Peter Golenbock - The Spirit of St. Louis: A History Of The St. Louis Cardinals And

When Mark McGwire, the Bunyanesque Cardinal first baseman, struck home run number 62 in September of 1998, he left an indelible memory for all who looked on that day. If you close your eyes, you can still see the low trajectory of that ball as it rose slightly, then quickly struck the Busch Stadium faade just beyond the playing area near the left field foul pole. It wasnt typical of McGwires home runs, which often travel 500 feet, but its significance was monumental. Who can ever forget Big Mac crossing home plate and then showing his humanity by hugging his son, his father, his teammateseveryone in that ballpark, it seemedincluding the children of Roger Maris as he joined a long list of memorable, mythic St. Louis performers who during the past 120 years or so have taken their rightful place in the annals of American sport.

St. Louis baseball has a rich and storied history. No National League team has won as many pennants as the Cardinals. Few American League teams have boasted as many uniquely quirky and memorable characters as the Browns.

Each generation has its own brace of heroes. Too often I hear: Baseball isnt what it used to be. The players today dont compare to the ones I rooted for when I was a kid.

I think I know why. Fans become permanently attached to the heroes of their childhood years. As those fans age and advance into their thirties, their heroes retire and disappear from the playing field, leaving the fans with only memories. For the rest of their lives, these fans pine for those lost men. I cant begin to tell you how much Cardinal fans between the ages of fifty and seventy still talk about Stan Musial and Enos Slaughter. Younger fans talk wistfully of Bob Gibson or Lou Brock. Still younger, the talk is of Ozzie Smith and his magic. I cant remember growing older. When did they?

In this book I have attempted to introduce to you the entire cast of St. Louis icons. Before McGwire came the Wizard of Oz, perhaps the most acrobatic infielder in the history of the game. Equally memorable was his manager, Whitey Herzog, who took over the Cards after years of mediocrity and won three pennants, leaving as a legacy his never-say-die style of play. Vince Coleman, Willie McGee, Tommy Herr, Darrell Porter, and Jack Clark became local heroes for all time on Whiteys teams.

Before Herzog, there was a group of fabled men who won three pennants in the 1960s with a lineup that boasted a whole array of memorable stars: Curt Flood, Bob Gibson, Roger Maris himself, Orlando Cepeda, Ken Boyer, Bill White, Lou Brock, Julian Javier, and Dick Groat. These teams, put together by Bing Devine and run by Augustus Gussie Busch, the head man at the Anheuser-Busch brewery, became a symbol for racial unity during an era of civil strife.

During the 1950s, owner Gussie Busch was searching for the right combination of players that would bring back the glory of the 1940s. The St. Louis Cardinals, owned at that time by Sam Breadon, won four pennants in five years in the forties, coinciding with the heyday of Stan the Man. Those Cards were put together by Branch Rickey, though the Mahatma had already gone on to the Dodgers when the Cards won those pennants. St. Louis old-timers fondly remember their championship players: Terry Moore, Marty Marion, Enos Slaughter, Red Schoendienst, George Whitey Kurowski, and the Cooper brothers, Mort and Walker.

Meanwhile, if you are a Browns fan, you may no longer be a spring chicken, but if you still love a team that moved to Baltimore nearly fifty years ago, then you still have a youthful, hopeful heart.

In 1944 the Browns won the only pennant in their history. They faced the Cards in the World Series with heroes such as Sig Jakucki, Vern Stephens, and Mike Kreevich, men who loved the bottle as much as the game. You then rooted for such legends as Pete Gray, who played with one arm; Eddie Gaedel, who was a midget; and Leroy Satchel Paige, the ageless Negro League star who sat in his rocking chair between pitching assignments. The owner of the Browns, Bill Veeck, brought these men to St. Louis in a futile attempt to draw fans and stay in business. Veeck, who during one game allowed the fans to plot the strategy, may have been the Browns biggest character of all.

Some of you may even have watched the five Cardinal pennant winners of the 1920s and 1930s, teams with a roster full of names known to most baseball fans: Jay Hanna Dizzy Dean and Paul Dean (known as Me an Paul, Leo the Lip Durocher, Johnny Pepper Martin, Frankie Frisch, Joe Ducky Wucky Medwick, Sunny Jim Bottomley, Burleigh Grimes, Grover Cleveland Alexander, and Rogers Hornsby, the best right-handed batter who ever lived. I have tried to resurrect them through their words and deeds.

The 1934 team, which won the pennant by a single game on the final day of the season, became known as The Gas House Gang, and it has become one of the most famous teams of all time. It should be noted that these early winners also were put together by the duo of Breadon and Rickey, the latter of whom may have been the most important and influential team executive in baseball history.

It was the Browns, though, that boasted the earliest champions in St. Louis. They were called the Brown Stockings then, and they won four pennants in a row in the 1880s. Their stars were Walter Arlie Latham, Parisian Bob Caruthers, and Charlie Comiskey. Their owner was Christian Frederick Chris Von der Ahe, a volatile character who made much of his money selling beer in his saloon and who was the first to sell brew at the ballpark.

All of these men had unique skills and personalitiesand they made headlines. My job has been to bring them alive between these covers. I have tried as best I could to go behind those headlines to discover what these men were like, how they fit into the fabric of the team, and how they played the game. My primary goal is for you to experience baseball through the players eyes, to feel whatever they were feeling at the time: their pain, joy, or frustration. Always I am impressed by the consistency of these emotions from era to era.

My lifelong quest has been to save for history as many ballplayer memories as I am able. I live to hear a Marty Marion tell me about Terry Moore, an Ellis Clary talk about Sig Jakucki, see Max Lanier grit his teeth talking about Branch Rickey, hear a Jim Brosnan speak reverentially of Stan Musial, or a Joe Magrane revel in the genius of Whitey Herzog.

I trust you will savor the many stories, incidents, and firsthand accounts as much as I have. For me, baseball history is an endlessly fascinating topic. You can analyze the games themselves. You can try to understand the men who play them. You can look at how the players interact with each other and with their manager and owner. You can learn what life was like during the era in which they played. You can explore the effect of the general manager or team owner on the success of the team. You can discuss changes in the game over the years. You can discuss race, religion, and sociology. I have attempted to do all of this and more.

That I have been afforded the opportunity to interview the men who ran and played the game and who left their mark not just in St. Louis but from coast to coast has left me humble and proud. Here, then, are their stories.

P ETER G OLENBOCK ,
St. Petersburg, Florida