RetroSimba

(Updated April 14, 2025)

Having achieved personal success while falling short of the team goal, Joe Torre’s six-year stay with the Cardinals came to an unsatisfying end.

On Oct. 13, 1974, Torre was dealt to the Mets for pitchers Ray Sadecki and Tommy Moore.

Popular and productive, Torre hit .308 with 1,062 hits in 918 games for the Cardinals from 1969-74. His on-base percentage in that time was .382, nearly 20 points better than his career mark.

Though a multi-time all-star who regularly ranked among baseball’s top hitters, Torre exceeded all expectations in 1971 when he led the National League in hits (230), RBI (137) and batting average (.363) and was awarded the NL Most Valuable Player honor over Willie Stargell of the World Series champion Pirates.

Time for change

After the 1974 season, the Cardinals were ready to make Keith Hernandez, 21, their first baseman. In an interview with United Press International, Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst said of Hernandez, “He looks like a tremendous prospect. We had to make room for him.”

Though Torre also played third base and catcher, the Cardinals were set at those positions with Ken Reitz and Ted Simmons.

At 34 and with a yearly salary of $150,000, Torre was deemed expendable.

“His ample salary and his age may have been factors in arranging the deal,” the Associated Press reported. “He was one of a half dozen Cardinals players earning more than $100,000.”

Torre, too, was expecting a departure. In his book “Chasing the Dream,” Torre said, “I knew I wasn’t going to be back with the Cardinals. They had brought up a young first baseman from the minor leagues named Keith Hernandez and made him eligible for the playoffs if we won the East.”

Falling short

The Cardinals, though, finished in second place in the National League East Division in 1974 for the second consecutive year and for the third time in four seasons. They never qualified for the postseason during Torre’s time with the club.

Torre in 1974 hit .312 for the Cardinals in July and .320 in August before he slumped to a .200 batting mark with 22 strikeouts in September. After the season, The Sporting News reported Torre had played the last month of the season with a cracked thumb.

When Torre was acquired by the Cardinals from the Braves for Orlando Cepeda in March 1969, the Cardinals were a premier team, the two-time defending National League champions. “Torre did a heck of a job for us,” Cardinals general manager Bing Devine said. “I’m sincere when I say he took me off the spot by doing so well for us after we traded Cepeda for him.”

Meet the Mets

The Braves almost dealt Torre to the Mets instead of to the Cardinals. “The Mets thought they had him before the 1969 season and Gil Hodges, who was then their manager, went so far as to tell Torre during spring training that, ‘You’ll be with us in a couple of days.’ But that deal fell through because the Mets refused to part with Amos Otis, then a red-hot prospect to play center field for New York,” United Press International reported.

Six years later, the Mets finally got their man. It was the first trade for Mets general manager Joe McDonald, who would become general manager of the Cardinals from 1982-84.

“We’ve needed another right-handed hitter in our lineup and Torre gives us that,” Mets manager Yogi Berra said.

Said Torre, a Brooklyn native: “If I had to be traded anywhere, I’m glad I’m going to New York.”

Devine said Torre didn’t want to be a Cardinals reserve and his first choice among teams to be dealt to was the Mets.

In his book, Torre revealed, “I was going to a team whose season had just ended with 91 losses. That was a very fragile time for me. On top of being unhappy with my marriage, I hit rock bottom in the big leagues with a losing team. And to make matters worse, I became a part-time player. I hated it _ and it showed.”

Aftermath of the deal

Though Torre was the Mets’ starting third baseman on Opening Day in 1975, he eventually was platooned at first base with Ed Kranepool and at third base with Wayne Garrett. Torre hit .247 in 114 games for the 1975 Mets.

“In 1975, for the first time in my life, I dreaded going to the ballpark,” Torre said. “Baseball felt like work. I thought maybe it was time to quit.”

Torre became Mets player-manager in 1977 after he rejected a trade to the Yankees. As Torre recalled to Cardinals Yearbook in 2014, “In 1976, I was approached by Mets general manager Joe McDonald and he said, ‘How would you like to be traded to the Yankees?’ I didn’t jump at it … I said, ‘Not if it’s going to affect my chances of managing this team at some point.’ ”

Torre would manage the Mets, Braves, Cardinals, Yankees and Dodgers, winning four World Series titles with the Yankees and earning induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014.

The pitchers the Cardinals got from the Mets for Torre had short stays.

Moore, 26, was 0-0 with a 3.86 ERA in 10 relief appearances for the Cardinals before he was traded in June 1975 with shortstop Ed Brinkman to the Rangers for outfielder Willie Davis.

