RetroSimba

(Updated July 6, 2024)

After being fired from his job as Yankees manager in 1966, Johnny Keane was looking forward to rebuilding his career in 1967. The Angels had hired him to be a special assignment scout. Keane hoped that role would position him to become a big-league manager again and provide him the chance to replicate the success he had when he led the 1964 Cardinals to a World Series title.

The spirit was willing, but the body was not.

On Jan. 6, 1967, Keane, 55, died of a heart attack at his home in Houston.

Code of honor

Keane, a St. Louis native who studied for the priesthood at St. Louis Prep Seminary, abided by a principled personal code of fair play, dignity and loyalty.

In August 1964, Cardinals owner Gussie Busch violated that code by firing Keane’s friends, general manager Bing Devine and business manager Art Routzong, and plotting to replace Keane with Leo Durocher. Unwilling to continue working for Busch, Keane resigned following the Cardinals’ World Series triumph over the Yankees. Five days later, he became Yankees manager, inheriting a club of fading, injury-prone players.

When the Yankees finished with a 77-85 record in 1965 and followed that by losing 16 of their first 20 games in 1966, Keane took the fall.

Some believed the emotional toll of Keane’s departures from the Cardinals and Yankees within a span of 19 months contributed to his death.

In a less romanticized view, St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports editor Bob Broeg, knowing Keane’s resiliency, wrote, “There is a tendency among the poets in the press box to suggest (Keane) died of a broken heart. Possibly, but not probably.”

Career Cardinal

Keane devoted most of his professional career to the Cardinals, working for them in four decades. He joined their farm system as a shortstop in 1930. Five years later, he was struck in the head by a pitch from Sig Jakucki and suffered a fractured skull.

“It happened in Houston,” Keane recalled to the Philadelphia Daily News. “I hit a home run off a pitcher the night before. The next night he came back in relief and he hit me. Crazy pitcher.”

In 1938, Keane became player-manager for the Cardinals’ farm club in Albany, Ga. He spent 21 seasons as a manager in the St. Louis farm system and had winning records in 17 of those years.

Keane was a candidate to become Cardinals manager in 1951, but the job went to Marty Marion. Twice after that, Keane rejected offers to become a Cardinals coach because, “I wanted to go up as a manager,” he told The Sporting News.

In 1959, Keane, on the advice of Devine, reconsidered his stance and made it to the major leagues for the first time as a coach on the staff of Cardinals manager Solly Hemus. Keane replaced Hemus in July 1961 and led the Cardinals to a 47-33 record. The Cardinals also produced winning records in Keane’s three full seasons as their manager: 84-78 in 1962, 93-69 in 1963 and 93-69 again in 1964.

My way

With players such as Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Tony Kubek sidelined by injuries, the Yankees under Keane went from champions to also-rans.

Mantle didn’t like Keane’s attempt to instill discipline among the Yankees. In his autobiography, “The Mick,” Mantle called Keane “a drill sergeant” with “silly little high school rules.”

“I kept my distance,” Mantle said. “When we did talk, there were no arguments. More often than not, we had staring contests. Eventually the situation got so bad that if I had been financially set, I would’ve retired at the end of the (1965) season.”

When the Yankees decided Keane no longer should be their manager, they offered to make a deal with him to prevent the move from being announced as a firing. Keane refused to go along with the scheme.

“Yes, that’s what happened,” Keane said to Chuck Fierson of the Oneonta (N.Y.) Star. “The Yanks told me that if I said I was retiring because of my health they would give me a job in the front office. But my health is OK and I don’t want a front office job. Besides that, I didn’t like the idea of making up excuses.”

New York columnist Red Smith wrote, “There is something depressing about a business that makes a gentleman of John Keane’s dignity and integrity a victim of the system.”

Three months later, in July 1966, the Braves fired manager Bobby Bragan. Keane was their choice to replace him, according to columnist Dick Young in The Sporting News, but Keane didn’t want to step in until the season was completed.

“He preferred to start fresh,” Young said.

Billy Hitchcock, a Braves coach, was named interim manager. When Hitchcock led the Braves to a 33-18 mark to finish the season, the interim tag was removed from his title and Keane was out of the picture.

True gentleman

By December 1966, Keane, eager to get back into baseball, was grateful to receive the offer to scout for the Angels.

To prepare for his role, Keane bought a car on Jan. 6, 1967, so that he’d have a reliable vehicle to take him on scouting trips.

After dinner that evening, Keane told his wife he was feeling ill. At 10:30, Keane collapsed and died.

Dr. William Sutton, Keane’s physician, said Keane “had been under treatment for heart trouble and high blood pressure, but had not suffered a previous heart attack,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

Reacting to news of Keane’s death, Ken Boyer, third baseman for the 1964 Cardinals, said Keane was the type of person “you would be proud to have for a brother or father.”

Yankees pitcher Whitey Ford said Keane “was the first person to visit me in the hospital after my operation last season _ and that was after he had been dropped as manager.”

