RetroSimba

(Updated Oct. 1, 2025)

Bob Bailey had lots of hits against the Cardinals in his career, but it was an out he made that was most memorable.

Bailey, a right-handed hitter with power, played 17 years in the major leagues. Primarily a third baseman and left fielder, Bailey played for the Pirates (1962-1966), Dodgers (1967-1968), Expos (1969-1975), Reds (1976-1977) and Red Sox (1977-1978).

In 199 games versus the Cardinals, Bailey had 176 hits, including 20 home runs, and 82 RBI. He batted .358 (24-for-67) against the Cardinals in 1964 and .339 (20-for-59) in 1974. One of his best games occurred on May 21, 1968, when he produced five RBI for the Dodgers against the Cardinals at St. Louis.

“That Bailey makes his living off high sliders,” Cardinals catcher Ted Simmons told The Sporting News.

By 1977, when Bailey was with the Reds, he primarily was a pinch-hitter. That was the year he had a feature role in a St. Louis drama.

Big Red Machine

On May 9, 1977, a game between the Reds and Cardinals at Busch Stadium was the ABC-TV “Monday Night Baseball” national telecast. The Reds, with their powerful Big Red Machine lineup, were two-time defending World Series champions. The Cardinals, in their first season under manager Vern Rapp, were looking to make a mark after finishing 18 games under .500 in 1976.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, the Cardinals’ Keith Hernandez led off with a home run against Rawly Eastwick, tying the score at 5-5.

Rapp sent Al Hrabosky to pitch the ninth. The left-hander, known as the “Mad Hungarian,” got into immediate trouble. Ken Griffey singled, Joe Morgan walked, Dan Driessen bunted for a single, loading the bases with none out. George Foster was up next and Johnny Bench was on deck _ both right-handed sluggers.

“I thought with Foster and Bench coming up, there was no way,” Hernandez said to Dick Kaegel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I thought they’d at least get a fly ball and get a run in.”

Mind games

Hrabosky, forced by Rapp to shave his Fu Manchu in compliance with the manager’s policy banning facial hair, decided to challenge the sluggers exclusively with fastballs. “They knew it was coming,” said Simmons.

Foster struck out swinging.

Bench did the same.

With a left-handed batter, Cesar Geronimo, due up next, Reds manager Sparky Anderson sent Bailey to face Hrabosky. Bailey, whose father, Paul, played in the Cardinals’ farm system in 1940, batted .370 as a Reds pinch-hitter in 1976.

When the count got to 1-and-2 on Bailey, Hrabosky walked in a semicircle from the mound almost to second base, turned his back on Bailey, talked aloud to himself, pounded the ball into his mitt and stomped back onto the hill.

“I talk to the gypsy war gods,” Hrabosky said. “I work myself into a controlled rage.”

Bailey fouled off each of Hrabosky’s next three pitches. After each one, Hrabosky went behind the mound and performed his antics, heightening the tension with each delivery. “In a way, I self-hypnotize myself,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times. “I learned how to manipulate my mind between pitches.”

On the seventh pitch of the at-bat, Bailey watched the ball go into Simmons’ glove for a called strike three.

Hrabosky gave a performance worthy of Houdini, striking out three right-handed sluggers and leaving the bases loaded.

“I was completely in awe,” said Hernandez.

Said Simmons: “It was dark and all of a sudden he groped around until he found the light switch and turned it on.”

Hrabosky told Stan McNeal of Cardinals Magazine, “After I struck out Foster … and Bench, I didn’t know if I would get a third strikeout, but I knew there was no way they were going to score.”

Perfect play

After the Cardinals went down in order in their half of the ninth, Hrabosky returned to pitch the 10th. He retired the first two batters before Ray Knight singled. Griffey followed with a double off the wall in right.

As Knight raced around the bases, right fielder Mike Anderson, inserted as a defensive replacement for starter Hector Cruz, fielded a carom off the padding of the wall, turned and fired a throw to the cutoff man, shortstop Don Kessinger.

“He gave me a good, high relay throw where I could handle it,” Kessinger said.

Simmons kneeled in front of home plate, awaiting the peg from Kessinger. “My theory is to block the plate. Don’t let him get there,” Simmons said.

Knight dived head-first and was tagged out by Simmons, ending the Reds’ threat.

“It was a perfect play,” Rapp told United Press International. “Anderson acted real cool and Kessinger did a superb job. Simmons knew he had the guy.”

Simmons connects

The Reds brought in Dale Murray, a right-hander, to pitch the bottom half of the 10th. His best pitch was a sinking fastball, but it had been staying up in the strike zone in recent outings. With switch-hitter Simmons, batting left-handed, leading off, Murray told Bench he would throw knuckleballs.

Hernandez tipped off Simmons that Murray might throw the knuckler. “The thing I try to do with knuckleballs is not swing until I have to,” Simmons told the Associated Press. “All you can hope is that you can gauge the speed of it.”

