You get a feeling of how the club interrelates with each other. You make a move, you better try to bring in somebody who’s going to relate to the guys you have.—PAT GILLICK, baseball executive
When Gussie Busch, the newly minted owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, visited spring training in 1953 to see his club in action, he asked of his coaching staff, “Where are our black players?” After an uncomfortable pause, he was told that there were none. Busch responded, “How can it be the great game if blacks can’t play?”1 Knowingly or not, Busch had hit on the question of the age. An extraordinarily accomplished businessman, his company had sold plenty of beer to African Americans over the years, and he understood both the moral and the economic ramifications of the situation.
August “Gussie” Busch Jr. was the grandson of the cofounder of Anheuser-Busch and assumed control of the company in 1946 when he was forty-seven. One of St. Louis’s best-known citizens, Busch lived on a 281-acre palatial estate just outside the city, where he hosted wild parties for hundreds of friends. Harry Caray, the longtime Cardinal announcer, called Busch “a beer-and-broads man,” which Caray meant as high praise. In February 1953 Anheuser-Busch purchased the Cardinals, and the fifty-four-year-old Busch named himself president of the team. His title evolved over the years, but he ran the Cardinals until his death in 1989.
The Cardinals had become available because previous owner Fred Saigh had run afoul of income tax law—his no-contest plea to evading $50,000 in taxes led to a fifteen-month prison term. Saigh had several offers from parties who wanted to move the team out of St. Louis, but he held out for a local buyer. A couple of bankers pressured Busch to have Anheuser-Busch buy the club, convincing him that it would help both the city and his beer business.2 The company paid $3.75 million for the Cardinals and nine Minor League teams. As Busch’s fortune was estimated at $60 million, the price was well within his means.3 The team soon bought Sportsman’s Park from the American League’s St. Louis Browns and renamed it Busch Stadium. A year later the Browns moved to Baltimore, and the Cardinals had the city to themselves.
Busch knew little about the baseball business at the time. “I’ve been a fan all my life,” said Busch, “but I’ve been too busy to get out to the park in recent years unfortunately. However, the brewery has a box reserved for its use each season.”4 Many observers doubted Busch’s motivations. “Probably there has never been another owner in the Major Leagues with less personal interest in the game than Gussie Busch,” wrote Red Smith, “or one who used his baseball connection more blatantly to shill for his product.”5 All ad space at the park was used to sell beer, the Budweiser jingle was played between innings, and, on occasion, the company Clydesdales drove a beer wagon around the ballpark. The company was fourth in national beer sales in 1947, but first within a few years after Busch bought the Cardinals.6
Though he knew little about the game, Busch took a hands-on approach in his early days as owner. Soon after Anheuser-Busch bought the team Busch reportedly asked at a meeting of brewery executives whether anyone present knew anything about baseball. Dick Meyer, a vice president at the brewery, offered that he had played first base as a student. Hearing this, Busch named Meyer the club’s general manager. This was in 1954; the prior year Busch had run the club himself, deferring to manager Eddie Stanky on personnel matters. With his experience running a brewing empire, Busch slowly realized that he needed to build a more professional front office, although he never really established the harmonized structure of the Dodgers or Yankees.
One directive Busch was firm on was the need to field some black players. A few weeks after taking over the team Busch signed Quincy Trouppe, a longtime Negro League star, as a full-time scout. In May the Cardinals signed their first black player—outfielder Leonard Tucker from Fresno State College—and assigned him to their Fresno farm club. Busch sent Tucker a telegram, saying, in part, “I hope your professional record is a credit to all of us.”7 The team signed at least two more blacks to Minor League contracts that summer. In October Busch pledged that the team would sign more. “It is ridiculous to close the door to any minority, especially when our competitors owe so much of their success to members of this minority group.”8
Busch’s comments reveal his various motivations. He likely genuinely believed that blacks deserved the opportunity to play on his team, but he was not afraid to voice another obvious fact: the Cardinals were getting soundly beaten every year by the well-integrated Giants and Dodgers. Busch wanted to win and knew that he needed to field the best players—regardless of race—to do so.
In January 1954 the Cardinals acquired Tom Alston from the then–Minor League San Diego Padres. Alston was a navy veteran and a former collegian (North Carolina A&T) and was already twenty-eight years old when the Cardinals bought him. He had hit .297 with twenty-three home runs for the Padres, and his purchase price of one hundred thousand dollars (plus two players) was believed to be the most money yet spent to acquire a black player. Alston started on opening day and played fairly regularly, but ultimately proved to be overmatched by big-league pitching. He hit .246 in sixty-four games, before being demoted to Rochester in July. He had shorter trials the next three years before drawing his release.
The Cardinals also used two black pitchers in 1954. Bill Greason, recalled at the end of May, lasted just three outings, but Brooks Lawrence, who came up in late June, had a fine year, finishing 15-6 for a Cardinal club that finished in sixth place at 72-82. Lawrence struggled in 1955, leading to his trade to Cincinnati, but bounced back to have a few more fine seasons. The Cardinals continued to sign and play young black players, though they did not find any stars immediately.
