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Whitey Herzog, former Cardinals, Royals manager and Hall of Famer, dies at 92
Baseball: St. Louis Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog (24) on field during game vs Atlanta Braves at Busch Stadium.
St. Louis, MO 5/23/1983
CREDIT: John W. McDonough (Photo by John W. McDonough /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
(Set Number: X28527 )
By Rustin Dodd
In the summer of 1980, August A. Busch Jr., the chairman and president of the St. Louis Cardinals, summoned Whitey Herzog to Grant’s Farm, the family estate on the outskirts of the city. Herzog was 48 years old and had spent the previous five seasons managing the Kansas City Royals before taking over as Cardinals manager before 1980 season, but Gussie Busch, as he was known, had an idea. He needed a new general manager. He wanted Herzog. He offered a simple mission.
“Whitey,” Busch said, as the men talked over a couple beers. “Get me one more championship.”
Herzog accepted the challenge, and across the next two seasons he would remake the Cardinals in his own image, serving in a dual role as both manager and GM, building a skillful team of speed and defense and pitching and patience. In the span of 12 months starting in December 1980, he executed eight transactions that featured 31 players, sending out veterans and acquiring Hall of Famers, tailoring his roster to excel on the astroturf of the spacious Busch Stadium. The renovation set the foundation for a World Series championship, re-energized St. Louis as a baseball market and resulted in a brand of baseball that took the National League by storm.
It was known as “Whiteyball,” a style based on speed, defense and pitching. It was, as its architect once put it, just old-school baseball.
“What’s Whiteyball?” Herzog asked in 1987. “I don’t even know what it is. Whitebally. Billyball. What’s the difference? It’s all just baseball.”
Herzog, whose managerial prowess and executive handiwork helped the Cardinals win the World Series in 1982 (and appear in two others), and whose name became synonymous with 1980s baseball, died on Tuesday. He was 92.
Whitey Herzog at his Hall of Fame induction in 2010. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
Herzog, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010, also played eight seasons in the major leagues — debuting with the Washington Senators in 1956 — and managed the Royals to three straight appearances in the American League Championship Series from 1976 to 1978. He shepherded the early career of future Hall of Famer George Brett. He brought shortstop Ozzie Smith to the Cardinals and watched him become one of the best defensive players in baseball history. He was colorful, brash, blunt and occasionally off-color. Most of all, he was successful. As a manager, he won six division titles and finished with a career record of 1,281-1,125 — a mark that included a stint as the Rangers’ manager in 1973 and four games as an interim skipper for the Angels in 1974.
“He’s the best manager I ever played for as a field manager and a tactician,” former Cardinals first baseman Keith Hernandez told The New York Times in 2010, as Herzog prepared for his Hall induction. “He made me more cognizant of doing the little things to win a game: getting a runner over, which he always emphasized; if you didn’t score a runner from second, you got him to third. Defensively, he always had a new wrinkle.”
Born Dorrel Norman Elvert Herzog in New Athens, Ill., in 1931, Herzog was raised in the tiny community in southern Illinois, 30 miles southeast of St. Louis. As a boy, Herzog went by the name “Relly.” It was not until his professional baseball career began that he earned the moniker “Whitey,” which referenced his bleached blonde hair and his resemblance to former Yankees pitcher Bob “The White Rat” Kuzava, who had similar blonde hair.
Herzog once referred to himself as a “Lil Ol Country Boy,” the son of a father who worked at the Mound City Brewery and a mother who toiled in a shoe factory, the product of a hardscrabble community of bars and blue-collar work. The second of three boys, he spent his childhood delivering newspapers, digging graves for a local funeral parlor, modeling his swing after Stan Musial’s and occasionally skipping school to go watch the Cardinals, finding a lift to Belleville before taking a bus to Sportsman’s Park.
After a star turn on the baseball field in high school, Herzog signed his first professional contract — for $1,500 — with the New York Yankees and scout Lou Maguolo. It was while playing the Yankees system in McAlester, Okla., that he first heard the nickname “Whitey.”