Sadecki, 34, was in his second stint with St. Louis. He’d been a 20-game winner for the 1964 Cardinals and got the win in Game 1 of the World Series that year. In 1975, Sadecki was 1-0 with a 3.27 ERA in eight relief appearances for the Cardinals before being traded in May with pitcher Elias Sosa to the Braves for pitcher Ron Reed and outfielder Wayne Nordhagen.

Nine years earlier, in 1966, the Cardinals had sent Sadecki to the Giants for Cepeda. In proving the adage “what goes around, comes around,” the Cardinals dealt Sadecki for Cepeda, who later was traded to the Braves for Torre, who eventually was traded to the Mets for Sadecki.

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(Updated Sept. 10, 2025)

Being discarded by the Cardinals was tough on Tim McCarver the first time it happened. The second time was worse.

On Sept. 1, 1974, the Cardinals sold the contract of McCarver to the Red Sox.

At the time of the transaction, the Cardinals were in second place in the National League East, 2.5 games behind the Pirates.

It hurt McCarver that the Cardinals saw him as a liability rather than an asset in their late-season bid for a division championship.

McCarver, 32, was in his second stint with the Cardinals in 1974. He debuted with them as a teen catcher in 1959. A two-time all-star who finished runner-up to teammate Orlando Cepeda in voting for the 1967 Most Valuable Player Award, McCarver was an integral part of a Cardinals club that won three National League pennants and two World Series titles in the 1960s. His leadership skills and special bond with pitching ace Bob Gibson also were important.

Feeling the hurt

In October 1969, the Cardinals dealt McCarver, Curt Flood, Joe Hoerner and Byron Browne to the Phillies for Dick Allen, Cookie Rojas and Jerry Johnson. In his book “Oh, Baby, I Love It,” McCarver said, “When general manager Bing Devine broke the news to me about my going to Philly, he said it hurt him to do it. That’s like a father dangling a razor strap in front of his 4-year-old son and saying, ‘This is going to hurt me more than it’ll hurt you.’ Bull. Since St. Louis had been my baseball home since my rookie year, it had to hurt me more than a little, too.”

Reacquired by St. Louis in a November 1972 trade with the Expos for Jorge Roque, McCarver hit .266 with 49 RBI as a utility player for the 1973 Cardinals.

In 1974, McCarver’s role was to be the Cardinals’ top pinch-hitter, although he also filled in at catcher and at first base. He struggled, hitting .179 (7-for-39) as a pinch-hitter and .217 (23-for-106) overall. He produced one extra-base hit.

Bound for Beantown

On Aug. 29, as the Cardinals left San Diego to open a series in San Francisco, Bob Kennedy, Cardinals player personnel director, informed McCarver he likely would be dealt to the Athletics, who were atop the American League West and headed to their third consecutive World Series championship. The Athletics were seeking a veteran backup to catcher Ray Fosse.

“I thought I was being traded to Oakland,” McCarver said in his book. “When the Cards took a flight to San Francisco, I went with them, fully expecting to transfer across the bay.”

After arriving at San Francisco, McCarver called his wife, Anne, at their home in Memphis and said, “I need you.”

Said McCarver: “I was pretty depressed about leaving the Cards, who had a shot at the pennant that year. Anne flew from Memphis to San Francisco and we had dinner that night. The next morning, I got word that I was heading to (Boston).”

The Red Sox, who led the American League East, were seeking help for catcher Bob Montgomery, who was filling in for an injured Carlton Fisk.

“When the Red Sox picked me up, I hadn’t the slightest notion they had any interest in me,” McCarver said.

Trust issues

The transaction caught many by surprise. In The Sporting News, Peter Gammons reported this exchange with Red Sox manager Darrell Johnson: “On Aug. 30, Johnson was asked if the Sox were interested in Tim McCarver. ‘No,’ he answered, but McCarver was bought the next day.”

Wrote St. Louis reporter Neal Russo: “It’s usually the custom to add a few veterans for a club’s final push, but the Cardinals dropped one.”

With McCarver gone, the Cardinals called up prospects Marc Hill to back up catcher Ted Simmons and Keith Hernandez to back up first baseman Joe Torre.

In the end, neither the Cardinals nor the Red Sox qualified for the postseason. The Cardinals finished in second place, 1.5 games behind the Pirates, and Boston placed third, seven behind the first-place Orioles.

The Red Sox released McCarver in June 1975, but he signed with the Phillies. From 1975-79, one of his roles with the Phillies was being the personal catcher for Steve Carlton.

In the 2003 book “Few and Chosen,” Carlton said McCarver “was always thinking.”

