the same time Tarkenton was going through turmoil with the Giants, a quarterback drama was unfolding with the Cardinals. First-year head coach Bob Hollway used the 1971 exhibition games as a competition between incumbent Jim Hart and Pete Beathard for the starting job.

Hart prevailed _ barely _ but in the regular-season opener at home against Washington he was intercepted three times and fumbled. Fans responded with “an avalanche of boos” and chants of “We want Beathard” before Hart was replaced early in the fourth quarter, the Post-Dispatch reported.

Beathard took over as starter for Game 2.

It was about then that the Giants and Cardinals apparently talked seriously about a trade involving Tarkenton.

According to Bob Broeg of the Post-Dispatch, speculation was the Cardinals would send Hart and safety Jerry Stovall to the Giants for Tarkenton. In the book “The Jim Hart Story” by Tom Barnidge and Doug Grow, the proposed deal was Hart, Stovall and defensive lineman Bob Rowe for Tarkenton.

At some point, it appears the Giants changed course and decided to wait until after the season to weigh offers for Tarkenton.

The 1971 Cardinals went 2-3 with Beathard before Hart was restored to the starter role.

Domino effect

Neither Tarkenton (11 touchdown passes, 21 interceptions), Hart (eight TDs, 14 interceptions) nor Beathard (six TDs, 12 interceptions) did well in 1971.

Tarkenton told the New York Daily News he expected to be traded. “The only teams I’d care to go to would be proven contenders,” he said.

In January 1972, Tarkenton informed the Giants he’d accept a trade to one of five teams _ Baltimore, Kansas City, Minnesota, Oakland, Washington. According to William N. Wallace of the New York Times, “Mara said four clubs called the Giants about Tarkenton’s availability, but he wouldn’t name them and only he knows if they match Tarkenton’s list.”

To Tarkenton’s delight, the Giants sent him to the Vikings for quarterback Norm Snead, receiver Bob Grim, running back Vince Clements and two draft choices.

The trade had a big impact on the Cardinals. Tarkenton’s return made Vikings quarterback Gary Cuozzo expendable. With Bob Hollway still not sold on Jim Hart as the starter, the Cardinals dealt their best receiver, John Gilliam, and two draft choices to Minnesota for Cuozzo in April 1972.

Hollway declared Cuozzo, an aspiring orthodontist, the starting quarterback. “We wouldn’t trade a player like Gilliam if we didn’t think Gary would come in here as our quarterback,” Hollway told the Post-Dispatch.

Tarkenton should have sent the Cardinals a thank-you card. Gilliam, the Cardinals’ leader in receiving yardage for three consecutive years (1969-71), was just what Tarkenton needed. Gilliam led the Vikings in receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns caught in each of his first two seasons (1972-73) with Minnesota. In a 1974 playoff game against the Cardinals, Gilliam caught two touchdown passes from Tarkenton in the Vikings’ 30-14 romp. As he had done with St. Louis, Gilliam averaged 20 yards per catch during his time with Minnesota.

Meanwhile, Cuozzo was a bust for the 1972 Cardinals. He played poorly in the exhibition games and, when the season opened, Hollway named Tim Van Galder, a 28-year-old NFL rookie, the starter.

The Cardinals were 1-3-1 in Van Galder’s five starts. Cuozzo took over, lost five of his six starts (the lone win was against Tarkenton and the Vikings) and was booed in St. Louis. When Jim Hart was reinstated as the starter for the final two games, the same fans cheered.

After Don Coryell replaced Hollway as head coach in 1973, one of his first decisions was to keep Hart as starting quarterback and build an offense around him. The Cardinals became a playoff team.

In Minnesota, Tarkenton thrived, taking the Vikings to three Super Bowls (though they lost each one.)

Tarkenton remains the Vikings’ career passing leader in yards (33,098), touchdowns (239) and completions (2,635). With the Giants, he threw 103 TD passes in 69 games. The only Giants with more touchdown throws are Eli Manning (366), Phil Simms (199) and Charlie Conerly (173).

