In the fall of 2004, a month after the St. Louis Cardinals relocated their Double-A club to Springfield, they set the day-to-day operations on the shoulders of a tall, 31-year-old with a quiet hunger. Nine years earlier, Matt Gifford had joined the big-league club as an entry-level, season-ticket sales rep – a telemarketing job that… Read more »
News
Team: St. Louis Cardinals
Bernard Gilkey
The story goes that, in spring training 1989, the plan of then-St. Louis Cardinals farmhand Bernard Gilkey – to advocate for an opening day assignment with the club’s Double-A Texas League affiliate – just about backfired. You see, newly installed farm director Ted Simmons “gave me the business,” Gilkey recalled, laughing of course. Actually, it… Read more »
Rich Gould
For somebody who has been telling sports stories for years, the story that kick-started it all for his career is even hard to believe. We’ll let Rich Gould explain it. After all, that’s in the wheelhouse of a longtime television sports director. “In 1978, Tom Mast (MSHOF 2021) was working non-stop for about three to… Read more »
William Greenblatt
Back in middle school, he took photos on a Polaroid camera and, during high school, would photograph football games while he stood on the sidelines in his marching band uniform. At age 16, William Greenblatt was working for a St. Louis camera store when Fred Sweets walked in one day. Sweets’ father was the publisher… Read more »
Dick Groat
Dick Groat is a former two-sport athlete best known as a shortstop in Major League Baseball. He played for four National League teams, mainly the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals, and was named the league’s Most Valuable Player in 1960, when he won the batting title with a .325 average for the World Series champion Pirates.… Read more »
Don Gutteridge
Don Gutteridge is a native of Pittsburgh, Kansas. His major league baseball career begin in 1936 with the St. Louis Cardinals. A skilled second baseman, the high point in Gutteridge’s career came on his second day in the big leagues. In a double header at Ebbets Field, the rookie got six hits, including an inside… Read more »
Tom Henke
Tom Henke grew up in Wardsville, MO and attended Blair Oaks High School. He excelled as a prep baseball player and signed to play at East Central Junior College after high school. In 1980, Henke signed with the Texas Rangers and split his time between the Rangers and their farm club, the Tulsa Drillers. From… Read more »
Tom Henke
He rose from a small town in mid-Missouri and went on to pitch 14 seasons in the big leagues, winning a World Series in 1992 and later pitching for his boyhood team, the St. Louis Cardinals. In fact, you could talk baseball all day with Tom Henke. About his minor league days. About his three… Read more »
Keith Hernandez
Widely regarded as one of the best defensive first basemen in all of baseball, Hernandez excelled as an offensive player as well. Keith played with the Cardinals organization until 1983. He won the 1979 NL batting title (.344) and shared the 1979 MVP award with Willie Stargell. Hernandez retired as a five time All-Star with 2… Read more »
Tom Herr
A fan favorite during the 1980’s, Tom Herr starred for the St. Louis Cardinals in 3 World Series’. During the ’85 season, he set career highs in nearly every statistical category, including an amazing 110 RBI’s, which came along with only 8 home runs. Tom was selected to the 1985 All Star team for his… Read more »
Dorrel “Whitey” Herzog
Whitey Herzog managed four different major league teams, five years with the Kansas City Royals from 1975-’79 and over 10 years with the St. Louis Cardinals from 1980-’90. His 1,281 victories rank 25th on the all-time list for managers in the big leagues. Herzog logged eight years in the majors as a player, including stints… Read more »
Denny Higgins
Dennis “Denny” Higgins was born and raised in Jefferson City, Missouri. He spent seven years in the minor leagues before breaking into the majors with the Chicago White Sox in 1966. The right hander would later spend time with the Washington Senators, Cleveland Indians and St. Louis Cardinals. For his career, he compiled a 22-23… Read more »
Matt Holliday
He grew up on the frontier plains of Oklahoma, where the game of football pulls on the back of all letter jackets and where he himself emerged as a big-time quarterback recruit. It seemed as if every college football coach in America wanted Matt Holliday and, at one point, then-Kansas City Chiefs General Manager Carl… Read more »
Myron Holtzman
Like any sports writer, Myron Holtzman enjoys telling stories. The funny ones are the best, of course. Even his. “I went to the University of Missouri to be a business major,” Holtzman said, “and figured out I couldn’t add 2 plus 2, so I found another major.” Well, he not only found sports journalism but… Read more »
Rogers Hornsby
Off the field, Rogers Hornsby was tough, uncompromising, and outspoken. On it, he was the greatest right-handed batter in baseball history. Hornsby, whose season-record .424 average and .358 lifetime mark for 23 big league campaigns established him as the standard for right-handed batters, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1942. He led… Read more »
Rick Horton
Drafted by the Cardinals in 1980 out of the University of Virginia, Horton pitched parts of 6 seasons with St. Louis. He won 32 games in his career, including a career best 9 during his rookie season in 1984. Rick pitched for the Cardinals in the 1985 and 1987 World Series and was an integral… Read more »