In other ways Gussie Busch’s early years were marked by impatience. A brilliant success as a brewer, Busch fully expected the same results in baseball. He started out by asking the most basic of questions to his manager, Eddie Stanky: what do you need to make this team a contender? Stanky suggested a first baseman and a third baseman. What player in baseball would you most want? Stanky liked Dodger star Gil Hodges, whereupon Busch offered Brooklyn owner Walter O’Malley five hundred thousand dollars for Hodges. O’Malley reminded Busch that the Dodgers also needed Hodges. Busch received similar responses elsewhere.9
After a 1955 season in which the Cardinals posted their worst record (68-84) since 1924, Busch finally realized that relying on his manager for personnel decisions and offering huge amounts of money for good but not great players were no way to run a franchise. Accordingly, he promoted Meyer to executive vice president and hired Frank Lane to be the club’s general manager. “Trader” Lane had a long career in the game as a GM and became particularly famous for his obsessive trading. He made his mark with the Chicago White Sox, who gave him the GM job in late 1948. In just a few years Lane made dozens of deals of little consequence but a few that turned out brilliantly. Three largely unknown acquisitions—pitcher Billy Pierce, second baseman Nellie Fox, and outfielder Minnie Minoso—became immediate stars and remained so for a decade while the White Sox enjoyed an extended run of contention. By 1955 Lane’s relationship with the White Sox had soured, and Busch was able to hire him away.
After his early success Lane seemed to have become so enamored with his own genius that he made trades for the sake of creating news. (“Frank Lane was a great trader,” Buzzie Bavasi once remarked. “But, when I say that, I don’t mean the trades he made were great.”)10 While Lane’s White Sox deals had seemed part of a larger design, there seemed to be no purpose to his actions in St. Louis. The 1955 Cardinals still had two veteran holdovers from their 1940s clubs—Stan Musial, thirty-four, and Red Schoendienst, thirty-two—but also a core of young position players with promise. Rookie Ken Boyer had hit eighteen home runs and played a fine third base, and the outfield of Rip Repulski (twenty-three home runs), Bill Virdon (seventeen homers, an excellent center fielder, and 1955 Rookie of the Year), and Wally Moon (nineteen home runs and 1954 Rookie of the Year) was one of the league’s youngest and most promising.
A month into the 1956 season Lane dealt Virdon for two mediocrities—outfielder Bobby Del Greco and pitcher Dick Littlefield. In June Lane traded the popular Schoendienst in a nine-player deal; the principal returns were veterans Al Dark and Whitey Lockman. After the season Repulski was sent to the Phillies for thirty-two-year-old outfielder Del Ennis, who had several fine years in his past but just one in his future. Busch, still looking for a quick fix, encouraged Lane to offer five hundred thousand dollars for Ernie Banks and one million dollars for Willie Mays. Both their teams turned him down.11
Under Lane the team improved to seventy-six wins in 1956 and eighty-seven in 1957, but the principal cause of the gain was the performance of the players already in place when Lane arrived. Before the 1957 season Lane attempted to trade Musial to the Pirates; Busch got wind of the deal and overruled it. After the 1957 season Lane decided he could not handle the interference and quit. At the urging of Dick Meyer, Busch hired Bing Devine to replace Lane, and the real building of the team began.12
Vaughan Pallmore “Bing” Devine, a soft-spoken, modest man, could not have been more of a departure from the loud and brash Frank Lane. Born and raised in St. Louis, Devine played basketball and baseball at his hometown Washington University. Upon his graduation he went to work for the Cardinals as a general office boy and batting-practice pitcher. These were the Cardinals of Sam Breadon and Branch Rickey, though Devine’s menial work did not get him much face time with his famous bosses. In 1941 the twenty-five-year-old Devine became the GM for one of the Cardinals’ many Minor League teams, an Appalachian League club in Johnson City, Tennessee. Faced with a roster shortage due to the military draft, Devine played twenty-seven games at second base. After hitting just .118, he hung up his uniform permanently. In 1942 he ran the Fresno club in the California League. When the league folded Devine finished the season in Decatur, Illinois.
After four years in the navy, Devine returned to the Cardinals, spending two seasons in Columbus, Georgia, and seven in Rochester, New York (the Cardinals’ top club). In Rochester Devine worked not only with many future Major League players, but also with managers Johnny Keane and Harry Walker, both future big-league managers with whom Devine would remain close. After a successful run, including two league championships, Devine became Lane’s assistant, a job that did not give Devine much to do. Lane did not involve advisers in his deal making. “If Frank Lane didn’t make a deal in a month,” recalled Devine, “he’d be nasty, just like a smoker who needed a cigarette.” Lane, Devine felt, resented Musial and Schoendienst getting all of the attention around the club, and this led to Lane’s need to try to deal them.13
Just before Lane quit in 1957 he had worked out a trade with the Pirates, leaving only the final approval for Devine: the Cardinals would send Ken Boyer to Pittsburgh for outfielder Frank Thomas and third baseman Gene Freese. Boyer had a fine sophomore season in 1956 (.306 with twenty-six home runs), but both Lane and manager Fred Hutchinson questioned his determination and effort. Lane, in fact, suggested that Boyer should have hit .360. After an early slump at third base and at the plate in 1957, Hutchinson moved Boyer to center field (a weak spot ever since Lane had traded Virdon), and Boyer regressed. While Devine was contemplating the Boyer deal, Hutchinson said of Boyer, “He has the potential all right, but I don’t know whether he’s determined enough to reach that potential.” Rival NL infielder Johnny Temple disagreed, saying, “I think Lane had him all shook up. He didn’t know what he was doing.”14 Just days into his new job, Bing Devine called off the deal.
