Cardinals' sideshow is quite an event

By Bryan Burwell
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
08/28/2009

As you begin to trace the zephyr stream that has led the Cardinals onto this high perch among the National League's best and hottest teams, the trail eventually will lead you to some rather unlikely places.

The most obvious trail surely leads us to the spectacular personnel moves that still have the entire NL buzzing. For other clues to the Redbirds' late-summer success, you must, of course, search in the vicinity of the top of the starting rotation, where the Big Three of Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright and Joel Piñeiro have proved to be nearly unbeatable since the start of July.

But here's exactly where we veer from the obvious.

It was early Tuesday afternoon at Busch Stadium, when it was still full of the echoes of a near-empty ballpark. Batting practice was just cranking up, and the hitters were all just working up a good sweat when you saw all of the Cardinals starting pitchers come marching out of the bullpen slowly walking across the right-field grass. They were spread out, shoulder to shoulder, strutting together in a scene reminiscent of one of those classic, slow-motion scenes you see in old NBA championship highlight films.


It was 'Carp' and Wainwright, Piñeiro, John Smoltz and the injured Kyle Lohse and Todd Wellemeyer, and they had just completed one of the most significant, yet rarely noticed rituals for the starting staff — the daily bullpen side session.

Every team in baseball has a daily side session for its starting pitchers. But few teams do it quite like the Cardinals. Along with pitching coach Dave Duncan and bullpen coach Marty Mason, every starting pitcher comes out to observe his fellow starter's important between-starts shakeout session.

"When I first got here a few years ago and did my first side session, I went into the bullpen to start working, and 'Carp' and 'Waino' and all the other guys were out there too," Piñeiro said. "I was like, 'Oh man, why are they out here?' I was thinking, 'Shoot, why can't I just get out there, do my thing and be done as quick as possible?'"

It didn't take Piñeiro long to appreciate what was going on. It was the ultimate team thing. The Cardinal pitchers are big on sharing information and dispensing knowledge. This is one of the most interactive pitching staffs in baseball, with everyone practicing the simple philosophy of paying it forward.

As well-trained as Duncan and Mason's seasoned eyes are, it's so much better when an athlete also can hear vital information coming from the astute observations of another craftsman. "At first I thought it was weird," Piñeiro said, laughing.. "But now I love it. Those side sessions are great because the other guys are just picking up on stuff. They detect the slightest thing that you are doing."

So the side session that many pitchers probably use as a mundane workout to just stretch out the arm between starts, takes on a greater meaning with this Redbirds staff. It is a heightened film study session without any need for a laborious film breakdown, because the other pitchers are the ones breaking down even the most subtle tendencies of their teammates.


It all began a number of years ago at the suggestion of Duncan, when he asked veterans Matt Morris, the late Darryl Kile, Woody Williams and Carpenter if they would mind participating in the bullpen sessions on a daily basis. "We became a group inside a group," Carpenter recalled. "You had 'Dunc' and Marty down there, but you also had a bunch of extra eyes down there trying to learn, but also trying to help, and it just caught on. You get to watch and learn different things from different guys.

"Never mind that it can help you. You can help the other guys, too. And with the quality of pitching we have here, you can watch, you can ask questions, and everyone can learn."

Smoltz, the 42-year-old graybeard who has done it all and seen it all, couldn't believe how unselfish and generous — and also how darned observant — his new teammates could be. In his first side session a week ago in San Diego, Smoltz got an eye-opening experience on the value of the Cardinals all-for-one, one-for-all collective. He thought he had already worked out all the mechanical issues that led to his early-season struggles. But what Smoltz quickly learned with the help of the collective eyes was how badly he was tipping his pitches, too.

With each pitch Smoltz threw, Carpenter, Wainwright and the other starters were basically identifying each pitch before he threw it. "When 'Carp' and the other guys were down there and they knew every pitch I'm throwing, I didn't have to look at any film of what I was doing wrong," Smoltz said. "I knew if they figured it out that easily out there, then I had to be doing the same thing in a game."

Pujols’ 5,000 At-Bats into History

Five thousand at-bats into his career, baseball great Babe Ruth had already shattered home run records and set the gobsmacking standard with his 60 homers in 1927. He had also been a two-time 20-game winner as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

Five thousand at-bats into his career, the Splendid Splinter Ted Williams had his .406-average season and two Triple Crowns. Five thousand at-bats into their careers, Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg had three seasons with at least 150 RBIs and Iron Horse Lou Gehrig had started his famous streak and had three seasons with at least 170 RBIs.