“Tim’s a great bridge player,” Carlton noted, “and that’s a game where you have to remember what cards have been played. Tim brought that ability to the field as a catcher. He remembered the sequences of pitches we used to get a hitter out. He had great instincts. There was a synchronicity between us. He was uncanny. He has such a good mind, and he was a great strategist … I always thought Tim would have made a good manager.”

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(Updated June 4, 2024)

Larry Walker wasn’t looking to leave the Rockies, but the Cardinals convinced him to give them a chance.

On Aug. 6, 2004, Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty performed a heist, acquiring Walker, 37, from the Rockies for three prospects.

Walker, a three-time National League batting champion and seven-time Gold Glove Award winner, joined an outfield of Jim Edmonds and Reggie Sanders and helped the Cardinals win their first pennant in 17 years.

On Jan. 21, 2020, 16 years after the Cardinals acquired him, Walker was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 76.6 percent of the votes from the Baseball Writers Association of America.

The Rockies had approached Walker about trading him to the Rangers or Marlins. Because Walker was a 10-year veteran who had spent five of those years with the same team, his approval was needed before a deal could be made. He rejected the proposed trades to Texas and Florida.

Players make pitch

The Cardinals appealed to Walker’s competitive spirit. In a bid to seal the deal, Edmonds and teammate Scott Rolen called Walker, urging him to help them get to the World Series by accepting a trade.

Rolen offered to drop a spot in the batting order in case manager Tony La Russa wanted to bat Walker in the cleanup position Rolen held.

Inspired, Walker gave his OK to the Rockies to complete a trade with St. Louis.

“I think there were some people in Colorado who weren’t certain he would come,” Jocketty said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “He weighed everything and it didn’t take him long. I think he’ll be energized to come here and play with us and I think he’ll energize our club.”

In a July 2018 interview with Cardinals broadcaster Dan McLaughlin, Walker recalled, “It was really a no-brainer. It didn’t take me but a couple of minutes to say yes.”

The Rockies, looking to free payroll in order to rebuild around players such as rookie outfielder Matt Holliday, agreed to a package of minor leaguers: pitchers Jason Burch, Luis Martinez and Chris Narveson. None would play in a big-league game for the Rockies.

MVP caliber

Walker joined Edmonds, Rolen, Edgar Renteria and Mike Matheny in giving the 2004 Cardinals Gold Glove winners at five of the nine fielding positions.

“We put an MVP in the lineup … This was a real impact move,” Rolen said.

Said Sanders: “You look at this lineup and you wonder, ‘How can it get any better?’ And it did.”

The Cardinals were in first place in the National League Central, 10.5 games ahead of the Cubs, on the day of the trade.

La Russa said, “I love the message that the people on top are sending to the players. I think they recognize how hard we’ve been playing and we have the chance to do something really special.”

What a welcome

Walker arrived in St. Louis during the Cardinals’ game with the Mets on Aug. 7, 2004. In the seventh inning, with two runners on base, one out and the score tied at 1-1, La Russa sent Walker to bat for Matheny against Mets starter Kris Benson. Cardinals fans welcomed Walker with a standing ovation and chanted his name.

“One of the most nervous at-bats I’ve had in my career,” Walker said.

On the Cardinals’ telecast, broadcaster Mike Shannon marveled, “Look how excited these people are … They smell World Series.”

Walker struck out, but as he returned to the dugout he received another standing ovation. Video

“I didn’t know what to do,” Walker said. “I thought maybe I should go back and ask if I could have another strike.” Boxscore

Primarily batting in the No. 2 spot in the order _ “I love it,” Walker told Cardinals Magazine. “I didn’t have to worry about driving people in all the time.” _ Walker hit .280 with 11 home runs and 27 RBI in 44 games for the 2004 Cardinals, who won the division title by 13 games over the runner-up Astros.

In the postseason, Walker hit six home runs _ two each in the Division Series, League Championship Series and World Series. Playing in the only World Series of his career, Walker hit .357 but the Cardinals were swept by the 2004 Red Sox. “No excuses,” Walker told Cardinals Magazine. “We got outperformed and we underachieved.”

Walker returned to the Cardinals in 2005, his final big-league season, and hit .289 with 15 home runs and 52 RBI in 100 games.

In a September 2017 interview with McLaughlin, Rolen said, “Larry Walker is the best player I ever played with. There’s nothing he couldn’t do out there. He knew how to run the bases and he knew running the bases was an offensive weapon. You’re on base to score runs.

“He played an unbelievable Gold Glove outfield. Threw the ball and never missed a cutoff. Hit the ball as hard as anybody and moved the ball around.”

In an interview with the Baseball Hall of Fame magazine, “Memories and Dreams,” La Russa said of Walker, “I think he would probably be in the top three of just about every category: Base running, defense, handling the bat.”

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