Redbird Royalty

The baseball season is about a month old and my beloved Saint Louis Cardinals are off to a fantastic start - let's hope we can keep this great pitching through October!

Last year I snapped these shots of the gallery of Saint Louis professional baseball greats that stand guard outside Busch Stadium.  I love these statues for the way they capture each player's personality in the moment of playing the game.

Ozzie Smith, shortstop (San Diego Padres 1978-1981, Saint Louis Cardinals 1982-1996).  Growing up, me and every other kid wanted to play shortstop because Ozzie Smith played shortstop - the most popular Redbird from the moment he landed in town until he retired.  No one could play the ball off the artificial turf fields (prevalent through the 1980s and early 90s) like the Wizard.

Around the horn to second base - Red Schoendeinst (Cardinals 1945-56, New York Giants 1956-57, Milwaukee Braves 1957-61, Cardinals 1961-63, Manager of Cardinals 1965-76, 1980, 1990).  Never forgotten, but one of the most underrated and overlooked of all the Cardinal greats: 10 time All Star, 5 time World Champion as player or manager, and 2449 hits in 2216 games played.  But what is more impressive are his fielding stats: only 170 errors in 10,029 total chances for a fielding percentage of 0.983.  That's the gritty work we Redbird faithful love.

Stan Musial.  The greatest to ever wear the birds-on-bat.  Had he not served in the Navy in 1945 we would have easily had over 500 home runs - instead his stats show 475.  But we don't care - he is The Man.

Bob Gibson: one of the most dominating - and intimidating - pitchers of all time.  MLB lowered the pitcher's mound (after his mind-blowing 1.12 ERA season of 1968 and World Series record 17 strikeouts in a single game) because of his dominance.  Gibson is the zenith of major league pitching.

Rogers Hornsby - the Rajah.  In my humble opinion, the greatest hitter of all time: career batting average of .358 (highest in National League history, highest among all right-handed batters in Major League history), the only player to win the Triple Crown twice, and a 1924 season average of .424 that has never been matched since.  Hornsby refused to go to movie theaters because he believed it would ruin his eyesight and keep him from properly seeing the ball when batting.  He must have been on to something!

James "Cool Papa" Bell - if I had a time machine I would use it to see him play the game.  Cool Papa Bell played in the Negro Leagues and never in the MLB.  Due to the lack of coverage of Negro League baseball throughout its existence, there are no stats to describe Bell's success in the game (except for a .337 lifetime average listed on Wikipedia); however, he is known by then-observers as having been the fastest to ever play the game - he could round the bases in twelve seconds.  Negro League greats Satchel Paige and John Gibson lauded Bell, with Paige haing this to say about Bell's speed, "If Cool Papa had known about colleges or if colleges had known about Cool Papa, Jesse Owens would have looked like he was walking."


What makes baseball so great is its timelessness - both literally and figuratively.  There is no clock and both teams have a completely equal number of chances to impact the game.  This game cannot be scripted - its inherent dramatic quality is what lures every American to this great pastime.  Just take another look at the moments captured by the sculptures above - what story do you see?