Otherwise, 5,000 at-bats into his career … Albert Pujols is right there with them.

The St. Louis Cardinals first baseman and reigning National League MVP had the 5,000th at-bat of his career in the first inning of Thursday’s victory. He grounded into a double play. But what he has done in the previous 4,999 at-bats of his career puts him in elite company. He walks with giants like Williams, Gehrig and Greenberg — all of whom share something that Pujols does not: They played their careers in the American League. What could arguably be the best 5,000 at-bats to start a career in the National League is where today’s 10@10 begins …

1. Pujols’ 744 extra-base hits in his first 5,000 at-bats rank fourth all time, and are the most ever by an NL player in his first 5,000 ABs. Last night, on MLB Network they ran down the top five extra-base totals in baseball history through the first 5,000 ABs in any career:

* Babe Ruth … 863 XB hits
* Hank Greenberg … 762 XB hits
* Lou Gehrig … 761 XB hits
* Albert Pujols … 744 XB hits
* Ted Williams … 743 XB hits

2. Attempted to run the numbers on each of the above hitters and what they had when they reached their 5,000th at-bat. Easier said than done in one morning. So, here’s what I did: I got their totals as close to 5,000 AB as possible. Greenberg, for example, had a career total of 5,193 at-bats. The others had natural breaks relatively close to 5,000 ABs. For context, then, here are where the above five hitters were across the back of their baseball cards as close to 5,000 ABs as possible with the numbers I had handy this morning (and remember slash lines go BA/OBP/SLG):

Ruth … 4,958 AB … .349/.480/.709 … 416 HR … 1,269 RBI

Greenberg … 5,193 AB … .313/.412/.605 … 331 HR … 1,276 RBI

Gehrig … 5,135 AB … .342/.442/.636 … 299 HR … 1,285 RBI

Pujols … 5,003 AB … .333/.426/.628 … 358 HR … 1,082 RBI

Williams … 5,096 AB … .347/.484/.634 … 324 HR … 1,264 RBI

Lou Gehrig Story (1956) - B&W - 58 min

LikeTelevision Embed Movies and TV Shows

Bang the Drum Slowly (1956) - B&W - 52 min

LikeTelevision Embed Movies and TV Shows

Jackie Robinson Story (1950) - B&W - 80 min

LikeTelevision Embed Movies and TV Shows

The 'leaked list' of baseball players allegedly linked to steroids

1.Nomar Garciaparra
2.Manny Ramirez
3.Johnny Damon
4.Trot Nixon
5.David Ortiz
6.Shea Hillenbrand
7.Derek Lowe
8.Pedro Martinez
9.Brian Roberts
10.Jay Gibbons
11.Melvin Mora
12.Jerry Hairston
13.Jason Giambi
14.Alfonso Soriano
15.Raul Mondesi
16. Aaron Boone
17.Andy Pettitte
18.Jose Contreras
19.Roger Clemens
20.Carlos Delgado
21.Vernon Wells
22.Frank Catalanotto
23.Kenny Rogers
24.Magglio Ordonez
25.Sandy Alomar
26.Bartolo Colon
27.Brent Abernathy
28.Jose Lima
29.Milton Bradley
30.Casey Blake
31.Danys Baez
32.Craig Monroe
33.Dmitri Young
34.Alex Sanchez
35.Eric Chavez
36.Miguel Tejada
37.Eric Byrnes
38.Jose Guillen
39.Keith Foulke
40.Ricardo Rincon
41.Bret Boone
42.Mike Cameron
43.Randy Winn
44.Ryan Franklin
45.Freddy Garcia
46.Rafael Soriano
47.Scott Spiezio
48.Troy Glaus
49.Francisco Rodriguez
50.Ben Weber
51.Alex Rodriguez
52.Juan Gonzalez
53.Rafael Palmeiro
54.Carl Everett
55.Javy Lopez
56.Gary Sheffield
57.Mike Hampton
58.Ivan Rodriguez
59.Derrek Lee
60.Bobby Abreu
61.Terry Adams
62.Fernando Tatis
63.Livan Hernandez
64.Hector Almonte
65.Tony Armas
66.Dan Smith
67.Roberto Alomar
68.Cliff Floyd
69.Roger Cedeno
70.Jeromy Burnitz
71.Moises Alou
72.Sammy Sosa
73.Corey Patterson
74.Carlos Zambrano
75.Mark Prior
76.Kerry Wood
77.Matt Clement
78.Antonio Alfonseca
79.Juan Cruz
80.Aramis Ramirez
81.Craig Wilson
82.Kris Benson
83.Richie Sexson
84.Geoff Jenkins
85.Valerio de los Santos
86.Benito Santiago
87.Rich Aurilia
88.Barry Bonds
89.Andres Galarraga
90.Jason Schmidt
91.Felix Rodriguez
92.Jason Christiansen
93.Matt Herges
94.Paul Lo Duca
95.Shawn Green
96.Jeromy Burnitz
97.Adrian Beltre
98.Eric Gagne
99.Guillermo Mota
100.Luis Gonzalez
101.Todd Helton
102.Ryan Klesko
103.Gary Matthews
104.Oliver Perez

