RetroSimba

Reggie Smith and the Cardinals’ after-hours club

May 25, 2011 by retrosimba

(Updated April 2, 2026)

Solly Hemus, Ted Sizemore, Reggie Smith and Colby Rasmus are Cardinals who drew five walks in a game.

Here’s a look:

_ Sept. 15, 1951, Cardinals 10, Braves 1, at St. Louis: Batting leadoff, Hemus walked in all five plate appearances against four different pitchers and scored three times.

Braves starter Dave Cole issued walks to Hemus, Red Schoendienst and Stan Musial in the first inning and plunked Enos Slaughter with a pitch, forcing in Hemus with a run.

In the seventh, with George Estock pitching and St. Louis ahead 8-1, Hemus drew his fifth walk. Hemus attempted to steal second but was thrown out by rookie catcher Ebba St. Claire. Boxscore

_ Aug. 12, 1974, Cardinals 6, Padres 5, at St. Louis: Sizemore, batting second, went 0-for-2 with a run scored and five walks.

In the ninth, with Lou Brock on second, one out and a 5-5 score, Bill Laxton intentionally walked Sizemore and pitched instead to Bake McBride, who hit .309 that season. McBride reached on an error by third baseman Dave Hilton, loading the bases, but Laxton retired Luis Melendez on a pop-up and Ted Simmons on a fly out, forcing extra innings.

In the 13th, with Danny Godby on third, Brock on first and one out, Laxton again gave an intentional pass to Sizemore, loading the bases. McBride’s sacrifice fly to center scored Godby with the winning run. Boxscore

_ Sept. 13, 1974, Cardinals 7, Phillies 3, at Philadelphia: In the first inning, Smith was hit by a pitch from Jim Lonborg, his teammate on the 1967 American League champion Red Sox. Smith got his revenge in the third, with a RBI-single to right against Lonborg.

Smith drew his fifth walk of the game in the 14th inning.

In the 17th, the Cardinals scored five runs against Jesus Hernaiz, Eddie Watt and Tom Underwood. With two outs, Smith was batting against Underwood when the game was halted because of rain at 12:19 a.m. After a delay of 1:41, Smith resumed his at-bat against Underwood and flied out to left.

Philadelphia scored a run in the bottom of the 17th before Bill Robinson lined into a double play against Alan Foster to end it. Boxscore

The Cardinals had played a 25-inning game against the Mets on Sept. 11-12 and a 3-hour game against the Mets on Sept. 12 before the 17-inning rain-interrupted marathon against the Phillies on Sept. 13. The Cardinals won all three.

“Anybody caught getting back to the hotel before 4:30 a.m. is fined $100,” Smith told The Sporting News. “We’re an after-hours club. If anybody gets us past the ninth or 10th innings, they’re in trouble.”

Said manager Red Schoendienst: “We haven’t been getting to bed very early, but we’re winning.”

_ May 22, 2011, Cardinals 9, Royals 8, at Kansas City: Rasmus walked five times against five different pitchers. His bases-loaded walk in the top of the 10th broke a 7-7 tie.

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the five walks given to Rasmus were “a sign of respect. It’s also a sign of him maturing as a hitter _ to have a good strike zone and not chase.”

However, Rasmus said to the newspaper, “I wasn’t looking to take a pitch at all. I was going up there every at-bat looking to swing at the first pitch.” Boxscore

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Dmitri Young launched Cards on productive DH run

May 23, 2011 by retrosimba

In the first at-bat by a Cardinals designated hitter in a regular-season game, Dmitri Young singled to center field in the second inning against the Brewers’ Ben McDonald on June 16, 1997, at Milwaukee. The Brewers then were an American League franchise.

That successful start set the tone for what has been a well-utilized position for the Cardinals.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Cardinals designated hitters have a .321 batting average and 83 RBI in regular-season games played in American League ballparks since interleague play began in 1997. No other National League team’s designated hitters have produced more RBI and none have managed a cumulative batting average as high as .280.

Among the best-producing DHs for the Cardinals are Albert Pujols (.360 in 12 starts), Scott Spiezio (.333 in 11 starts) and Chris Duncan (.333 in nine starts), Elias Sports Bureau reported.