Herzog was traded to the Washington Senators in 1956 — after a brief stint in the military during the Korean War — and debuted with the Senators that season. As a player, he was a left-handed hitting outfielder with little power, and his consistent struggles at the plate led to part-time stints with the Kansas City A’s, Baltimore Orioles and the Detroit Tigers, where his career ended in 1963. (To emphasize his abilities, Herzog once told the Los Angeles Times that Yankees manager Casey Stengel promised him he’d bring him back to New York if he ever had a good year. The punchline: He never did.)
When his playing career ended, Herzog returned with his wife Mary Lou to the Kansas City area, where he took a job as construction foreman. One day, Herzog later recalled, he was ordered to lay off 20 men based on seniority rather than performance. It was an experience that embittered him on the industry, so he quit, and he eventually accepted a job as a scout for the Kansas City A’s. The gig led to a coaching job, which led to a short stint in the Orioles’ organization and seven years in player development with the Mets.
Herzog’s first chance to manage came with the Rangers in 1973. In his opening press conference, he told reporters, according to the Los Angeles Times, “This is the worst excuse for a big-league club I ever saw.” He was right — and was fired in the middle of his first season.
Herzog’s breakthrough came when he was hired by Royals GM Joe Burke — his boss in Texas — to replace Jack McKeon as the club’s manager in late July 1975. The Royals, just seven seasons into their existence, were loaded with young talent and speed — the roster included Brett, Frank White, Amos Otis and Hal McRae — and they played their home games at what was then Royals Stadium, a spacious park with astroturf. It was the perfect environment for Herzog to test his theories about the game, to unleash Whiteyball before anyone had used the term.
“I tried to change the whole concept of how we played baseball,” Herzog said, according to the Kansas City Star. “We couldn’t hit a home run, and we could neutralize the other team’s power somewhat when we were at home.”
The Royals claimed three straight American League titles, winning a franchise-record 102 games in 1977, but they could not get over a Bronx-sized hump in the postseason, losing three straight times in the ALCS to the Yankees. In 1977, Royals owner Ewing Kauffman famously said that Herzog “can be my manager forever.” In this case, forever lasted two more years.
Friction between Kauffman and Herzog led to his firing after the 1979 season. Herzog would find a landing spot in St. Louis, first taking over the manager’s job, then the GM post, before eventually settling into both before the 1981 season. (He was the first to serve in both capacities simultaneously since Connie Mack 31 years earlier.) With Gussie Busch’s blessing, Herzog went to work on retooling the roster. In December of 1980, he acquired Bruce Sutter from the Cubs; signed catcher Darrell Porter to a free agent contract; and traded catcher Ted Simmons and pitchers Rollie Fingers and Pete Vuckovich to Milwaukee for David Green, Dave LaPoint, Sixto Lezcano and Lary Sorensen.
He was just getting started. The next offseason, he acquired Ozzie Smith, Lonnie Smith and Willie McGee in trades with the Padres, Phillies and Yankees, respectively. Lonnie Smith finished second in the MVP voting in 1982. Ozzie Smith made the All-Star Game. The Cardinals won 92 games, bested the Braves in the NLCS and edged the Brewers in a seven-game World Series, winning the final two games and claiming the organization’s first World Series title since 1967. In the moments after the victory, Herzog sat in his office, picking at a plate of ribs.
“I don’t feel that excited about it,” he told reporters. “After seeing our ballclub last night come out smoking, I really expected this.”
The Cardinals returned to the World Series in 1985, losing a heartbreaking seven-game series to the Royals after leading the series 3-1, and again in 1987, falling in seven games to the Minnesota Twins. Herzog managed parts of three more seasons in St. Louis before resigning in the summer of 1990. In customary Herzog fashion, he was ready with an honest quip: “I came here in last place and I leave here in last place,” he said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I left them right where I started.”