Ken Boyer - The Cardinals underappreciated All-Star

By Rick Hummel
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
06/21/2009

In the late 1950s and early 1960s when I was growing up in Quincy, Ill., my best friend, Denny Campbell, and I almost daily played the APBA tabletop baseball game. He always had to manage the Cardinals, so I always provided the opposition.

I sat on the floor at his house and he sat at his desk, just far enough away to the point where I couldn't actually see him roll his two dice and I would have to take his word for it, as far as the result was concerned. Almost without fail, he would roll double sixes for his favorite player, Ken Boyer, signifying a home run.

After a highly unusual stretch of home runs by Boyer, I became suspicious, but when I arose to see what his dice looked like on the desk, they always said "66."

The late Ken Boyer wasn't quite that good, but he was good enough to be the only player whose number has been retired at Busch Stadium who isn't in the Hall of Fame — and probably won't be.


Boyer, the big, strong (6 feet 2, 200 pounds) third baseman, played in 10 All-Star Games, batting .348 with two home runs. Because they are facing premier pitching in every at-bat, many All-Stars don't come close to their lifetime averages while playing in the July classic, but Boyer seemed to thrive on the big stage.

The older parts of the reading public will not soon forget his third-inning grand slam off New York's Al Downing in Game 4 of the 1964 World Series at Yankee Stadium to rally the Cardinals from a 3-0 deficit and provide a 4-3 victory. That evened at two games apiece a Series the Cardinals eventually would win and stifled the Yankees' momentum — built from Mickey Mantle's gargantuan, game-ending homer the day before off a Barney Schultz knuckleball that didn't knuckle.

Boyer was the National League's Most Valuable Player that year, driving in a career-high 119 runs. He wound up hitting 255 of his 282 home runs for the Cardinals, for whom he played from 1955-65, before moving on to the New York Mets, Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers. His career ended in 1969 with Boyer finishing at .287 with 1,141 runs batted in.

Boyer also earned five Gold Gloves at third base and was the National League counterpart defensively to the great Brooks Robinson in Baltimore.

But, perhaps because he died (of lung cancer) so young at age 51 in 1982 — the Cardinals, en route to the World Series title that year, wore black armbands for the last month of the season in Boyer's memory — Boyer's legacy seems small compared to the Hall of Famers who are represented in the outfield at Busch Stadium.

Not so to those who played with him.

"THE CAPTAIN"

Chicago Cubs third baseman Ron Santo, a rival of Boyer's for years, said, "What you didn't realize was how good a third baseman he was because he was a good hitter.

"And ... he played the game the way it should be played in those days. You walk across the white lines and nobody's your friend. When it's over, it's a different ballgame."

Perhaps part of Boyer's legacy is that, for so much of his time with the Cardinals, he wasn't their best or most well-known player. That honor correctly belonged to Stan Musial, and Santo said that Boyer "absolutely" was overshadowed by Musial.

"There's no doubt about it," Santo said. "But, in my opinion, (Boyer) would be in the Hall of Fame."

Cardinals broadcaster Mike Shannon was the right fielder on the 1964 World Series champions. And after Charlie Smith, acquired from the Mets for Boyer after the 1965 season, didn't really pan out, Shannon became the ultimate successor to Boyer as the Cardinals' third baseman.

Besides Boyer's estimable accomplishments on the field, he had another responsibility. "He was the captain," Shannon said. "He was the leader of that ballclub."

Indeed, when few baseball teams had leaders so dubbed, Boyer often was referred to simply as "The Captain."

Most who saw him play would agree that Boyer, who was born in Liberty, Mo., was an understated player. For instance, he didn't have to dive for a ball that often because with a quick first step, he already was there.

He didn't seem as if he was running fast, but he chewed up huge chunks of ground as he circled the bases.