Dmitri Young, a switch-hitting first baseman and outfielder, went 1-for-4 as the first Cardinals designated hitter in a regular-season game. It was his only appearance as a designated hitter that season. Boxscore

(In a 13-year big-league career with the Cardinals, Reds, Tigers and Nationals, Young went on to appear in 318 games as a designated hitter, hitting .285 with 53 home runs from that position).

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa used four players as designated hitters in the first year that National League teams were able to employ the position during the regular season at American League ballparks.

After trying Young in that first game, he played Ron Gant and Scott Livingstone at designated hitter in consecutive games at Milwaukee.

In a three-game series in August 1997 at Kansas City, La Russa exclusively used Willie McGee as designated hitter. McGee’s three-run triple in the eighth inning snapped a 6-6 tie and carried St. Louis to a 9-7 victory on Aug. 29. Boxscore

Here is how Cardinals regular-season designated hitters have fared each year:

_ 1997: .160 batting average (4-for-25), 0 home runs, 3 RBI.

_ 1998: .294 batting average (10-for-34), 0 home runs, 4 RBI.

_ 1999: .320 batting average (8-for-25), 0 home runs, 3 RBI.

_ 2000: .394 batting average (13-for-33), 3 home runs, 11 RBI.

_ 2001: .292 batting average (7-for-24), 0 home runs, 1 RBI.

_ 2002: .200 batting average (4-for-20), 1 home run, 4 RBI.

_ 2003: .424 batting average (14-for-33), 4 home runs, 10 RBI.

_ 2004: .154 batting average (4-for-26), 0 home runs, 3 RBI.

_ 2005: .429 batting average (12-for-28), 3 home runs, 10 RBI.

_ 2006: .342 batting average (13-for-38), 1 home run, 5 RBI.

_ 2007: .378 batting average (14-for-37), 2 home runs, 10 RBI.

_ 2008: .371 batting average (13-for-35), 2 home runs, 7 RBI.

_ 2009: .333 batting average (7-for-21), 2 home runs, 6 RBI.

_ 2010: .211 batting average (4-for-19), 0 home runs, 1 RBI.

_ 2011: .182 batting average (2-for-11), 1 home run, 3 RBI.

The first Cardinals designated hitter in a post-season game was Gene Tenace, who went 0-for-3, in Game 1 of the 1982 World Series. Boxscore Cardinals designated hitters batted .462 (12-for-26) in the seven-game series, playing an integral role in St. Louis winning the championship.

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Stan Musial still oldest to belt 3 home runs in a game

May 20, 2011 by retrosimba

(Updated Dec. 2, 2024)

Stan Musial is the oldest player to hit three home runs in a major-league game.

Musial was 41 when he hit three home runs against the Mets on July 8, 1962, at the Polo Grounds in New York.

It capped a stretch of four home runs in four consecutive at-bats for Musial.

Power streak

On July 7, 1962, Musial snapped a 2-2 tie with a home run off former teammate Craig Anderson in the eighth inning of the second game of a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds, lifting the Cardinals to a 3-2 victory over the Mets. Boxscore

The next day, a Sunday afternoon, Musial hit home runs his first three times at-bat, giving him four in a row over two games (tying a major-league record) and helping the Cardinals to a 15-1 victory.

“Trouble with the Amazin’ Mets isn’t that they have old ballplayers; it’s that they don’t have any old ballplayers named Musial,” wrote Dick Young in the New York Daily News.

Musial hit a solo shot in the first inning and a two-run home run in the fourth, both off Jay Hook. The first home run against Hook came on a 2-and-0 changeup. “The ball probably would have been caught in St. Louis, but it found the range in the Polo Grounds, which has a fence only 257 feet from the plate at the foul line,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

The second home run off Hook was hit into the upper deck on a 3-and-1 slider.

(In the book “Voices From Cooperstown,” Musial said to author Anthony J. Connor, “Because of the fast break, I found the slider much more difficult to pick up than the fastball, curve or changeup.”)

Musial led off the seventh with a home run against Willard Hunter on a 2-and-2 fastball, up and in. Musial “tomahawked that one viciously against the right field roof,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

In the book “Stan Musial: The Man’s Own Story,” Musial said, “The pitch was too far inside. Hunter seemed surprised I didn’t take it, but I didn’t believe in letting an inside pitch get away at the Polo Grounds.”