The Boyer nondeal would prove to be one of Devine’s best decisions. Hutchinson originally planned to keep Boyer in center field, but decided late in spring training that he needed Boyer back at third base. After a fine 1958 season—twenty-three home runs, ninety RBI, a .307 average, and his first Gold Glove award—the St. Louis writers honored Boyer at their winter banquet. “My thanks to Bing Devine,” said Boyer, “for not trading me when, I know, there was considerable pressure to do so.”15 Boyer became one of the best players in the game for the next several years, winning five Gold Gloves and appearing in ten All-Star Games.
In his memoirs Devine credits Lane for instilling in him the willingness to take a chance, to be aggressive in making trades. Devine would never be a deal maker like Lane, but he thought Lane’s example allowed him not to be afraid to make a trade that might be unpopular.16
Unlike Lane, Devine sought and received a lot of input on his potential trades and credited other people for his successful ones. Eddie Stanky worked for several years scouting other Major League clubs and became an important Devine adviser, as did Harry Walker. Devine “was very methodical,” remembered Lee Thomas, who later worked for Devine. “He gave everybody a chance to voice his opinion. You were not afraid to speak up. He wanted to hear what you had to say. . . . But we knew he was the boss.” Devine could also be tough when he needed to be. “Bing intimidated a lot of people,” Thomas added. “In a good way, not a mean way. They respected him. I know I did. He was very free to give credit to everybody when things went well. And when things didn’t he took the blame.”17
Devine also had to consult with Meyer, who would run major decisions past Busch. Unlike Lane, Devine developed a good relationship with Meyer, and the two became close friends. Devine felt that Busch had every right to be notified on possible deals, and the owner rarely interfered. In fact, if Busch expressed any misgivings, Meyer would likely as not lobby on Devine’s behalf to get the deal approved.18
Devine made his first trade in December 1957, dealing three pitchers—only one of whom, reliever Willard Schmidt, had Major League experience—to the Cincinnati Reds for outfielder Joe Taylor and infielder-outfielder Curt Flood. Both acquisitions had shown promise—Taylor as a slugger, Flood as a hitter and defensive player.
In Flood’s 1970 memoirs he blames racism for this trade, suggesting that the Reds did not want to have three black outfielders. Frank Robinson was already one of the league’s best players, though Vada Pinson, whom Flood names as the other outfielder, would not play regularly until 1959. In a 1962 magazine story written after Flood had become a star, but long before his memoirs, Flood was asked about this very issue. “As far as the Negro situation in Cincinnati,” Flood said, “I don’t know. It came up quite a bit early in my career, but I never felt that was why I was traded.” Birdie Tebbetts, the Reds’ manager, took full responsibility: “We needed pitching with that club. We had the power. The thing with Flood was he had a hitch in his swing. We knew he’d be a good one, but the reports were that he wouldn’t arrive for several years and we needed pitching help right away.” Flood agreed: “Birdie was right about the hitch. I had to work hard to correct it.”19
Flood was just nineteen at the time of the deal and (other than a handful of games with the Reds) had not yet played higher than Single-A. He was a slight man, just five foot eight and 150 pounds at this stage, and had played third base for Savannah in 1957. “I’ll play where they put me,” allowed Flood. “All I want to do is play, and play every day if possible.” Manager Hutchinson decided he was an outfielder. “Flood can run and has good range in the outfield. He has batted in every league he’s been in, but he is only a baby and we don’t know what he will do against strong pitching.”20 Flood was sent to Omaha to start the season, but returned at the end of April after hitting .340 in 15 games. He played almost every day in center field the rest of the season, hitting .261 with 10 home runs.
The 1958 Cardinals fell to 72-82 and fifth place. The principal problem was the offense—only Musial, Boyer, and first baseman–outfielder Joe Cunningham (.312 with 82 walks in just 337 at bats) could be considered even average hitters at their positions. The starting pitching, led by Sam Jones, Larry Jackson, and Vinegar Bend Mizell, was unspectacular but far from the problem.
As the season wound down Busch decided that he no longer wanted Hutchinson to manage his team. He instead wanted Solly Hemus, then an infielder for the Phillies. Hemus had played parts of seven seasons with St. Louis before being dealt by Lane in May 1956. After the trade Hemus wrote Busch a letter, thanking him for treating him so well during his years with the team and asking that he be considered down the road for a manager’s job in the organization. Three years later Busch had Devine reacquire Hemus and make him the team’s manager.21
Devine made several other moves in the off-season. In October he dealt two starting players—shortstop Eddie Kasko and right fielder Del Ennis—to the Reds for shortstop Alex Grammas and first baseman George Crowe. Grammas took over at short, while the African American Crowe would provide veteran bench strength and leadership, especially for the team’s growing pool of young black players. Five days later Devine pulled off a five-player deal with the Giants, which netted the Cardinals pitching prospect Ernie Broglio, who would be one of the more important members of the pitching staff for the next several years. In December Wally Moon was sent to the Dodgers for outfielder Gino Cimoli, who would have a decent 1959 season. Finally, just prior to the start of the season, Sam Jones was traded to the Giants for first baseman–outfielder Bill White.
