How Don Zimmer Almost Became A Cardinal

The Cardinals tried to acquire Don Zimmer to be their second baseman but were outmaneuvered by the Cubs.

RetroSimba

Jow Johnny Antonelli Got Milestone Win Versus Cardinals

Johnny Antonelli lost more than he won versus the Cardinals, and Stan Musial and Ken Boyer often hit well against him, but when he was at his peak he was hard to beat.

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Cardinals Threw Roadblock On Dodgers' 1959 Pennant Path

Facing the Cardinals in the last week of the season during the heat of a pennant race, the Dodgers started Sandy Koufax, used a record number of pinch-hitters and rallied for three runs in the ninth on Frank Howard’s home run, but still lost.

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Cardinals Hit Jackpot With Hard-Hitting Ray Jablonski

Ray Jablonski was an infielder who couldn’t field or throw well, but he excelled at stroking line drives for extra-base hits and generating large numbers of runs.

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Dodgers Dealt Aces In Cardinals' Farewell To Brooklyn

In the last game the Cardinals played in Brooklyn, they faced a pair of 21-year-old emerging aces: Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax.

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Ten Best Leadoff Hitters In Cardinals History

Post-Dispatch

The Day Warren Spahn Shocked Stan Musial

Given a choice of facing Del Ennis or Stan Musial with runners in scoring position and the game on the line, Warren Spahn did what no other big-league pitcher had done before him: He opted to pitch to Musial.

RetroSimba

Daryl Spencer Brought Passion, Pride, Power To Hankyu

The Baseball Bullet-In this week remembers Daryl Spencer, the former Hankyu Braves slugger who died Jan. 2 in Wichita, Kansas, at the age of 88.

Japan Times

Daryl Spencer Followed In Footsteps Of Marty Marion

As a youth in his native Kansas, Daryl Spencer was a Cardinals fan. His favorite player was Marty Marion, the shortstop on four pennant-winning Cardinals teams in the 1940s. Imagine then how special it was for Spencer when the Cardinals acquired him to play the position once held by his boyhood idol.

RetroSimba

Cardinals Played In Korea In 1958

In this Major League Baseball (MLB) season, Oh Seung-hwan became the first Korean to play for the St. Louis Cardinals. But long before Oh became a dominant bullpen arm for the Cards, in fact long before he was born and before any Koreans played stateside, St. Louis got its first taste of Korean baseball.

Korea Times

The Day The Cardinals Traded Red Schoendienst

Sixty years ago, soon after Red Schoendienst had driven off in his car, the phone rang at his house. Mary Schoendienst, Red’s wife, answered. The caller was a secretary for Cardinals general manager Frank Lane. She told Mary that Red had been traded to the Giants.

RetroSimba

Five Surprising Facts About Curt Flood

Five baseball facts that may surprise you about Curt Flood, an outstanding center fielder and hitter who was elected to the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame because of the impact he had on and off the field.

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How Al Dark Won Respect Of Cardinals Fans

A central figure in a trade unpopular with many Cardinals loyalists, Al Dark responded with a hitting display that endeared him to St. Louis fans and gained him satisfaction against his former team.

Retro Simba

Jim Brosnan: Combination Chronicler, Closer

After the Cardinals acquired Jim Brosnan from the Cubs in 1958, they thought they had a premier reliever. What they didn’t know was they had a premier author.

RetroSimba

Kolten Wong, Don Blasingame: Similar St. Louis 2nd Sackers

Nearly 60 years ago, the Cardinals had a rookie second baseman who sprayed singles to all fields, ignited the offense with stolen bases and was superb at bunting for base hits.

RetroSimba

Matt Carpenter: Modern-Day Taylor Douthit Of Cardinals

An item about Matt Carpenter in a recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch article grabbed my attention. Rick Hummel reported that the combined regular-season and postseason plate appearances by Carpenter in 2013 were the most all-time for a Cardinals player.

RetroSimba

Cardinals Leaders Of The 1950's

After the 1940's the Cardinals had nowhere to go but down. But, their down wasn;t all that bad considering for the decade of the 1950's they played above .500 ball and were in 4th place in the NL standings for the decade. Their record for the 1950's was 776-763 .504. The best team was the 1957 edition which finished 87-67 .565 -8 2nd place. The worst team was the 1955 team that was 68-86 .442 -30.5 7th place.

Redbirds Rap

Barling Darling's Style, Wit Still Home Run

Hal Smith's playing career ended June 8, 1961, when he was diagnosed with a heart ailment, seven days after he'd turned 30. Then in his sixth season with the St. Louis Cardinals, he was widely considered one of the two or three best defensive catchers at work in the major leagues.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

WAR Cardinals: Middle Infield

Last week I began a series of comparing Cards’ players since 1955 by position in terms of their WAR as Cards. This week I’m looking at the middle infielders. I’m using Sean Smith’s fantastic historical WAR database as the basis for my information.

Viva El Birdos