It was the second time in his big-league career Musial slugged three home runs in a game, and he was especially thrilled that his wife Lil and daughter Janet were in attendance to witness the feat.

Trying for another

In the eighth, facing former teammate Bob Miller with a chance for a fifth consecutive home run and No. 4 in the game, Musial admitted, “I was going for the fence.”

With the count 2-and-0, Musial watched a fastball cross the plate for a strike. Miller’s next pitch was a curve and Musial took “a wild, off-balance swing” and missed, the Daily News reported. Miller came back with another curve in the dirt. Musial tried to check his swing but couldn’t and struck out, but the ball eluded catcher Chris Cannizzaro and Musial reached first base safely. He was removed for a pinch-runner and received a roaring ovation from the New York crowd. Boxscore

Signing for kids

After the game, Musial posed for photographers with family and friends on the field. “An 11-year-old freckled red-haired boy named Kevin Charkowicz was brought down to the field, where he presented the ball” Musial hit for his third home run of the game, the Post-Dispatch reported. (See his comment in the response section below.)

According to the Post-Dispatch, Musial “stayed on the field to sign for youngsters who clustered around him.”

Among the group of kids cheering for Musial and getting autographs from him were Little League players in gray uniforms, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat noted.

Musial headed into the all-star break with a .333 batting average, .403 on-base percentage and .523 slugging percentage. Not bad for 41 years old.

Other sluggers at 40

Besides Musial, three others who reached 40 years of age hit three home runs in a game. The most recent was Jason Giambi, 40, who hit three home runs for the Rockies on May 19, 2011.

Babe Ruth (in 1935 for the Braves) and Reggie Jackson (in 1986 for the Angels) also hit three home runs in a game at age 40.

Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees was 39 when he hit three home runs in a game vs. the Twins on July 25, 2015 _ two days before his 40th birthday.

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Dizzy Dean gave up 19 hits – and won

May 19, 2011 by retrosimba

Two of the best pitchers in Cardinals history _ Dizzy Dean and Mort Cooper _ each yielded 19 hits in a game, and won.

_ Cardinals 8, Reds 7, May 31, 1936, at St. Louis: Dizzy Dean appeared headed for a loss when Cincinnati took a 7-5 lead into the ninth inning, but the Cardinals scored twice in the ninth and won with a run in the 12th.

Two days after pitching 1.1 innings of relief, Dean went all 12 innings, yielding 19 hits and two walks (he also hit two batters), and improved his record to 9-2. The Reds stranded 13 and had no home runs. Boxscore

_ Cardinals 4, Phillies 3, Sept. 24, 1944, at Philadelphia: In his last regular-season start of the year, Cooper went the route and earned the win when Whitey Kurowski broke a 3-3 tie with a home run off Phillies starter Ken Raffensberger in the 16th inning.

Philadelphia scored single runs in the first, third and fourth before Cooper shut them out over the last 12. Of Philadelphia’s 19 hits, 18 were singles (first baseman Tony Lupien doubled). Boxscore

Cooper’s line: 16 innings, 19 hits, 3 runs, 5 walks, 7 strikeouts.

Raffensberger’s line: 16 innings, 13 hits, 4 runs, 1 walk, 5 strikeouts.

The win improved Cooper’s record to 22-7 _ his third consecutive season with at least 21 wins.

In the 1944 World Series against the Browns, Cooper made two starts and held the American League champions to two runs over 16 innings.

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How Bill Bergesch got Bob Gibson to Cardinals

May 17, 2011 by retrosimba

(Updated Nov. 24, 2024)

Bill Bergesch, a longtime baseball executive who worked for difficult team owners such as Charlie Finley, George Steinbrenner and Marge Schott, is the man most responsible for Bob Gibson becoming a Cardinal.

Bergesch, a St. Louis native, joined the Cardinals organization in 1947 as a minor-league administrator. He was general manager or business manager of Cardinals farm clubs in Albany, Ga., Winston-Salem, N.C., Columbus, Ga., and Omaha, Neb.