White had been caught in a logjam with the Giants. As a rookie in 1956 the twenty-two-year-old White hit 22 home runs and seemed to be one of the more promising hitters in the league. White was drafted into the army and missed all of 1957 and most of 1958. When he returned the Giants were using rookie Orlando Cepeda, a twenty-year-old who hit .312 with 25 home runs and won the Rookie of the Year Award at White’s first base position. White was relegated to pinch-hitting the last two months of the season. The next spring manager Bill Rigney said he wanted to keep White as bench strength, but White repeatedly demanded a trade, finally getting his wish.22
Unfortunately for White, he faced a similar situation in St. Louis, where the incumbent first baseman was Stan Musial, the team’s biggest star and still the best in the league at the position. The Cardinals were already playing Joe Cunningham, an excellent offensive player, out of position in right field in deference to Musial. The team had also just acquired Crowe, who had hit 31 home runs just two seasons earlier. It took a few weeks for things to settle, but eventually Hemus kept Musial at first base, played Cunningham in right, and put White in left. Musial’s season-long slump got him benched a few times, allowing White to start 40 times at first base. White hit .302 and Cunningham .345 with a league-best .453 on-base percentage. Along with another fine year from Ken Boyer (.309 with 28 home runs), the club now had three good hitters in their mid- to late twenties. Curt Flood, still just twenty-one, was mainly used as a defensive replacement and fourth outfielder, hitting just .255 in 208 at bats.
Also arriving in 1959 was Bob Gibson, a fire-balling right-hander from Omaha, Nebraska. The Cardinals signed Gibson after his graduation from Creighton University in 1957, and he spent a year and a half in the Minor Leagues. He toiled most of the 1959 season with the Omaha Cardinals (9-9, 3.07), but made nine starts for St. Louis (3-5, 3.07). Gibson threw hard, but was beset with control problems that delayed his advancement.
The 1959 Cardinals fell to 71-83, a game worse than the previous year, but followed up with an 86-76 season in 1960. The principal improvement came from the fine pitching of Ernie Broglio (21-9, 2.74), Larry Jackson (18-13, 3.48), and nineteen-year-old rookie Ray Sadecki (9-9, 3.78). In May Devine picked up pitcher Curt Simmons, who had been released by the Phillies after a decade of solid pitching. He had been suffering an arm injury, and the Phillies thought he was finished. With the Cardinals he went 7-4, with a 2.66 ERA.
Despite the improvement on the field, these were not happy years for many of the Cardinal players, mainly because of dissatisfaction with Hemus. Many thought that manager Hemus, a scrappy, overachieving player, tried to overcompensate for his own shortcomings by screaming at and ridiculing his players, often for small miscues on the field. Although this style might have been tolerated a generation or two earlier, many of the younger players resented him. In particular, Bob Gibson and Curt Flood despised him and believed him to be a racist. Gibson later wrote that “either he disliked us deeply or he genuinely believed that the way to motivate us was with insults.” Flood was less equivocal, saying, “Hemus acted as if I smelled bad.”23
The most egregious incident came during a game in Pittsburgh in 1959. Hemus played himself against Bennie Daniels, a black pitcher. When a pitch hit Hemus on the leg, he yelled at Daniels, calling him a “black bastard.” In a later at bat Hemus took a swing and flung his bat at the pitcher, leading to both benches emptying. After the game Hemus held a team meeting to explain himself and admit what he had called Daniels. He did not apologize. Bill White, who was less sure than his teammates of Hemus’s racism, later said that Hemus never regained the team’s trust. Thirty years later Hemus told David Halberstam that his comments had been misinterpreted, that he had been raised in a game when players called each other “Jew bastard” and similar things, but the world had changed and he had not. He took the blame for what had happened with the Cardinals.24
Both Gibson and Flood later wrote that Hemus did not give them a chance and played inferior players in their place.25 In 1960 Flood, still just twenty-two, played 132 games in center field, including 116 starts. Although his defense drew high praise, he hit a woeful .237 with little power and just 35 walks. Whatever Hemus might have been like to deal with, Flood got quite a bit of playing time and did not hit. Gibson pitched in 27 games, including 12 starts, and finished 3-6 with a 5.61 ERA. Gibson would become a great pitcher, and Hemus might not have properly recognized this, but Gibson also did not deliver when given the ball.
Hemus lasted until the middle of the 1961 season, when Devine finally approached Gussie Busch and said a change was necessary. Busch agreed and allowed Devine to offer the job to Johnny Keane, who had managed in the organization for many years and knew many of the current players. In particular, the black players felt like a weight had been lifted off their shoulders.
Although Keane’s tactical changes have been overstated over the years, there is no doubt that the team as a whole responded by playing better baseball. The team was 33-41 and in sixth place when they changed skippers, but Keane brought them up to 80-74. Many of the Cardinal players have pointed to the change of managers as a pivotal event in the club’s evolution. Johnny Keane was very well liked and respected by his players.
Bing Devine deserves credit for recognizing that with the integration of his ball club, he needed a skipper who could manage black players with dignity and respect. Taking advantage of the availability of African American players was, of course, the first indispensable step. But the teams that created a positive environment for these new players could gain an additional advantage. Devine went beyond the admittedly low bar of the era to pair an integrated team with a skipper all the players respected. He had wanted to hire Keane instead of Hemus in 1958, and the team might have been better off had Busch allowed him to.
In 1962 the NL expanded to ten teams, resulting in a longer schedule and two new terrible teams. After a 14-4 start the Cardinals’ slow march forward stalled, and the club finished 84-78. That said, there were many hopeful signs as their good young players made progress. Bob Gibson (15-13, 2.85 ERA, 208 strikeouts), Ernie Broglio (12-9, 3.00), and Ray Washburn (12-9, 4.10) were all under twenty-seven years old. Veterans Larry Jackson (16-11, 3.75) and Curt Simmons (10-10, 3.51) joined them, forming a solid starting pitching core. The offense was led by Bill White (20 home runs, 102 RBI, .324 batting average), Ken Boyer (24, 98, .291) and forty-one-year-old Stan Musial (19, 82, .330) in his last hurrah. Flood batted .296, and second baseman Julian Javier (a 1960 acquisition from the Pirates) hit .263 and played a fine second base. The team’s offense was dragged down by its substandard production at shortstop and right field.
