St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame
The Best Players the Gateway City Redbirds Ever Saw
From the Fordham Flash to Stan the Man, the Cardinals have had many great players. Here are the nine best who comprise the unofficial St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
Stan Musial. Any discussion of St. Louis hitting must begin with Stan Musial. In his 22 year career, Stan the Man won seven (7) batting titles, made 24 All-Star teams and took home three MVP awards. He hit .331 for his career, smacked 475 home runs, and had 1,951 RBI. He also led the Cardinals to three World Series championships.
Musial ranks 4th in career hits with 3,630, 5th in RBI with 1,951, 9th in runs scored with 1,949, and he is 2nd in doubles with 725.
Rogers Hornsby. Hornsby played with the St. Louis Cardinals from 1915 to 1926, and during that twelve year period of his career, the Rajah, as he was nicknamed, hit .359 and averaged 95 RBI per year. Those are obviously some very impressive numbers. But it was one particular five year streak that changed Rogers Hornsby from a mere star into a baseball immortal.
From 1921 through 1925, Hornsby hit for a five year average of .402. Listen to that again: his batting average over a five year period, and almost 3,000 trips to the plate, was .402. That's getting hot, and staying hot, for five years. After leading the team to a World Series championship in 1926, however, Hornsby was traded to the New York Giants for future Cardinals legend Frankie Frisch.
Frankie Frisch: Known as the "Fordham Flash," Frankie Frisch played eight seasons with the New York Giants before being traded to St. Louis for Hornsby on December 20, 1926. While Frisch may not have been close to Hornsby in the slugging department, he was still one hell of a hitter, and was perhaps the finest second baseman and base stealer of his era.
During his eleven seasons in St. Louis, Frisch hit .311, won the 1931 MVP and World Series crown, and then served as player/manager of the 1934 World Champion Gashouse Gang.
Joe Medwick. In his eight year Cardinal career from 1932 to 1939, Joe "Ducky" Medwick hit over .300 each year, drove in more than 100 runs six times (and one year he had 98), played on six All-Star teams and won the National League MVP and Triple Crown awards in 1937. In that remarkable 1937 season, Medwick led the league in batting (.371), home runs (37), RBI (154), hits (237), doubles (56) and extra base hits (97). It must have been one hell of a year. No National League player has won a Triple Crown since that year.
Johnny Mize: Mize had a brief but brilliant Cardinal career. He played with the team during his first six years in the big leagues, a period in which he hit .336, and averaged 26 home runs and 109 RBI a season. In 1942, the Cardinals traded Mize for three obscure players, and then watched the Big Cat have some pretty remarkable years with the Giants, including a season where he hit 52 homers and collected 138 RBI. The trade may have been a mistake.
Lou Brock. Lou Brock is often wrongly remembered as just a great base stealer, and not a great player. And that is just not true. Brock has 3,023 career hits, a .293 batting average, 938 stolen bases, two World Series rings, over 1,600 runs scored, nearly 500 doubles and 141 triples. Brock also hit 149 home runs, including 14, 16, 15 and 21 homers, respectively, from 1964 through 1967. Not too bad for a leadoff hitter, some might say. Hall of Fame level, others would say.
Bob Gibson. He is one of the most intimidating pitchers to ever stand atop a major league mound. Bob Gibson won 251 games in his career and struck out 3,117 batters. He was the Most Valuable Player of two World Series (1964 and 1967), played on nine All-Star teams and won 9 consecutive Gold Gloves. In 1968, he won the NL MVP and Cy Young Awards when he won 22 games and posted an almost inconceivable 1.12 ERA. He added a second Cy Young in 1970.
Dizzy Dean: While pitching for 1934 Cardinals, at the tender age of 24, Jerome "Dizzy" Dean became the last National League pitcher to win 30 games in a season. The next two years, Dizzy won 28 and 24 games, respectively. He was off to another great start in 1937, when he was chosen to start the All-Star game for the National League team.
But in the third inning, Earl Averill hit a line drive back to the mound that broke Dizzy's foot. Dean, of course, didn't want to miss any time because of the break, so he altered his windup to accommodate the foot pain. Although initially successful, the altered motion overtsressed his arm, and Dean's elbow went in 1939, when he was just 29 years old. With the Cardinals, Dizzy Dean went 137-74 with a 2.88 ERA. He won the NL MVP in 1934, and pitched brilliantly in that year's World Series.
Bruce Sutter: It's true that Sutter spent only four years with the Cardinals, but they were four very, very memorable seasons. From 1981 through 1984, Sutter accomplished the following while playing for St. Louis:
- Led National League in Saves in 1981, 1982, 1984
- Member of the NL All-Star team in 1981, 1982, 1984
- Was a key member of the 1982 World Series winner
- In 1984, saved 45 games and had an ERA of 1.54 in 122 1/3 innings
- NL Relief Pitcher of the Year in 1981, 1982, 1984
Sutter obviously lends creedence to the old adage, "it's not the time you're given, but what you do with that time." That's either from the Bible or VisionQuest, but it surely applies in this case. Sutter achieved a lifetime's worth of awards and accolades in just four short seasons in St. Louis. That makes him a Cardinals' Hall of Famer.