As general manager at Omaha, Bergesch donated used equipment to recreation-center baseball teams organized by Josh Gibson, older brother of Bob Gibson.

“I got to know Bob’s brother Josh well,” Bergesch told Baseball Digest in 1962. “We let his kid teams come to our games. We gave his teams some of our spare equipment and sold them our old uniforms cheap.”

Josh Gibson believed his brother Bob was a professional prospect. Years later, Bob Gibson told The Sporting News he could throw a baseball hard as far back as he could remember.

Bob Gibson had been scouted by big-league organizations, including the Yankees and Dodgers, but the only scout who made an offer after he graduated from high school was Runt Marr of the Cardinals.

Instead, Bob Gibson accepted a scholarship to play basketball at Creighton University. He played baseball when the basketball season ended.

In his autobiography, “Stranger to the Game,” Gibson said, “Baseball was, at best, my second sport, and I really didn’t have a niche in it. At various times in my college career, I played catcher, third base, outfield and occasionally pitcher, demonstrating a no-table wildness in the latter capacity.”

As a favor, Josh Gibson asked Bergesch to watch his brother play for Creighton in the spring of 1957.

David Halberstam, in his book “October 1964,” said Bergesch attended two Creighton games but Gibson didn’t pitch in either. He played outfield in the first and was the catcher in the second. Bergesch could see Gibson was a talented athlete with a powerful arm.

Bergesch told Omaha manager Johnny Keane that Gibson was a prospect and suggested arranging a tryout. When Keane saw Gibson throw, he was impressed.

“At the tryout, Gibson was awesome,” Halberstam wrote. “First, he took batting practice and showed exceptional power … Then Bergesch had him throw to the (Omaha) Cardinals’ regular catcher. Neither Bergesch nor Keane had ever seen a kid throw like that … Years later, Bergesch estimated that he must have thrown at about 95 mph. In addition, his fastball already had movement.”

In his book “From Ghetto to Glory,” Gibson said Bergesch told him, “Nobody’s going to give you a big bonus. If they give you more than $4,000, the rules say they have to carry you on the major-league roster for two seasons and you just don’t have enough experience for any club to take a chance on you like that.”

When basketball’s Harlem Globetrotters offered Gibson a $1,000-a-month contract, Gibson said, “I … called Bill Bergesch. He had impressed me by being so forthright. I told him I was ready to sign with the Cardinals.”

Gibson signed for $4,000, spurning an aggressive offer from the Reds.

“I would sign with the Cardinals for a bonus of a thousand dollars, play out the (1957) season for another $3,000, then join the Globetrotters at $1,000 a month for four months of the baseball off-season,” Gibson said. “The total was $8,000, but the real value of the deal was that it kept me alive in both sports. I still wasn’t ready to pick one.”

In a 2018 interview with Stan McNeal of Cardinals Yearbook, Gibson recalled, “I played for the Globetrotters from November (1957) until early February (1958). I must have played 120 games with them because sometimes we’d play two games in a day … I loved playing basketball, but I don’t think I could have played too long for the Globetrotters. The parts of the games when there wasn’t all the clowning around were fine; the other parts really weren’t my thing.”

Gibson eventually chose baseball. A good hitter as well as a talented pitcher, Gibson was a switch-hitter until his first season at Omaha, The Sporting News reported. His right elbow bothered him, so he began batting exclusively from the right side.

Two years after he accepted Bergesch’s contract offer, Gibson made his big-league debut with the 1959 Cardinals. When Keane replaced Solly Hemus as Cardinals manager in 1961, Gibson blossomed under the care of his former Omaha mentor and built a career that landed him in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

After the 1959 season, the Cardinals dumped Omaha from their farm system, leaving Bergesch out of a job. The Cardinals made him their minor-league field coordinator in 1960. A year later, Finley hired Bergesch to be assistant general manager of the Athletics.

Bergesch went on to become a Yankees executive under Steinbrenner and general manager of the Reds under Schott.

He had many achievements, but his most memorable was signing Bob Gibson.

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Stan Musial, Harmon Killebrew visit Vietnam

May 15, 2011 by retrosimba

(Updated Feb. 20, 2023)

Harmon Killebrew, long an admirer of Stan Musial, got to know the Cardinals icon best when both represented Major League Baseball on a tour of Vietnam.