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How Alfredo Cabrera went from Canarian to Cardinal

Posted in Games, Hitters, Prospects on January 5, 2026| 16 Comments »

The distance between the Canary Islands and St. Louis is 4,300 miles. It took Alfredo Cabrera 32 years to make the trek.

Cabrera is the only person born in the Canary Islands to play baseball in the big leagues. The shortstop was 32 when he debuted with the Cardinals in 1913.

His time in the majors, however, was as fleeting as a glimpse of a canary in the wild. Cabrera appeared in one game, played four innings and never returned.

Instead, he had a long professional playing career in Cuba and as a Hispanic minor-league baseball pioneer in the northeastern United States.

Island hopping

Formed by volcanic eruptions that created black sand beaches along crystal-clear turquoise water, the Canary Islands of Spain are within 65 miles of Africa’s northwestern coast. Wild canaries are a native species of the islands. (Cardinals, however, are not.)

Alfredo Cabrera was born in the Canary Islands on May 11, 1881. He was a descendant of Guanches, the indigenous people of the islands, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Cabrera arrived at a time when the Canary Islands transitioned from an agricultural economy (largely bananas and sugar cane) to tourism as steamships carried winter-weary visitors to the port of Las Palmas.

Though raised in the Canary Islands, Cuba became Cabrera’s home. He “most likely sailed from the Canary Islands to Cuba around 1900, as a teenager, and almost immediately established himself as a gifted baseball player,” according to Erik Malinowski of the Society for American Baseball Research.

In 1901, when Cabrera turned 20, he made his professional baseball debut in the Cuban League. He spent 18 seasons in Latin leagues, primarily with Almendares, and was player-manager for part of that time, according to Seamheads.com. Cabrera was inducted into the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1942.

Integrating the minors

Cabrera was part of a team, the Baseball Stars of Cuba, that toured the United States in 1906. Charles Humphrey, owner of the New Britain club in the Connecticut State League, was impressed by how the Cubans played. Humphrey went to Havana and recruited four Cubans _ third baseman Rafael Almeida, outfielder Armando Marsans, pitcher Luis Padron and the shortstop, Cabrera _ to play for New Britain in 1908, according to Weston Ulbrich of the Greater Hartford Twilight Baseball League.

Humphrey named the New Britain club the Perfectos.

Bigots objected to the newcomers joining an all-white league. Recalling those days, Dan Porter of the New York Daily Mirror wrote in 1933, “As a kid, I saw a half dozen Cuban players break into organized baseball in the old Connecticut League. I refer to players like Marsans, Almeida, Cabrera and others. I recall the storm of protest from the One Hundred Per Centers at that time but I also recall that all the Cubans conducted themselves in such a manner that they reflected nothing but credit on themselves and those who favored admitting them to baseball’s select circle.”

A right-handed batter, Cabrera was 5-foot-10 and lean, with a complexion “the hue of burnt leather,” the New Britain Herald reported. (The Post-Dispatch described his skin as being “the color of a coconut shell.”)

Of the four from Cuba to join New Britain, three eventually reached the majors. Almeida and Marsans debuted with the Reds in July 1911. Almeida played three seasons (1911-13) with Cincinnati. Marsans spent sevens seasons in the big leagues with the Reds (1911-14), Browns (1916-17) and Yankees (1917-18). He also had a stint with the St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League (1914-15).

Cabrera played five seasons (1908-12) with New Britain _ (the franchise shifted to Waterbury in June 1912) _ before getting to the majors. His path to St. Louis, however, required a detour through Indianapolis.

St. Louis shuffle

Bob Connery played for and managed Hartford of the Connecticut State League from 1908-12 and was quite familiar with the talents of Alfredo Cabrera. Connery became a Cardinals scout after the 1912 season. He was a friend of Cardinals manager Miller Huggins and both were friends of Mike Kelley, who had become manager of Indianapolis in the American Association.

On Connery’s recommendation to Kelley, Indianapolis acquired Cabrera from the Connecticut State League in January 1913. (Two years later, Connery convinced the Cardinals to sign Rogers Hornsby.)