“If I ever managed, I’d try to do the things Whitey did,” Brett told Sports Illustrated in 1982. “He gave players confidence, but he wasn’t afraid to stand up to them. He’d play hearts with you. I remember once going to his house for a quail dinner. Next game I went four-for-four. Later in the season I was struggling a little and one day Whitey walks into the clubhouse with a couple of quail that Mary Lou had sent me.”
Herzog never managed again, though he did have a short stint as the Angels’ GM in the early ’90s. In his later years, he returned to his favorite fishing holes. He became an ambassador for baseball in St. Louis. His sharp sense of humor never waned. In his final years, when he became the second oldest living Hall of Famer behind Willie Mays, he joked that autography collectors kept sending him cards to sign. The value, Herzog figured, was about to spike.
At his core, though, Herzog was still the blue-collar kid from New Athens, the one who delivered papers and dug graves and who could return home and predict which townie would be on which barstool in every tavern in town. The kid also had a sense for baseball, and if you stripped away everything, Herzog said, it was not a complicated game.
“If you get good enough pitching and play defense day in and day out,” he said, “you can win on the moon.”
https://theathletic.com/5419937/2024/04/16/whitey-herzog-cardinals-royals-obituary-mlb/?source=nyt&access_token=11932965
~~COMPX 4/16/2024~~~~~~~
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He had health issues last year that prevented him from traveling on the road.
Power Rankings: Surprise club jumps up 12 spots
April 14th, 2024
https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-power-rankings-for-the-week-of-april-14-2024
The notables.
6. Royals (previously: 18)
7. Brewers (previously: 12)
9. Pirates (previously: 11)
13. Tigers (previously: 7)
16. Astros (previously: 8)
It was good to see Florial play a part in Cleveland's win coming in as a PH and getting an RBI.
https://www.mlb.com/gameday/yankees-vs-guardians/2024/04/14/746648/final/box
Coming soon bobblehead night featuring Volpe and Torres.
Ferguson gets charged with the loss with assists by Volpe and Torres.
https://www.mlb.com/gameday/yankees-vs-guardians/2024/04/14/746648/final/box
~~COMPX 4/15/2024~~~~~~~
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Trump and his followers are a cult. Normalcy is our Democracy which Trump and his cult are trying to destroy.
I suggest you wake the fuck up or find another board to spread your insane ramblings.
I'd hardly call BA a quality investment at this point. You apparently like giving money back. I don't.
Yankees make lineup change
Boone said Tuesday that he wasn’t in a hurry to move Volpe to the leadoff spot in the Yankees’ lineup. But the manager acknowledged that “when we look up in 10 years, that’s where his future is going to be.”
One day later, Volpe was leading off against the Marlins. Boone said his reasoning for moving Volpe up and Torres to the sixth spot was more about the performance of the team’s second baseman.
“I feel like Gleyber’s on the verge of really getting it going,” Boone said. “I do feel the at-bats have been good, but I feel like he’s pressed a little bit to get it going in that (leadoff) spot.”
Anthony Volpe on hitting in the leadoff spot: "Definitely not uncomfortable."#YANKSonYES pic.twitter.com/r1ITlCh6f6
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) April 11, 2024
After being one of the Yankees’ best hitters in 2023, Torres has started this season slowly. He’s hitting just .192/.295/.231 with zero home runs. Torres’ underlying metrics have not been encouraging for either. Entering Wednesday’s game, he ranked in the 30th percentile in xwOBA and the 11th percentile in hard-hit rate.
Torres has struggled in the leadoff spot throughout his career. Statistically, it’s been his worst spot in the batting order. In 55 career games leading off, Torres has posted a .631 OPS.
“Wherever Gleyber is hitting, he’s gonna get it rolling and be a big part of this offense,” Boone said.
“I feel like if I left him there over time, he’d be Gleyber Torres and we’d see the results. I do feel like he’s close to taking off.”
Boone wouldn’t say if the expectation is Volpe continuing to be the Yankees’ leadoff hitter, but it makes sense to have him get as many at-bats as possible with him being as hot as anyone across MLB.