One observer decidedly unimpressed with the team’s progress was Gussie Busch. “As far as I’m concerned,” said Busch in August, “I’m almost at the point where I’d trade just about everybody. They’re going to be a hungry club—or there won’t be anyone around next spring. I’m so disgusted I can hardly think straight.” Busch absolved manager Keane of blame, but allowed that Bing Devine and the rest of the organization were on thin ice.26 In the end Busch’s chosen course was to hire Branch Rickey, the legendary eighty-year-old executive who had built great teams in St. Louis and Brooklyn, but had not worked for a team since leaving the Pirates in 1955. Rickey reported to Busch and was supposed to advise Busch, Meyer, Devine, and Keane. Bing Devine, who had not resented the presence of Dick Meyer as Busch’s adviser, very much resented the presence of Rickey. One evening shortly after Rickey joined the club, he asked Devine, “Are we going to have trouble if I’m here to run the club?” Devine boldly replied, “Mr. Rickey, we’re not going to have trouble. We have trouble right now.” Devine knew that his career was on the line, but he had no interest in playing second fiddle after so many years in charge. According to Devine, they did not speak much after that. When a writer asked about the reported feud, Dick Meyer said, “Bing Devine is still the general manager.”27
Rickey overplayed his hand almost immediately. He told Devine that it was time for Musial, fresh off his .330 season, to retire. Word leaked to Musial himself, who said he was not retiring and would play elsewhere if the Cardinals did not want him. Devine and Keane wanted him to stay. Gussie Busch stepped in and said that Musial could play as long as he wanted and would have a job with the organization when he was through playing. Busch reiterated that Bing Devine was in charge of the team.28
Devine made two deals in the fall in an attempt to plug the team’s two positional holes. In one he dealt pitchers Larry Jackson and Lindy McDaniel and reserve catcher Jimmie Schaffer to the Cubs for All-Star outfielder George Altman, pitcher Don Cardwell, and catcher Moe Thacker. This turned out to be one of Devine’s worst trades. The thirty-year-old Altman had hit over .300 with power the previous two years, but would have just one mediocre season with the Cardinals before moving on. Meanwhile, Jackson, who was thirty-two years old, would average 265 innings over the next six years, including two especially fine years in 1963 and 1964, and McDaniel had thirteen years left as a capable reliever.
Devine’s next deal was more successful, though it got him in more trouble with Rickey. Devine worked out a deal with Pittsburgh to trade twenty-three-year-old Julio Gotay, who hit .255 in his first full year as the Cardinal shortstop, along with the just-acquired Cardwell, for thirty-three-year-old shortstop Dick Groat. Devine knew that Rickey would disapprove—he loathed dealing young players for older ones. To press his case Devine invited Rickey to a meeting that also included several of Devine’s advisers, including Harry Walker and Eddie Stanky. Rickey looked around the room and said, “You’ve kind of loaded this meeting for me, haven’t you?” Rickey finally agreed to take the deal to Busch, along with his own negative opinion. Busch, likely swayed by Dick Meyer, gave his approval, and the deal was made.29 Groat, who had several fine years with the Pirates, including winning the Most Valuable Player award for the 1960 season, would hit .319 and finish a strong second for the MVP award in 1963.
When the team gathered in St. Petersburg for spring training in 1963, Johnny Keane discovered that Rickey believed his consultant job also covered matters on the playing field. One day Rickey came onto the field and asked Keane why he had sent rookie shortstop Jim Harris to the Minor League camp. Keane told Rickey to get off the field, that he was the manager of the team and needed no help. Rickey left. In a magazine article that spring, Rickey picked the Cardinals to finish fifth. He was especially critical of the team’s young pitching staff. Keane shot back, “Our pitchers are not as young as the 1942 Cards [who won the World Series]. I’d like to know who assembled them.” It was Rickey, as Keane knew.30
Despite the distractions the 1963 Cardinals finally took a leap forward, finishing in second place at 93-69. The Cards drew to within one game of the Dodgers with twelve to play but then lost three straight to Los Angeles on the way to losing six in a row and finished six games out. The credit for the success of the team fell largely on Devine, whose trades were seen as the key to the team. This was especially on display in the All-Star Game, which featured all four Cardinal infielders (White, Javier, Groat, and Boyer) starting the game for the National League—three of them acquired by Bing Devine and the other saved by him several years earlier. After the season he was named baseball’s Executive of the Year by the Sporting News.31
The club was led by the great all-around play of White, Boyer, Groat, and Flood. There were five players in the Major Leagues who had 200 hits in 1963, and three of them were Cardinals—Flood, White, and Groat. White, Flood, and Boyer won Gold Gloves for their fielding. White and Boyer combined for 51 home runs and 220 RBI. The team also had an excellent quartet of starters—Bob Gibson (18-9), Ernie Broglio (18-10), Curt Simmons (15-9), and Ray Sadecki (10-10), supplemented by the excellent relief work of Ron Taylor and Bobby Shantz. Stan Musial fell to .255 and retired, the one down note to a year otherwise filled with progress.