During 1913 spring training, Cardinals shortstop Arnold Hauser injured a knee. Needing shortstop help, Huggins turned to his friend Mike Kelley. Indianapolis sent two shortstops _ Cabrera and Charley O’Leary _ to the Cardinals.

Unlike Cabrera, O’Leary, 37, had big-league experience. He was the shortstop for the Tigers in two World Series (1907 and 1908). In his last big-league game, he helped turn a triple play before being dispatched by the Tigers to Indianapolis in April 1912.

O’Leary (starter) and Cabrera (reserve) opened the 1913 season with the Cardinals. According to the Indianapolis Star, the Cardinals were impressed by “the dandy throwing arm the Cuban exhibited.”

Huggins told the Post-Dispatch, “I like that fellow’s looks and I intend to give him a thorough trial.”

However, once the season started, Huggins stuck with O’Leary at shortstop and kept Cabrera on the bench. The Cardinals began looking to trade the rookie.

“Cabrera is a shortstop of rare promise and he is the entity which may be used as a pawn to strengthen the club in other departments,” W.J. O’Connor reported in the Post-Dispatch. “Either Brooklyn or Boston could use Cabrera, and Huggins will carry Alfredo until he makes the first swing around the (league) … Huggins is so well-fortified at short, now that O’Leary has proved himself still a major-league performer, that he can readily pass up a promising youngster like Cabrera … If either (Brooklyn) or (Boston) wants Cabrera, Huggins will pass him over for a first-string pitcher or an outfielder.”

One and done

After O’Leary pulled up lame rounding first in a game at Brooklyn on May 15, 1913, the Post-Dispatch reported Cabrera would make his big-league debut the next day as the starting shortstop at Ebbets Field.

Huggins put Cabrera seventh in the batting order, between Rebel Oakes and Ivey Wingo. Pitching for the Cardinals was left-hander Slim Sallee, who would win 19 that season for a club that totaled 51.

The Brooklyn lineup included leadoff batter and center fielder Casey Stengel, and cleanup hitter and left fielder Zack Wheat, who remains the Dodgers’ career leader in total bases (4,003), hits (2,804), doubles (464) and triples (171). The Brooklyn pitcher, Cliff Curtis, never achieved a winning record in five big-league seasons and was a 24-game loser with Boston in 1910.

In the first inning, the Cardinals scored three times against Curtis and had a runner on third, two outs, when Cabrera came to the plate. He grounded out to the pitcher, ending the inning. Cabrera batted again in the third, grounded to short and was out by 20 feet at first, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported.

Cabrera didn’t get a fielding chance, but Huggins apparently was miffed that the shortstop didn’t get to a grounder that went for a hit, the New York Herald reported. In the fifth, Cabrera was removed for a pinch-hitter and Lee Magee shifted from left field to shortstop. Brooklyn won, 6-5. Boxscore

The Cardinals started a utility player, Possum Whitted, at shortstop in their next game. Cabrera was sent to the Springfield (Massachusetts) Ponies of the Eastern Association. “He did not make a very satisfactory showing (with St. Louis) in the eyes of manager Huggins,” the Springfield Daily Republican noted.

International game

Cabrera spent three more seasons (1913-15) in the minors but his playing days lasted much longer in Cuba. As player-manager, he led Almendares to a Cuban League championship in 1915.

According to the Greater Hartford Twilight Baseball League, “Cabrera’s latter years were spent as groundskeeper of Havana’s El Gran Stadium.”

Today, baseball is part of the Canary Islands sports culture. Eric Gonzalez-Diaz, born in the Canary Islands town of San Juan de la Rambla, was a pitcher in the Padres farm system from 2008-10 and played for Spain in the 2013 World Baseball Classic. A Canary Islands team, the Tenerife Marlins, became 2025 Baseball European Cup champions.

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Cardinals nemesis Mickey Lolich got assist from ex-Redbird

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers, Prospects on December 29, 2025| 19 Comments »

Mickey Lolich was at a crossroads in his pitching career when a former Cardinals ace came to his rescue.

A left-hander with a stellar fastball he couldn’t control, Lolich, 21, was an unhappy prospect in the Tigers system when he was dispatched to Portland (Ore.) in 1962. The pitching coach there, Gerry Staley, 41, served a dual role as reliever.