There wasn’t necessarily a need for the Yankees to make a lineup change. They currently have a top-five offense. But putting Volpe in a top spot and Torres in the middle of the order makes sense with their skillsets. — Kirschner
https://theathletic.com/5407394/2024/04/11/yankees-takeaways-giancarlo-stanton-trent-grisham/?source=nyt&access_token=11932965
Good chemistry
The Yankees’ chemistry seems off the charts. Winning is the great panacea, and the club has been off to an incredible start. But players seem to be getting along well. A few examples:
• Every day during the home stand, the team had a hitters meeting in what’s labeled “The War Room” just outside the clubhouse. The meeting starts with a music video on a big projection screen, and the volume is turned up to nightclub levels. Before the home opener, they started the meeting with Rihanna’s “Run This Town.” Another day, “Houdini” by Dua Lipa was the pick. The War Room is essentially a classroom, complete with seats and desks. Along the right wall, the Yankees’ biggest accomplishments are listed in big bold letters — 27 World Series titles, four perfect games, etc.
• As Anthony Rizzo prepared for a pregame interview with the YES Network’s Justin Shackil, his teammates wouldn’t let him do it alone. He was flanked by Judge, Verdugo and Gleyber Torres, who kept comedically serious faces throughout the line of lighthearted questioning.
• During a pitching change Saturday night, Judge, Verdugo and Soto took turns riling up the crowd from the outfield. They kept their backs to the fans before turning and waving, eliciting wild cheers. “I’ve been here seven years,” Judge told Verdugo, “and I’ve never gotten this (kind of reaction).” — Kuty
https://theathletic.com/5407394/2024/04/11/yankees-takeaways-giancarlo-stanton-trent-grisham/?source=nyt&access_token=11932965
What to make of Stanton?
Stanton has been on a tear in his last five games, going 8-for-19 with three home runs and seven RBIs. He’s looked like his vintage self, making a bunch of hard contact even when he gets out.
But what should we make of this recent sampling from Stanton? Is it just another one of his streaks where he can carry an offense himself? Or is this what we should continue to expect?
Big G 💪 pic.twitter.com/C16xcnGnMN
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) April 11, 2024
One area to look at is how he’s hitting high-velocity pitches. In 2023, MLB’s average fastball velocity was just over 94 mph. On all pitches 94 mph or harder last season, Stanton had an OPS of just .613 with six home runs.
This year, Stanton is 1-for-10 on pitches over 94 mph. He collected his lone hit Monday when he pulled a 94 mph sinker over the heart of the plate for a 116 mph single.
Stanton’s biggest problem last season at the plate was his inability to hit high-velocity pitches. He’s yet to show improvement in this area.
Stanton is the exit velocity king in MLB. When he connects, it comes off the bat differently than everyone else. But remain cautious in declaring him fully back until he shows he can hit high-velocity pitches. — Kirschner
https://theathletic.com/5407394/2024/04/11/yankees-takeaways-giancarlo-stanton-trent-grisham/?source=nyt&access_token=11932965
Fritz Peterson, Yankee Pitcher in an Unusual ‘Trade,’ Dies at 82
He was a leading light on an undistinguished team. But he became known less for his achievement on the field than for exchanging wives with a teammate.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/13/sports/baseball/fritz-peterson-dead.html?ugrp=m&unlocked_article_code=1.kU0.Zs6f.5a1TCab2hT5e&smid=url-share
Already fixed.
Can you post BA's history?
That's the one now trading YTD down a $100.
Pay no attention to him. He thinks he is the smartest trader on Ihub while his plane BA is going down in flames.
I think you worry about things that really shouldn't be a concern unless it directly affects your own investments. Most of the posts here I just give a cursory glance to and move on to the next post.
I'd be curious to know the education back ground of the Gen Z people who think this is normal. My son is a Gen Z person who was born in 1999. He took 2 years of AP Civics in HS taught by an ex-Marine.
In 2016 he realized that Trump was not normal which he came about all by himself. He has voted in every election since he could and he is a hard core Democrat. Instead of tornado drills in HS he had lockdown drills. Suffice it to say he gets it.