A key arrival in 1963 was catcher Tim McCarver. A three-sport high school star, McCarver turned down football scholarships from Notre Dame and Tennessee (he had been an all-state end) to sign in 1959 for a reported bonus of seventy-five thousand dollars. He was only seventeen when he debuted in the Majors that September and spent most of four seasons in the Minor Leagues. In March 1963 Keane finally told the twenty-one-year-old that he had nothing left to prove, that he would be the third-string catcher, behind Carl Sawatski and Gene Oliver, with Oliver the incumbent starter.
McCarver impressed in his occasional appearances, and by late May he was platooning with Oliver. In June the Cardinals needed another pitcher, and Devine traded Oliver to Milwaukee for Lew Burdette. Just like that, McCarver was the everyday catcher. “It was a big break for me when they traded Oliver,” said McCarver. “I had no reservations about getting in there. That’s what I trained for.” He played nearly every game the rest of the season and hit .289 with excellent defense.
From the day he arrived, the rookie was aggressive and cocky. For the Cardinal pitching staff, this was crucial. “When McCarver was put into the lineup,” said Broglio, “it was a big thing, a big question. I want my catcher to call my game for me. He has to take charge.” McCarver took charge. Johnny Keane recalled going out to the mound late in a game to talk with Lew Burdette, who had not looked comfortable. Before Keane could decide to take him out, McCarver stepped in and convinced both the manager and the pitcher that they were going to get out of this jam. “I can’t say enough about that kid,” said Dick Groat after the season. “I’ve never seen a guy take over the way he did. He’s the best-looking catcher I’ve seen in baseball.” Groat marveled at how quickly the rookie catcher instilled faith in his pitchers. “Give the credit to McCarver, he’s been great,” said Bill White.32 Said McCarver:
I knew when I took over that it was a great opportunity, and I realized, too, that everyone was saying I was so young that it would be a problem. No one in the world realized just how young I was any better than I did. I knew when I got in there that I couldn’t let the pitchers run all over me. You have to earn their respect, treat each and every one of them like he was your own flesh and blood. You have to be stern with them yet go along with them. You should only go out to the mound to talk to them when it is needed. You can’t keep running out there and make a useless thing out of it. With some pitchers you know right away that a walk will shake them up and your job is not to let them get bothered, so you go out.33
His relationship with the fiery Gibson was especially important. Gibson later admitted that he was initially cautious about McCarver, the white bonus player from the heavily segregated city of Memphis. A great prospect in his own right, Gibson’s four-thousand-dollar bonus paled next to the seventy-five thousand that McCarver had received. For his part, McCarver has acknowledged being uncomfortable around outspoken black men like Gibson and Flood, people who confronted the prejudices of his upbringing. (Both men have told the story of Gibson approaching McCarver on the team bus while the catcher was drinking a soda. “Can I have a sip?” asked Gibson, knowing a white southerner would be reluctant to share a bottle with a black man. “I’ll save you some,” responded McCarver.) To the credit of both men, they grew into the best of friends. Both fiercely competitive team leaders despite their relative youth, their friendship would help bind the entire team together.34
Looking ahead to 1964, the Cardinals appeared set in the infield, at catcher, in center field, and on the mound. The problem spot was in the corner outfield spots—Musial had retired, and Altman had been traded to the Mets for Roger Craig, who would add depth to the team’s bullpen. Devine’s other key off-season acquisitions were Carl Warwick, an outfielder obtained from Houston, and Bob Uecker, a backup catcher received from the Braves for two young players—Gary Kolb and Jimmie Coker. On his first day in the Cardinal clubhouse in the spring, Uecker met the great Branch Rickey. “Mr. Rickey, I’m Bob Uecker, and I’ve just joined your club.” Rickey responded gruffly, “Yes, I know, and I didn’t want you. I wouldn’t trade a hundred Bob Ueckers for one Gary Kolb.”35 Little wonder that Uecker would develop a much-beloved Rodney Dangerfield attitude regarding his baseball skill set.
Keane spent the first two months of the season trying to find adequate production from left and right fields. Charlie James, who had hit .268 with 10 home runs in half-time play in 1963, started the season in a slump and never shook it, hitting .223 on the season. Rookie Johnny Lewis started the year as the regular right fielder, but was back in the Minor Leagues by mid-June. Warwick served as an adequate fourth outfielder and pinch hitter. Doug Clemens had experienced annual trials since 1960 and hit .205 in 33 games.
The Cardinals began the season playing well and were just a game behind the first-place Giants on May 22. Then St. Louis slumped badly, dropping 17 of 23 games by June 15 and falling 7 games behind the front-running Phillies. More important, the Cardinals were in eighth place in a very competitive pennant race. June 15 was the trading deadline, and Bing Devine had spent the previous few weeks desperately looking for outfielders. Two days earlier Devine had traded a Minor Leaguer to Cincinnati for Bob Skinner, a thirty-two-year-old former All-Star who was hitting .220 and had lost most of his playing time with the Reds. As a sign of how desperate Keane was, he immediately installed Skinner in right field, a position he had last played, briefly, eight years earlier. Skinner held the job only a couple of weeks.
The man Devine and Keane most wanted was Chicago Cubs outfielder Lou Brock, whom they had tried to acquire the previous winter. Brock was an odd player—small and extremely fast with occasional power. He was not a good defensive player and was particularly miscast in Wrigley Field’s sunny and challenging right field. The Cubs were a team bloated with power, and they wanted Brock to get on base, bunt whenever possible, and limit his base running. In two and a half seasons with Chicago he had hit .257 with 20 home runs.