Staley had been a big winner for the Cardinals before becoming a closer for the White Sox. Perhaps his biggest save came later with the work he did on Lolich. Staley taught him how to make a fastball sink. Lolich became a pitcher instead of a thrower, a winner instead of a loser. The sinkerball made all the difference.

Six years later, Lolich earned the 1968 World Series Most Valuable Player Award for beating the Cardinals three times, including in the decisive Game 7.

In his 2018 book “Joy in Tigertown,” Lolich suggested Staley deserved a 1968 World Series share for helping him become a success. “Meeting him was one of the great breaks of my career,” Lolich said. “Maybe the most important one.”

Wild thing

Two-year-old Mickey Lolich was pedaling a tricycle as fast as he could in his Portland (Ore.) neighborhood when he lost control and slammed into the kickstand of a parked motorcycle. The big bike crashed down on the tyke, pinning him to the ground. His left collarbone was fractured.

“Well, back in 1942, they just sort of strapped your arm across your chest and waited for it to heal,” Lolich recalled to Pat Batcheller of Detroit Public Radio (WDET, 101.9 FM) in 2018. “When they took the bindings off, I had total atrophy in my left arm. It wasn’t working at all.”

Though Mickey was right-handed, a doctor advised the Lolich family to encourage him to use his left hand and arm as much as possible to build strength. His parents “tied my right arm behind my back and made me use my left hand,” Lolich told Detroit Public Radio. “I wanted to throw those little cars and trucks, so I threw them left-handed … and that’s how I became a left-handed pitcher.”

The kid learned to throw with velocity, too. In his senior high school season, Lolich struck out 71 in 42 innings. He was 17 when the Tigers signed him in 1958 and told him to report to training camp the following spring.

Lolich’s first manager in the minors was fellow Portland native Johnny Pesky, the former Red Sox shortstop whose late throw to the plate enabled Enos Slaughter to score the winning run for the Cardinals in Game 7 of the 1946 World Series.

When Braves executive Birdie Tebbetts saw Lolich’s fastball in April 1959, he told Marvin West of the Knoxville News-Sentinel, “I’d give cold cash for this Lolich boy.”

The problem was control. In a four-hit shutout of Asheville in May 1959, Lolich walked nine but was bailed out by five double plays. A month later, in a two-hitter to beat Macon, he walked 11 and threw four wild pitches.

Lolich began each of his first three pro seasons (1959-61) with Class A Knoxville and was demoted to Class B Durham each year. In June 1961, after Lolich gave up no hits but nine walks and four runs in a five-inning start, Knoxville manager Frank Carswell told the News-Sentinel, “I’ve seen some strange games, but I can’t remember seeing one pitcher give away a decision without a hit.”

Headed home

After a strong spring training in 1962, Lolich was assigned to Class AAA Denver, but he was a bust (0-4, 16.50 ERA). In late May, the Tigers demoted him to Knoxville, but Lolich refused to return there. Instead, he went home to Portland. The Tigers suspended him.

Portland had a city league for amateur and semipro players in conjunction with the American Amateur Baseball Congress. Lolich showed up one night in the uniform of Archer Blower, a maker of industrial fans, faced 12 batters and struck out all of them, the Oregon Daily Journal reported.

Blown away by the performance, the Tigers quickly reinstated Lolich and arranged for him to pitch the rest of the summer for the Portland Beavers, the Class AAA club of the Kansas City Athletics. That’s when Gerry Staley got a look at him. In the book “Summer of ’68,” Lolich told author Tim Wendel, “He (Staley) asked if I’d give him 10 days to let him try and turn me into a pitcher. All I was then was a thrower, really. I’d stand out there and throw it as hard as I could.”

Lolich agreed to the proposal.

Starting and closing

Gerry Staley went from Brush Prairie, his rural hometown in Washington state, into pro baseball as a rawboned right-handed pitcher who “looks as if he could whip a wounded bear,” Dwight Chapin of the Vancouver Columbian noted.