The Gen Z people who think this is normal need to go back to school.
Risk insurance is a completely different world and they don't go to Vegas to do business.
Activist investors are trying to correct a wrong with a company they invest in or follow. They are not full of shit. No one said you have to like them.
Mr. Pepper, for us, this is normal. It’s all we’ve ever seen.”
I disagree. Perhaps it is all they have ever seen but they should know that it is not normal if they were taught what is normal and how Trump is not normal.
They should know better.
My son is 24 and he knows Trump is not normal in any sense of the word and he was taught better in school, by his parents and grandfathers who fought in WWII.
That is normal.
Does Spaghetti O's count as a design pasta?
As in Dive Bar and I've drank in a few while living in NYC.
But then the city has some great bars like PJ Clarke's.
You lived in NY for only a couple of years. I'd hardly call you a NYer. Reminds me of an old joke about a woman who moves to Maine next door to a Mainer.
I think calling everything a "joint" is something from the pretty faraway past now.
Don't think if you don't know. The word was used today in the NYT regarding a burger joint.
The real money insurers and brokers go to Monte Carlo.
https://www.theinsurer.com/reinsurancemonth/the-insurers-2023-monte-carlo-rendez-vous-postcard/
Stocks Are Little Changed Amid Light Trading Volume, Eclipse Mania. With eclipse mania gripping much of the U.S., stock trading was especially thin. Through 1 p.m. ET, total composite volume was only 5.07 billion shares traded, compared to a 2024 average at that time of 5.97 billion, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
https://www.barrons.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-040824/card/stocks-are-little-changed-amid-light-trading-volume-eclipse-mania-vd1qpQhv5TeVLZ7TafWI
~~COMPX 4/12/2024~~~~~~~
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In this case if it burns it will be,
Found
On
Road
Dead.
I really wasn't paying attention. I know where to find good pizza slices in NYC for far less money.
On another note there is a restaurant that was down in the Village that had the best Sangria in the world and Hemingway frequented the joint.
Joint is a colloquial expression when referring to eateries and bars in NYC.
"Dinks in hand, shirtless insurance agents cluster around the 5,000-square-foot Neptune Pool at glitzy Caesars Palace.
I'm sure there is a typo somewhere in that sentence.
My swim team retired from competition several years ago. lol.
Don't forget to write.
Stanton reminds me of the hitter in Major League who couldn't hit a curve ball. lol.
https://www.facebook.com/HOMAGE/videos/you-trying-to-say-jesus-christ-cant-hit-a-curveball-major-league-premiered-33-ye/5509712329109071/
Gerrit Cole calls out MLB over pitcher injuries after taking first step toward return
Could Cole's influence result in change?
By Thomas Carannante | Apr 9, 2024
..... Cole called out Major League Baseball for its response to the players association's concern over the rise in elbow injuries. The introduction of the pitch clock, as well as the banning of sticky substances, has many pitchers believing those are direct causes.
The league disagrees, however, and Cole felt the need to say something. Rather than maintaining an ongoing conversation to get to the root of the problem, Cole seemingly felt as if the league was shutting it down to avoid further controversy.
A year after MLB introduced the controversial pitch clock, which was already a hot button issue, they reduced the timer from 20 seconds to 18 seconds for 2024 in what's felt like an arbitrary, unnecessary push in the wrong direction.....
https://yanksgoyard.com/posts/yankees-gerrit-cole-calls-out-mlb-over-pitcher-injuries-after-taking-first-step-toward-return-01hv1hdrshk2
Good for him. All to save less than 30 minutes on average a game. Spare me.
Wow KC beat up on the Astros today much to my enjoyment.
LOL.
That's part of the problem. No one takes the time to read anymore and they are looking for quick solutions in 240 characters on X; or worse TicTok.
The Civil War took years and cost thousands of lives. Ditto WWI and II.
The book does end on an optimistic note however.
The only thing that counts is a NYC pizza joint finished 3rd. Italy is not on my to visit list.
Thank God the first 2 are in Italy or we'd never hear the end of it from Janice.