Devine and Keane had come to believe that the one asset the club most needed was speed—the game was getting faster, and many of the most successful National League teams of the era employed fast base running in their arsenal. Brock, Keane felt, might be the fastest man in the league, despite his pedestrian stolen-base totals. The continuing struggles of the team’s outfielders made the team’s interest even stronger. The Cardinals were in Los Angeles on June 14 when Devine again contacted Cubs general manager John Holland. With Brock hitting his usual .251, and the Cubs short of pitching, this time the teams were able to make a six-player deal: Broglio, Clemens, and Shantz for Brock and pitchers Jack Spring and Paul Toth. The key players were Broglio, who won 18 games the previous year and was pitching well in 1964, and Brock.
“None of us liked the deal,” admitted Bill White years later. “We lie and say we did, but we didn’t like that deal. In my opinion, Lou had a lot of talent, but he didn’t know anything about baseball. . . . But somehow, when he came to us, he turned everything around.”36 Keane told Brock that he would play left field every day, that he would not be asked to bunt, and that he should steal bases anytime he thought he could make it. In Gibson’s words, “Presto, we were transformed.” Batting second behind Flood, Brock hit .348 with 42 extra-base hits in 103 games to finish out the season.
The Cardinals still had seven teams to catch, but they slowly inched toward the fringes of the pennant race. They were in seventh place at the end of June and sixth at the end of July though just 7 games behind the first-place Phillies. Devine and Keane finally settled on a right fielder by recalling Mike Shannon from Jacksonville and handing him the job for the duration. Shannon was a local kid who was signed by the Cardinals in 1958 and had brief trials in 1962 and 1963.
Meanwhile, Gussie Busch was becoming more and more restless. The Cardinals seemed to have regressed from their strong 1963 season and looked no closer to winning than they were when Busch took over a decade earlier. By midsummer Busch was talking about replacing both Devine and Keane. According to Harry Caray, the club’s radio voice and Busch’s frequent drinking companion, Busch asked him if he wanted to be the team’s general manager. When Caray turned him down, Busch apparently asked both Bill Veeck and Branch Rickey if they wanted the job. On August 18 Busch finally fired Devine and hired Bob Howsam, a longtime Minor League operator in Denver, at Rickey’s suggestion.37
An incident involving Keane and Groat in July might have helped trigger the dismissal. Keane had given Groat the freedom to call a hit-and-run play when he was batting, but after it failed a few times early in the season, Keane revoked the privilege. According to Gibson, Groat stopped talking to Keane for a while, and their feud divided the team. Devine asked Keane to hold a team meeting where Keane confronted Groat directly, and Groat apologized to the team and everyone moved on. Weeks later Busch heard about the meeting and concluded that Devine was keeping problems from him.38
Devine, for one, believed that he was dismissed mainly because of Busch’s frustration over the performance of the team.39 Devine had been running the ball club for nearly seven years, and only once, the previous season, had it won more than eighty-six games. With 1963’s fine second-place finish appearing more like a fluke than a real step forward, Busch made the move. In retrospect, it might be considered surprising that Devine held onto his job as long as he did given all the different opinions that Busch listened to and the lack of concrete successes on the playing field.
On the other hand, Devine was the reigning Executive of the Year and just two months earlier had made what would become the signature trade of his career. Devine was very popular with the players and also enjoyed a close relationship with Keane and Meyer. He soon took a job with the Mets, and by the end of September Eddie Stanky, director of player personnel, and several of the Cardinal scouts had followed Devine to New York.
At the time the press blamed Rickey for the shakeup. Bob Broeg, the dean of St. Louis sportswriters, referred to Rickey as “Branch Richelieu” (a reference to the seventeenth-century French cardinal who acted with the king’s authority). Rickey denied any involvement in the firing and claimed that he tried to talk Busch into at least waiting until after the season. But if Rickey did not force the change, he was guilty at the very least of “poisoning the well.” In the twenty-two months since he had been hired, he had continually disagreed with Devine’s player moves and was advising Busch accordingly.
As for Howsam, with just six weeks left in the season there was very little work for a general manager to do. The Cardinals, it was assumed, were playing for 1965.
Less than two weeks after Devine’s dismissal the Los Angeles Dodgers were playing a series in St. Louis. On his pregame show Caray interviewed Dodger coach Leo Durocher, who had managed the Dodgers and Giants to three pennants and the 1954 championship, and asked him whether he wanted to manage again. Durocher replied frankly that he was not getting many offers. Busch heard the show and asked Caray to bring Durocher out to Busch’s estate the next morning. Busch offered Durocher the manager’s job for the following season. Despite the cloak-and-dagger treatment, the story was widely reported, and Keane himself was well aware of it.40 As Keane and Devine were good friends, most assumed Keane’s days were numbered.
In the midst of all this scheming, something extraordinary began happening on the field. When Durocher and the Dodgers left St. Louis at the end of August, the Cardinals were still seven and a half games behind the Phillies. Their record was a fine 43-28 (.606) since the Brock trade, but they appeared to have dug themselves too deep a hole. Twenty days later the Cardinals were 83-66, still six and a half back with thirteen to go, tied with the Reds and a half game ahead of the Giants. Then the Phillies had their historic collapse, losing ten consecutive games and throwing the race into total chaos heading into the final few days. The Cardinals took over first place with three games to go and then survived losing two of three to the lowly Mets to pull out a miraculous pennant on the last day of the season.