When he was with a Cardinals farm club in 1947, Staley was throwing warmup tosses to infielder Julius Schoendienst, brother of St. Louis second baseman Red Schoendienst. “He noticed I had a natural sinker when I threw three-quarters overhand,” Staley recalled to United Press International. “He said my sinker did more than my fastball. So I stuck with it.”

Using the sinker seven out of every 10 pitches, Staley became a prominent starter with the Cardinals. He had five consecutive double-digit win seasons (1949-53) for St. Louis. His win totals included 19 in 1951, 17 in 1952 and 18 in 1953.

In explaining to Al Crombie of the Vancouver Columbian how he threw the sinker, Staley said, “You have to release the ball off one finger more than the other, and then I roll my wrist to get a little more of the downspin on the ball.”

Staley threw a heavy sinker. According to the Vancouver newspaper, “It breaks down at the last second, and as the surprised hitter gets his bat around on it, most of the ball isn’t there. Most of the time it dribbles off harmlessly to an infielder and is made to order for starting double plays.”

Traded to the Reds in December 1954, Staley went on to the Yankees and then the White Sox, who made him a reliever. In 1959, Staley got the save in the win that clinched for the White Sox their first American League pennant in 40 years. He appeared in 67 games that season and had eight wins, 15 saves and a 2.24 ERA. The next year also was stellar for him (13 wins, nine saves. 2.42 ERA).

Released by the Tigers in October 1961, Staley snared an offer to coach and pitch for Portland.

Soaring with a sinker

Mickey Lolich became Staley’s star pupil. As author Tim Wendel noted, “After a week or so, Lolich caught on to what Staley was trying to teach him _ how it was better to be a sinkerball pitcher, with control, than a kid trying to throw 100 mph on every pitch. The new goal was to keep the ball low, often away from the hitter, consistently hitting the outside corner.”

Staley also taught Lolich to extend his pregame warmup time. The extra pitches tired his arm a bit and gave more sink to his sinker.

The results were impressive. In 130 innings for Portland, Lolich struck out 138 and yielded 116 hits. The next year, he reached the majors with Detroit. “Gerry Staley changed my whole life,” Lolich told Tim Wendel. “It’s as simple as that.”

In the 1968 World Series, Lolich won Games 2, 5 and 7. He went the route in all three, posting a 1.67 ERA.

Lolich had double-digit wins 12 years in a row (1964-75), including 25 in 1971 and 22 in 1972. He pitched more than 300 innings in a season four consecutive times (1971-74).

In 16 seasons in the majors with the Tigers (1963-75), Mets (1976) and Padres (1978-79), Lolich earned 217 wins and had 41 shutouts. He is the Tigers’ career leader in strikeouts (2,679), starts (459) and shutouts (39).

The 1962 season with Portland was Gerry Staley’s last in professional baseball. He became superintendent of the Clark County (Washington) Parks Department. “It was time I went to work,” he told the Vancouver Columbian.

After retiring in 1982, Staley enjoyed gardening and fishing for steelhead trout. Once a week, he would take time to carefully autograph items mailed to him by baseball fans. “There are some people who won’t sign unless they get paid for it,” Staley said to the Vancouver newspaper. “What the heck. I’ve got enough to live on. It’s nice to be remembered.”

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How Alvin Dark saw the light with Ozzie Smith

Posted in Games, Hitters, Managers, Prospects on December 22, 2025| 18 Comments »

In baseball, being right can get you fired. It happened to Alvin Dark.

When the Padres opened spring training camp in 1978, Dark made a daring decision. The manager named Ozzie Smith the starting shortstop.

Smith, 23, had no big-league experience. He didn’t have much minor-league experience either. He’d spent part of a season at Walla Walla, and a couple of months in the Arizona Instructional League. Dark saw him there.

A shortstop himself (with the Cardinals and others) before becoming a manager, Dark determined Smith was ready to make the leap from Class A to the majors.

“Alvin Dark took a chance on a skinny kid from south-central Los Angeles, and he believed that I could one day be one of the best shortstops that ever played the game,” Smith recalled to Cardinals Yearbook in 2002.