In his book “Whitey and Mickey,” Ford said, “I liked Johnny Keane. He was a great man, a decent man, and I pitched a lot for Keane. He just got there at the wrong time.”

Yankees president Michael Burke noted Keane “won everyone’s respect” and “his own self-respect and quiet sense of personal dignity was never compromised.”

In his book “From Ghetto to Glory,” Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson called Keane “one of the nicest people I ever met in my life” and said Keane’s death “probably affected me as much as anybody’s I’ve ever known.”

Faithful friends

The funeral for Keane was held in Houston three days after his death. Among the pallbearers were Devine, Routzong and two of Keane’s coaches from his Cardinals staff, Vern Benson and Howie Pollet.

Milt Richman of United Press International wrote that Keane “had more friends than he knew” and Keane and Devine “were almost like brothers.”

Keane was survived by his wife, daughter and two grandsons.

Three months after the funeral, Young reported that, although Keane had been employed by the Angels for only one month, the club honored him by paying his widow the year’s salary Keane would have received as special assignment scout.

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Concerned about the direction of a franchise that had gone eight consecutive years without qualifying for the postseason, the Cardinals pushed sentiment aside and fired manager Red Schoendienst.

On Oct. 5, 1976, general manager Bing Devine informed Schoendienst he was out after 12 seasons as manager.

Schoendienst, who had built a Hall of Fame career as a Cardinals second baseman in the 1940s and 1950s, won two National League pennants (1967 and 1968) and a World Series title (1967) as St. Louis manager.

From 1969 through 1976, though, with a core that included Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Ted Simmons and Joe Torre, the Cardinals never reached the postseason, even though a division format had expanded the number of teams that qualified.

In 1976, the Cardinals had an abysmal season. Their 72-90 record gave them a .444 winning percentage, their lowest since the .442 mark of the 1955 Cardinals (69-86).

“There are times, regardless of one’s capabilities, when a different perspective is in order,” Cardinals owner Gussie Busch said in explaining the decision to fire Schoendienst.

Devine told Neal Russo of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he recommended the move to Busch.

“I felt a change in managers was in the best interests of the club,” Devine said. “We wanted a new approach, a new atmosphere.”

Red’s assessment

Schoendienst said he was “absolutely surprised” by the firing.

“I thought I did a good job with the young kids,” Schoendienst said. “I don’t think anyone could have done any better with the club this year. It was great to see some of the kids playing so hard and showing so much potential. That’s why I would have liked to be around another year.”

In the book “Red: A Baseball Life,” Schoendienst said of the firing, “It caught me a little off guard … The organization decided to make changes. It was as simple as that and there really was no argument I could make. I never second-guessed myself. I never regretted any move or decision I made and I was happy with the job I had done.”

Old school

The 1976 Cardinals had an array of players who were 24 or younger, including infielders Keith Hernandez, Garry Templeton and Hector Cruz, outfielder Jerry Mumphrey and pitchers John Denny, Pete Falcone an Eric Rasmussen.

Some critics thought Schoendienst didn’t connect with the younger players.

“What hurt him most was that we’re a young club and maybe Red’s managing is  directed more to a veteran ballclub _ just let ’em go out there and play,” Cardinals pitcher John Curtis said to Dick Kaegel of the Post-Dispatch. “I think you need a stronger approach than that. You need to reinforce things.”

The 1976 Cardinals, though, had the fewest saves (18) in the NL and committed the second-most errors (174), indicating the personnel, not the manager, was the problem.

In an article for The Sporting News, Russo, who covered the team on a daily basis, wrote, “Key injuries, erratic defense, disappointing pitching and the failure of the offensive leaders to produce doomed Red in ’76. There had been criticism of Red as being too easy-going, but the fact remains that his style was preferred by most players and observers.”

Schoendienst told longtime writer Bob Broeg, “I’m not going to kick benches or kick bats. I had meetings with the team and I asked them for 100 percent.”

Replacing Red

Two days after firing Schoendienst, the Cardinals hired Vern Rapp, a minor-league manager and former Cardinals prospect, to replace him.

Said Schoendienst: “I don’t expect to be working for the Cardinals in some other capacity _ at least not now. But maybe I’ll be back in a few years.”

Schoendienst became a coach for the 1977 Oakland Athletics on the staff of manager Jack McKeon.

in 1978, a month into his second season as Cardinals manager, Rapp was fired and replaced by Ken Boyer.

After two seasons with the Athletics, Schoendienst returned to the Cardinals as a coach on Boyer’s staff in 1979.

When Boyer was fired in 1980, Schoendienst served a stint that season as interim manager for the Cardinals. He was on the coaching staff of manager Whitey Herzog when the Cardinals returned to the postseason in 1982 and won the World Series championship.

Schoendienst served on the Cardinals coaching staffs of managers Boyer, Herzog and Torre from 1979-95.

Previously: The pitfalls of Cardinals rookie manager Vern Rapp

Previously: How Red Schoendienst became Cardinals manager

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