Killebrew, the Hall of Fame slugger who hit 573 home runs in a 22-year American League career, played primarily for the Twins and Senators. Though he never played a regular-season or postseason game against the Cardinals, Killebrew did have a connection to and fondness for Musial.

In a radio interview with St. Louis station 1380 AM, Killebrew was asked to share his thoughts about Musial, who was about to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

“I always admired Stan from afar as a youngster,” Killebew told radio host Evan Makovsky. “I’ve known him now for over 40-some years and we’ve been good friends. I’ve always just marveled at the records Stan Musial put up. I always felt he did not get the credit he deserved … He has to rank, in my book, as one of the greatest players who ever lived.”

On Nov. 1, 1966, Musial, Killebrew, the Braves’ Hank Aaron and Joe Torre, the Orioles’ Brooks Robinson and broadcaster Mel Allen embarked on a trip to Vietnam to conduct clinics and boost morale of the U.S. troops.

“I got to know Stan very, very well (on that tour),” Killebrew said. “I got to know the kind of person he was, and it really magnified my feelings about Stan Musial.”

According to a November 1966 story by Lou Hatter of the Baltimore Sun, the tour was co-sponsored by the baseball commissioner’s office and the Department of Defense. The baseball group, which left from San Francisco, stopped in Honolulu, Guam and Manila on the way to Saigon. The return trip included stops in Tokyo and Anchorage before concluding in San Francisco.

In his autobiography, “I Had a Hammer,” Hank Aaron said, “Musial was one of my favorite ballplayers because he treated everybody the same _ black or white, superstar or scrub _ and he genuinely loved the game. When he and I were part of a group of players who toured Vietnam, Musial became the first white man I ever roomed with.”

Aaron added that the Vietnam trip enabled him to “develop a deeper friendship” with Musial, “who, for my money, was the greatest gentleman in the game.”

Brooks Robinson told the newspaper the group met with U.S. military personnel at field hospitals and battle stations. Robinson said the group was in daily earshot of gunfire and once saw a U.S. airstrike from their transport helicopter.

“A couple of our helicopters had taken bullet holes from snipers in the brush, though on the way to pick us up,” Robinson said. “We usually flew at about 3,000 feet to avoid sniper fire and never came in for a landing at a gradual descent. We normally came straight down from that altitude in a kind of screwdriver spiral descent. That was some kind of a thrill.”

In an interview for the 2003 Baseball Hall of Fame yearbook, Robinson recalled, “Stan and I visited one hospital where a kid had just lost both legs and was lying there in bed. Stan went over and said, ‘Hi, I’m Stan Musial with the St. Louis Cardinals.’ The kid actually apologized to Stan for not recognizing him. That tore me up right there. I had tears come to my eyes.”

Jim Lucas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American war correspondent based in Vietnam for Scripps Howard newspapers, told colleagues the baseball group accomplished its mission.

“Wherever I’ve gone, I’ve heard nothing but raves,” Lucas said. “Stan Musial apparently is quite a guy. He’s the one most often quoted … They did a lot for baseball as an entity with the top brass, from General Westmoreland on down, and they did a lot for the morale of the troops.”

In the book “Musial: From Stash to Stan the Man,” author James N. Giglio wrote, “Musial nearly became a fatality; his quarters were bombed while he was elsewhere in the area eating lunch. He flirted with danger at another outpost and in a helicopter over hostile territory.”

Author George Vecsey, in the book “Stan Musial: An American Life,” reported a different version while making the same point: “This was no meet-and-greet opportunity in a secured camp … In Da Nang, the players had lunch with General William Westmoreland, the commander of the U.S. operation in Vietnam, and dinner with Lieutenant General Lewis Walt, the commanding general of the III Marine Amphibious Force. Shortly after that, the general’s quarters were bombed by the Vietcong. Musial was still talking about that bombing when he got home a few weeks later.”

An editorial in the Nov. 19, 1966, edition of The Sporting News opined, “These men are members of baseball’s elite. All have been well-rewarded for their accomplishments _ in money, prestige, applause and publicity. They have captured no headlines in Vietnam nor will they gain financially. Their trip might not be necessary either, but it surely is worthwhile.”

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