Dark’s bold move turned out to be a smart one. Smith did the job, taking the first impressive steps toward a Hall of Fame career, but Dark wasn’t there to witness the rookie’s rise. In shaking up the infield, Dark shook up Padres management and players. He was fired before spring training ended.

Under development

When Ozzie was 6, his father, Clovis, a truck driver, and mother, Marvella, moved the family from Mobile, Ala., to the Watts section of Los Angeles. In August 1965, “we had to sleep on the floor because of the looting, rioting and sniping,” Smith recalled to Vahe Gregorian of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Clovis left the family and Marvella worked seven days a week in a nursing home.

At Locke High School, Smith was a teammate of another future Baseball Hall of Famer, Eddie Murray. The Orioles took Murray in the 1973 amateur draft. No clubs sought Smith. He enrolled at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and made the baseball squad as a walk-on.

“I never taught Ozzie anything about playing defense,” Cal Poly coach Berdy Harr told the Chula Vista Star-News. “He already knew what that was all about when he came to us. He had a sense of timing, rhythm, I had never seen.”

As Smith later recalled to the Philadelphia Daily News, “I never had trouble catching the ball, even in Little League. I’ve always been able to throw it and I’ve always had a knack for making the right play.”

What Smith needed help with was controlling his temper. “I had a short fuse in high school,” he told the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

He also had to become a better hitter. Smith batted .158 as a college freshman; .230 his sophomore season. Harr suggested he try switch-hitting.

In the summer of 1975, Smith played semipro baseball in Clarinda, Iowa. “Most people would have no idea of how intimidating and stressful it could be for a young black player to move into an all-white rural community in the Midwest,” Smith said in his Hall of Fame induction speech.

The townsfolk embraced him, however, and Smith thrived, improving his hitting. He was a complete player when he returned to Cal Poly for his junior year, batting .308. Detroit took Smith in the seventh round of the 1976 amateur draft, but he didn’t like the Tigers’ offer and opted to stay in school.

As a senior, Smith hit .307, stole 44 bases for the second season in a row and dazzled on defense. “In all my years of coaching, he is the one player I would most rather depend upon in a clutch situation whether it was fielding, making a throw or executing offensively,” Harr told the San Luis Obispo Tribune. “It has been a pleasure watching him mature as a person and as a player.”

Shortstop sensation

The Padres signed Smith after taking him in the fourth round of the 1977 draft. Sent to Walla Walla, he produced a .391 on-base percentage in 68 games and swiped 30 bases.

In the fall, the Padres put Smith on their Arizona Instructional League team. Hall of Fame second baseman Billy Herman, a Padres minor-league hitting instructor, saw him and was impressed. Then Alvin Dark arrived.

Dark knew what it took to play shortstop. He’d been a good one, a three-time all-star and recipient of the 1948 Rookie of the Year Award. Dark played in World Series for the Braves (1948) and Giants (1951, 1954). The Cardinals traded Red Schoendienst for him in 1956.

As a manager, Dark won a National League pennant (1962 Giants) and a World Series title (1974 Athletics). The Padres hired him in May 1977, replacing John McNamara.

It didn’t take long for Dark to determine the Padres needed an infield upgrade. Their second baseman, Mike Champion, batted .229, third baseman Tucker Ashford had no power (three home runs) and shortstop Bill Almon made 41 errors, hit two homers and struck out 114 times. Overall, the 1977 Padres made a league-leading 189 errors, including 46 at shortstop.

Dark came to the 1977 Arizona Instructional League to see another player, but the one who got his attention was Ozzie Smith. The shortstop made two jaw-dropping fielding plays in one game. “They were the kind of plays you said, ‘I don’t believe this,’ ” Dark recalled to the Post-Dispatch. “To have the coordination and the rhythm and the timing all in one body like Ozzie had, that was very unusual.”

Ready or not

At spring training in February 1978, Dark declared Smith the shortstop and shifted Bill Almon to second base. Derrel Thomas, acquired from the Giants, took over at third and Gene Richards went from left field to first. The reconstructed infield was “a gamble that alarmed the front office,” The Sporting News reported.