The Cardinals’ final record, 93-69, was unchanged from 1963. The Cardinals were loaded with fine players, many acquired by Devine in trades. Ken Boyer (24 home runs, 119 RBI) had a typical year and won the league MVP award. Bill White drove in 102. Brock hit .348, Flood .311, Groat .292. McCarver hit .288 and was a rock at catcher. Sadecki finished 20-11, Gibson 19-12, and Simmons 18-9. Devine’s trades had brought Flood, White, Javier, Groat, and, finally, Brock to the offense, plus Simmons and an effective and flexible bullpen. When the season finished, Devine’s role in creating the club began to take over the narrative.
In the World Series the Cardinals faced off against the Yankees, who had also held off three teams to capture the pennant by a single game. In a tight but not especially memorable World Series, the Cardinals defeated New York in seven games. In the finale a clearly struggling Bob Gibson withstood two solo ninth-inning home runs to hold off the Yankees, 7–5. After the game, when asked whether he had considered removing Gibson, Keane replied, “I made a commitment to his heart.”41 For Gibson, who had endured what he believed to be degrading treatment at the hands of Solly Hemus, it was “the nicest thing that can be said about an athlete.”42 Keane’s statement, coupled with other heroic World Series efforts in the years ahead, is a central part of Bob Gibson’s legend.
Bob Howsam was unequivocal in placing credit for the 1964 Cardinals. “Of course, it was Bing Devine’s team,” he wrote. “He built it. I was just the caretaker for the last third of the 1964 season.”43
Busch, Devine, and Keane had created something truly remarkable in a city that until recently had been Major League Baseball’s southernmost location. At the height of the nation’s civil rights struggles, the Cardinals had not only been integrated, but fashioned an enlightened, harmonious team. “Our triumph was not a product of hitting and fielding and pitching skills alone,” Gibson recalled, “but, in an almost tangible sense, of the mental, social, and spiritual qualities that made the Cardinals unique—of intelligence, courage, brotherhood, and faith.”44 Though the lion’s share of the credit must go to the players themselves, Busch had demanded the integration, and Devine and Keane had created the atmosphere.
For Gussie Busch, the Series victory was the culmination of a dream and one of the happiest days of his life. Things would soon unravel. After the remarkable comeback and Series win, he realized that the club had better re-sign Johnny Keane. He called a press conference on October 16, the day after the Series ended, to announce Keane’s return. Fifteen minutes before the conference was to begin, Keane walked into Busch’s office and handed him a resignation letter. The letter was dated September 28, six days before the end of the season when the Cardinals were one game behind the Reds. Keane later said he and his wife began discussing it about ten days before that. A much different press conference went forward as scheduled. “This has really shocked me,” allowed a visibly flustered Busch.45 Keane said he never wavered after writing the letter, that his decision was based on a lot of things, including the firing of Devine. He told the press that he had no plans, other than to go fishing.
Three days later Keane dropped the other shoe, signing a contract to manage the Yankees, who had just dismissed Yogi Berra. Keane had apparently talked with the Yankees about the job before the Series, when both teams were thick in pennant races. This sequence of news events, spread over just a few days, shocked the baseball world and pushed the Cardinals’ great victory off the nation’s sports pages. Busch had his World Series, but now people were laughing at him. And there was more to come. Branch Rickey “resigned,” although it was later revealed that Busch had ordered Howsam to fire him. The Sporting News named Devine the Major League Executive of the Year, as they had in 1963. United Press International (UPI) named Johnny Keane the NL Manager of the Year.
After leaving the Cardinals Bing Devine spent three years with the Mets, two as George Weiss’s assistant before succeeding Weiss as team president in 1967. Devine played a key role in helping assemble the team that would win the World Series in 1969. In early 1966 William Eckert, baseball’s commissioner, ruled that the Atlanta Braves had improperly signed USC pitcher Tom Seaver to a contract after his college season had begun. Eckert announced that any team who wished to assume the terms of the contract, which included a bonus of fifty thousand dollars, could enter into a drawing. Devine successfully lobbied Weiss to enter, and the Mets were selected from the three interested teams. Devine made several key trades and kept the organization focused on the development of its young players. He also lured Gil Hodges from the Senators to manage the Mets. Although the team was not yet winning, the pieces were coming into place.
In St. Louis Bob Howsam ran the Cardinals for the next two seasons. After a disappointing 1965 Howsam made the unpopular decisions to trade mainstays Groat, White, and Boyer, players in their thirties whom Howsam deemed—correctly—to be nearing the end of the road. His acquisitions of Orlando Cepeda and Roger Maris restocked a team that would win two consecutive pennants and the 1967 World Series. Before that happened, however, Howsam resigned his post to take a similar position, with far more autonomy, with the Cincinnati Reds. Howsam was replaced by Musial, who won the championship in his one and only year in charge.
After Musial resigned Meyer suggested to Busch that he rehire Devine, and the owner, who had long regretted his decision to fire Devine, quickly agreed. Convincing Devine was not difficult—he had been born and raised in St. Louis, and his family had remained there while Devine commuted to New York for three years.
Many of the ballplayers Devine had assembled were still Cardinals when he returned. He, and then Howsam, had built a celebrated team, not just of ballplayers but of men, and Devine was reluctant to make significant adjustments, even as some of his star players were fading. While he remained at the helm for another ten years, the club gradually faded from contention. The unique changing circumstances that Devine had mastered more than a decade earlier—recognizing the influx of black talent and building an organization in which they were respected—offered a onetime opportunity. In the decade after his last championship, Devine could neither take advantage of the contemporary changes taking place in talent procurement, such as the amateur draft, nor create another enduring advantage for the ball club.