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Remembering nine former St. Louis Cardinals who passed away during the last year, including Solly Hemus, who had been the last surviving MLB manager from the 1950’s. Our 12th annual feature.
https://thecardinalnation.com/in-memory-of-former-st-louis-cardinals-2017/
A few thoughts and personal memories of some of the former Cardinals who passed away in 2017.
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Daryl Spencer:
Very early on was a favorite of mine, as I had just started collecting baseball cards as a kid in 1961. I would go to the store with my mom and pick out a couple of Post cereal boxes with cards on them, always picking out something that had a Cardinal player. Spencer’s ’61 Post card was one of my favorites. I thought his card and Ken Boyer’s looked a lot alike, and they were two of my favorites although by mid-’61 Spencer had been traded to the Dodgers. Years later, the kid across the street and my best friend for many years played ball for Colorado State University. He told me they played Wichita State a few times, and Spencer was their manager. I believe Spencer had a good career at Wichita State.
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Bob Sadowski:
There were two “Bob Sadowski’s” in the early ’60s, the “St. Louis” Sadowski, and a pitcher in the Cardinals system with the same name. The “St. Louis” Bob Sadowski, a position player, is the one who passed away. The pitcher Bob Sadowski, still living, was included in a 1963 trade with Milwaukee, where the Cardinals also sent their 1962 catcher Gene Oliver for Lew Burdette. Tim McCarver had taken over the number one catcher’s spot in ’63, and the Cardinals felt Oliver was expendable. The deal was a bust though, as Sadowski pitched well for the Braves in ’63, better than Burdette did for St. Louis. Meanwhile Oliver stayed with the Braves a few years and was a decent power hitter, playing first base and the outfield as well as catch. That trade might have cost the Cardinals the 1963 pennant. They finished six games behind the Dodgers, and were especially vulnerable to left-hand pitching. Had Sadowski come up and pitched as well as he had for the Cardinals as he did in Milwaukee, and had Oliver’s right-hand power bat been available, who knows. We were so bad against lefties that in the big three game September series where we were swept by LA at home, dropping from 3 out to 6, the Dodgers started three left-hand pitchers (Koufax, Podres, and Pete Richert I believe).
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Solly Hemus:
His career was before my time, but my dad was never a big fan of him as a manager. My dad used to comment about how the Cardinals made a great move replacing him with Johnny Keane. I believe the reason for that was Hemus felt Stan Musial was pretty much done by 1959, and did not play him as much. My dad also thought Curt Flood could be a very good player, and Hemus never gave him much of a chance.
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Tracy Stallard:
His claim to fame is giving up Maris’ 61st home run of course, but I thought he would be a good pitcher in St. Louis when the Cardinals got him from the Mets. He was a tall, rangy guy who was built like the pro-typical pitcher that was emerging in late ’50s and ’60s – tall and hard throwing.
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Ned Garver:
A great guy! Back in the ’90s a SABR national convention was held in St. LOuis, and Garver was one of the guest speakers. After his talk, he hung out in the lobby of the hotel chatting with a handful of us, and spent an hour or more sharing stories and answering questions. He was pretty funny as well, and said a couple of things I cannot really print here, but was a wealth of knowledge and insight. One thing interesting he said was that Sherman Lollar, a catcher for the Browns in the ’50s and later with the White Sox, was one of the most under-appreciated players he saw. He said Lollar did things to win games that did not show up in the box score – basically he knew how to pitch to opponents and controlled the game. Thinking back on that, he described Lollar sort of like we think of Yadier Molina today.
Thanks Brian. Those are mostly personal thoughts and memories – not sure anyone else cares about them much but I always hate seeing those heroes of yesteryear pass on without letting people know that they meant something to some of us at one time.
In case you missed it at the time, a link to the 2018 edition is also included at the bottom of this article.
In 2019, 18 men with direct ties to the #stlcards passed away, including a 98-year old, a player traded for Lou Brock and Chris Duncan, who left us far too soon. Details on all 18 in my annual feature, "In Memory of Former St. Louis Cardinals". (free) https://t.co/4ufB0LTUB3 pic.twitter.com/jQMubn7NA6
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) December 28, 2019
One correction to Brian’s excellent piece: Bobby DelGreco was an outfielder, not an infielder, and defensively he was excellent, but he was a terrible hitter, especially against righthanders. He came to the Cardinals in one of Frank Lane’s worst trades as Cardinal general manager. Lane loved to make trades, and my recollection is that he saw DelGreco have a rare good day against the Cardinal excellent lefthander Harvey Haddix and impulsively traded Haddix for DelGreco. DelGreco’s .215 average in his partial year with the Cardinals indicates how well that trade worked out, but I believe it was made worse by the fact he could no longer face Cardinal pitching, for which he had a rare affinity. When DelGreco some years later returned to the National League with the Phillies, he resumed his torrid hitting against the Cardinals but, as usual, against no one else!
Michael, I made that correction. Thank you for pointing it out and for sharing your recollections. The reign of Trader Lane was not a bright spot in Cardinals history. He traded Red away and would have traded Musial, too, had he not been stopped by Gussie Busch. He would fit right in with today’s social media GMs, though. 😉
Bad news on the first day of the New Year. I had heard he was moved into hospice care.
While Don Larsen's greatest claim to fame was his World Series perfect game for the Yankees, he was also one of the last nine living St. Louis Browns. Sadly, that group is now eight. RIP, Mr. Larsen. pic.twitter.com/GB21Vrdn0k
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) January 2, 2020
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