Almon, Richards and Thomas were playing out of position. When the four starting infielders didn’t mesh in early spring training games, the Padres reacted with panic rather than patience. “We were getting a lot of feedback from players,” Padres owner Ray Kroc told The Sporting News.

On March 21, 1978, Dark was fired. The infield experiment “contributed to his banishment,” The Sporting News reported.

Additionally, “Alvin wasn’t communicating with the players, the front office or the media,” Kroc said to The Sporting News. “He wasn’t willing to delegate authority to his coaches … Alvin had a tendency to overmanage. He wanted to be the pitching coach, the batting coach, the infield coach.”

Padres player Gene Tenace told the magazine Dark “put in so many trick plays and had so many signs that everyone was uptight. There were too many things to worry about. I like Alvin … but the team is more relaxed now that he’s gone.”

In his book “When In Doubt, Fire The Manager,” Dark said, “I felt it was disgraceful that I didn’t even get the chance to start a season with the Padres.”

According to The Sporting News, Kroc briefly considered replacing Dark with the man he’d been traded for 22 years earlier, former Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst, who was a coach with Oakland. Instead, Kroc went with another ex-Cardinal, Roger Craig, promoting him from pitching coach to manager.

Roller-coaster ride

Craig took over with 17 spring training games remaining. After eight days on the job, he shifted Bill Almon to third base and put Derrel Thomas at second, but he stuck with Ozzie Smith at shortstop. “I’ve never seen anyone with better hands, or quicker hands and feet,” Craig told The Sporting News.

On Opening Day against the Giants, Smith started and batted eighth. By the end of April, Craig moved him to the No. 2 spot in the batting order. Smith thrived; the Padres didn’t. After their record sunk to 24-32, Kroc expressed his disgust with the team. “I can’t understand it,” Kroc told The Sporting News. “These dumb (expletives) didn’t want to play for Alvin Dark. Now do they want to play for Roger Craig? Not a damn bit … I don’t think they’ve got any guts or pride … I want ballplayers. I’m not going to subsidize idiots … Only four players on this team are responding: Ozzie Smith, Derrel Thomas, Randy Jones and Gaylord Perry. The rest (which included the likes of future Hall of Famers Rollie Fingers and Dave Winfield) are demanding major-league salaries and playing like high school kids.”

The Padres won three of their next four. A week later, they won six in a row. They didn’t have a losing month the rest of the year, finishing at 84-78, their first winning season since entering the National League in 1969.

Smith was a major factor in the success. He produced 152 hits, swiped 40 bases and fielded superbly. Recalling his years with the World Series champion Athletics when Bert Campaneris was their shortstop, Rollie Fingers told The Sporting News, “Ozzie has made plays that Campy never could have made.”

When word about Smith’s wizardry spread through the league early in the 1978 season, Phillies manager Danny Ozark told the Philadelphia Daily News, “Nobody with just one year in Walla Walla can be that good.” After seeing Smith for the first time, Ozark said to columnist Bill Conlin, “He made a believer out of me. I’ve never seen a rookie shortstop make the plays he made against us. I haven’t seen any shortstop play better than he did … and I’ve got one of the best (Larry Bowa) in baseball history … Once every decade or so a player comes along you know is something special _ a (Willie) Mays, a (Hank) Aaron, a (Rod) Carew. I think Smith is going to fit into that special category with his defense.”

Padres broadcaster Jerry Coleman, who was a Yankees teammate of Hall of Fame shortstop Phil Rizzuto, said to the Chula Vista Star-News, “Ozzie has made plays this season that I have never seen other shortstops make.”

Reflecting on the Padres’ topsy-turvy season, Roger Craig told The Sporting News, “Alvin (Dark) made some mistakes, but Ozzie wasn’t one of them.”

Traded to the Cardinals before the 1982 season, Smith came to symbolize the Whiteyball style of play manager Whitey Herzog implemented in St. Louis. Smith helped the Cardinals win three National League pennants and a World Series title. He earned 13 consecutive Gold Glove awards from 1980 to 1992.

In his induction speech at the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002, Smith gave Alvin Dark his due: “It was Alvin who saw the dream in me … He brought me into the major leagues.”

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