It Was a Fun Ride With Whitey

By now you know that Whitey Herzog, the Hall of Fame baseball manager, passed away today.

Herzog lived to be 92, and when you make it to that age, it’s probably accurate to say the man lived a good, long, full life – and his life certainly turned out better than most.

Born in New Athens, Illinois in the midst of The Great Depression, Herzog married his high school sweetheart, then embarked on a pro baseball career that took him all over the country, all while fathering three kids.

On the job, his body of work included being a player, a coach and a front office executive. But his greatest achievements came in his day-to-day field managing of ballclubs -- winning six division titles, three pennants and one World Series, and crafting a style of play, Whiteyball, that became the standard of 1980’s success on the diamond.

But baseball managers, as the saying goes, are hired to be fired. So, the Kansas City Royals, whom he guided to three straight American League West titles in the 70’s, cut Herzog loose in 1979.

It was then that Whitey– his resume stocked as full as one of his favorite Southern Illinois fishing holes -- became manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Kansas City’s loss was St. Louis’ gain.

He took over a franchise that was awful by the late 1970’s. The low-water mark might have been the 1976 season, when the Cardinals finished with a record of 72-90, and drew just a shade over 13,000 people per game to what was then a sterile cement bowl that has come to be known as Busch Stadium II.

When Herzog was brought in, he cleaned house and by 1982, he had brought St. Louis its first major sports championship in 15 years – a World Series win over the Milwaukee Brewers. National League pennants followed in 1985 and 1987 – each championship falling just a game short of one more World Series title.

While Herzog was revitalizing the Cardinals, St. Louis was experiencing a bit of a renaissance of its own in the 80’s.

Not because of Whitey Herzog, but certainly, alongside him.

It was a great decade for the Cardinals, and the city.

The 80’s gave St. Louis a rehabbed Union Station, and St. Louis Centre – the downtown shopping mall. Both opened to great civic fanfare and national media attention.

Anheuser-Busch was still locally owned. TWA had a hub in St. Louis.

Nationally known sports announcers Jack Buck, Bob Costas, Dan Kelly and Jay Randolph all called St. Louis home.

It was the decade in which somebody had the audacity to try to lure the Miss USA pageant to St. Louis – and they were successful. Nine months after the Cardinals’ World Series victory, some of the world’s most beautiful women gathered for the event at Kiel Auditorium, with media reports at the time claiming the television broadcast of the pageant drew an audience of 600 million viewers worldwide.

Speaking of crowd figures that were – ahem – a little suspect, the 1980’s was the decade St. Louis turned its annual Independence Day fireworks show into the VP Fair, an on-the-archgrounds festival of food, music, air shows and fireworks. Those of us in media at the time were always skeptical of the attendance figures – except for the 1982 crowd estimate for the three-day celebration: 3.75 million.

That year rock icon Elton John performed a free concert at the fair, and anyone who tried to navigate the archgrounds on the night of the performance will tell you the crowd count that night was legit.

There were outdoor concerts at the Muny Opera in the 1980’s as well.

If a concert in the summertime heat wasn’t your thing, you could attend a performance at the Fox Theatre, a few miles to the west. The historic theater – once the second biggest in the US - was restored at a price of $3 million, then reopened in September of 1982.

If politics were your thing, two men with strong local ties - Congressman Dick Gephardt from South St. Louis and Senator Paul Simon from Southern Illinois - ran for president in the decade. Gephardt was house majority leader in 1989.

If it sounds like St. Louis went big, and thought big in the 1980’s, you’re right.

Civic leaders possessed a certain swagger - something shared with Herzog's Cardinals.

Forty years later, its fun to look back at the accomplishments of the decade, but disappointing to note how much has changed since then.

The population of St. Louis city has fallen by more than half since 1980. There have been valiant, successful efforts to keep Union Station going, but St. Louis Centre is a distant memory. The VP Fair has been scaled back, its location changed. There are no more concerts at The Muny. No more TWA.

The current iteration of the Cardinals seems a lot closer to those teams of the 70’s than those of the Whiteyball era.

And if you see a national news story about St. Louis these days, its likely about crime or economic distress.

St. Louis has lost its swagger. It may never come back.

Still, its fun to look back at what I call The Roarin’ 80’s in St. Louis. There was a lot going on in my hometown – and most of it was positive.

The day after the Cardinals captured the 1982 World Series title, Whitey Herzog, with Cardinal owner Gussie Busch alongside, hopped into a car and was driven through downtown St. Louis, in a victory parade.

Tens of thousands of people were on hand to watch.

Metaphorically, you could say Whitey’s successful spin around downtown lasted the rest of the decade.

And in the St. Louis Roarin’ 80’s, we were happily along for the ride.

As always, thanks for reading.