"He wasn't a guy for show, at all," Shannon said. "He wasn't flashy.

"Everything he did, he did smooth. He just did the job. And if you look up his stats, those are pretty good stats.

"He was like the Clydesdale of third basemen. He was a great big, strong guy who had a lot of grace. He was the prototype third baseman."

PLAYING THE GAME

Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst was a teammate of Boyer's, a coach on teams Boyer played on, and then finally his manager in 1965, Boyer's last year with the Cardinals. Schoendienst, too, admired Boyer's ability to perform without need for histrionics.

"He caught the ball, threw (the hitter) out, put his glove down and then came out to hit. Boom, boom, boom," said Schoendienst. "It was nothing where he would do flip-flops or anything.

"That's just the way he played the game. The way he came up was probably the way he played on the schoolyard. He knew the game. He knew where to throw the ball and when to throw the ball."

Shannon thought that if Boyer had been able to appear in more than just one World Series "it would have really helped" his national acclaim.

But the Cardinals really contended for the National League title in only one other year, 1963, when Boyer played for them. That was the year the Cardinals ran off 19 victories in 20 games in late August and early September as they tried to reel in the league-leading Dodgers with announcer Harry Caray proclaiming nightly, "The Cardinals are coming, tra-la, tra-la."

Boyer sparked that surge by hitting .347 in the 20-game stretch, driving in 20 runs and hitting six homers. The Dodgers then came to the old Busch Stadium on Grand and Dodier and swept three from the Cardinals and went on to the league and World Series titles.

Boyer is the only Cardinal in history to have hit for the cycle twice — in 1961 and 1964. To illustrate the speed he had, Boyer, who also played center field in 1957, stole 105 bases in an era when there wasn't all that much basestealing going on. For instance, the Cardinals didn't steal more than 100 bases in a season from 1932-65.

"He was probably the best third baseman we've had here," said Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson. "He moved really well and had great range.

"And he ran well. He wasn't going to outrun guys in a 100-yard dash, but ... a couple of steps, and he was off to the races. A lot of guys run fast but it takes them awhile to get going."

BOYER THE MANAGER

After Boyer retired in 1970, he returned to the organization as a coach and minor-league manager before taking over from Vern Rapp as manager of the Cardinals in April 1978. Boyer couldn't do much with that team, which lost 93 games, but then directed the Cardinals to an 86-76 record in 1979.

The next year, Boyer lost control of his team and was fired, oddly, between games of a doubleheader in Montreal on June 8, with the Cardinals sporting an 18-33 record. General manager John Claiborne had meant to dismiss Boyer before the doublehader even began but was delayed by flight issues.

Whitey Herzog, who met the team in Atlanta the next night to take over as Cardinals manager, was born in 1931, like Boyer, and though he never played with him as they came up through the minor-league ranks and into the big leagues, was keenly aware of Boyer's reputation.

"He was The Captain," Herzog said. "He hit that home run in the World Series. And I know he was a hell of a fielder."

After Boyer went to the Mets in 1966, Herzog, then a coach on that team, remembered sharing a New York apartment with Boyer when the Mets were home. When the Yankees were home, Clete Boyer, Kenny's younger brother, and Roger Maris lived in the apartment. Maris would come to the Cardinals the next season.

Herzog, not liking the makeup of that Cardinals club he took over that June 1980 night, said, "Kenny Boyer was a hell of a player, but as a manager maybe he was too laid-back. He didn't have the makeup to get rid of some of those (troublemakers)."

HALL OF FAME ELUSIVE

Perhaps Boyer's relative lack of success as manager hurt his Hall of Fame chances. Or the fact that he has been dead for so long.

But Boyer never drew higher than 25.5 percent of the writers' vote when 75 percent was needed. In fact, he was off the ballot for five years, because of lack of support, but Post-Dispatch sports editor Bob Broeg led a movement to have Boyer's name restored to the ballot and he did much better, but not nearly well enough, in the 10 elections he had remaining.

In the Veterans' Committee, where Boyer's candidacy rests now, he normally makes the final 25 or even 15 but then falls well short of election.

Schoendienst said, "When I had a chance, I always voted for him. Look at his record and other records. He's right there.But like I say, he wasn't a flashy player. If he'd put on a little show or something ..."

Ken Boyer wasn't about show. To those who played with him and against him, he was about playing the game right. And that's one of the reasons No. 14 never will be worn again by a Cardinals player, whether Ken Boyer ever makes the Hall of Fame or not.