With the count 2-and-2, Murray delivered a knuckleball that darted toward Simmons’ right knee. He drove it over the wall in right for a walkoff home run, giving the Cardinals a 6-5 triumph. Boxscore

“It was the greatest game I ever played in,” Hernandez said.

Calling it “a game that wobbled the knees and blew the mind,” Kaegel informed Post-Dispatch readers, “It was a classic thriller, baseball at its spine-tingling best.”

Previously: 5 memorable Reds-Cardinals games of 1970s

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(Updated Aug. 23, 2018)

In his major-league debut for the Cardinals, Rick Ankiel gave up a home run to Vladimir Guerrero. Like many pitchers, Ankiel learned fast Guerrero was a dangerous hitter.

Guerrero was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018. In his playing career with the Expos (1996-2003), Angels (2004-2009), Rangers (2010) and Orioles (2011), Guerrero batted .318 with 2,590 hits, 449 home runs and 1,496 RBI.

A right-handed batter and outfielder, Guerrero batted .280 against the Cardinals with 59 hits in 55 games and 43 RBI.

His best seasons versus St. Louis were 1999 (.333 with nine RBI in nine games) and 2002 (.409 with seven RBI in six games).

Guerrero had two hits, both home runs, and three walks in seven career plate appearances against Ankiel.

Rookie mistake

Ankiel, 20, was a highly touted pitching prospect. He heightened expectations by posting a combined 13-3 record and 2.35 ERA with Class AA Arkansas and Class AAA Memphis in 1999. The Cardinals promoted him to the big leagues in late summer and he was given a start in his debut on Aug. 23, 1999, at Montreal.

In his first at-bat against Ankiel, Guerrero grounded out sharply to first baseman Mark McGwire in the second inning. With the Cardinals ahead, 4-1, Guerrero batted again in the fourth. Ankiel, a left-hander, wanted to jam Guerrero with a fastball on the fists, but the pitch stayed over the plate and Guerrero lined it over the right-field wall. The home run was his 30th of the season and extended his hitting streak to 28 games.

“I didn’t get the fastball inside,” Ankiel told columnist Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I left it out there and he capitalized on it.”

Speaking through an interpreter, Guerrero told the Associated Press, “The only thing I do is try to swing. So far, so good. I’m going to keep swinging.”

In the sixth, after Jose Vidro singled, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa lifted Ankiel with Guerrero at the plate and St. Louis ahead, 4-2. “Guerrero already had centered two balls off him, so I thought it was time for the change,” La Russa said.

Heathcliff Slocumb relieved and got Guerrero to pop out to McGwire. After that, the game unraveled for the Cardinals. Vidro eventually scored and Slocumb and Rich Croushore gave up eight runs. The Expos won, 11-7, and Ankiel, who departed with the lead, didn’t get a decision. Boxscore

Hitting a hanger

A year later, on Aug. 1, 2000, at Montreal, Guerrero came to bat against Ankiel with runners on first and second, two outs, in the fifth inning of a scoreless game.

Ankiel’s first pitch to Guerrero was a curve. He “tried to throw the best curveball he ever threw,” La Russa said. “Sometimes you try to do more and you end up doing less.”

The pitch floated over the middle of the plate and Guerrero hit it over the wall in left-center for a three-run home run. The Expos went on to win, 4-0.

Said Ankiel: “I hung it … With him up to bat, you can’t hang that pitch in that situation.” Boxscore

Pals with Pujols

Guerrero, 6 feet 3 and 235 pounds, hit 12 career home runs against the Cardinals. He hit three against Matt Morris, two apiece off Ankiel and Garrett Stephenson and one each against Cliff Politte, Larry Luebbers, Travis Smith, Jason Simontacchi and Woody Williams.

In 2001, when the Expos and Cardinals shared a spring training facility at Jupiter, Fla, Guerrero befriended Cardinals rookie Albert Pujols, who, like Guerrero, is a native of the Dominican Republic. Pujols, in a big-league camp for the first time, was looking to fit in. Guerrero included Pujols in friendly games of dominoes with other Dominican players and treated him to his mother’s home-cooked meals.

“Vladdy was one of the first guys I looked up to,” Pujols said to the Los Angeles Times in a 2016 interview. “People kind of misread Vladdy because he doesn’t like to talk too much, but he’s one of the best guys that I’ve ever been around. The way he treats people is really special. He’s always smiling. He played the game hard and had fun.”

Pujols was playing left field for the Cardinals in a game at Montreal when Guerrero hit a ball so hard it bent the top of the wall and carried over for a home run.

“On a line. He bent the wall,” Pujols said to Yahoo Sports in 2016. “He was unbelievable … He was a fearless hitter … You had to stop and watch him. If they were on TV and you were going out, you had to watch his at-bat first.”

Previously: How Cardinals gambled on Rick Ankiel in 1997 draft

Previously: Revisiting Rick Ankiel’s debut with Cardinals

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