Dave Duncan, in his twenty-second season as La Russa's pitching coach, had perhaps his most satisfying year ever in 2004, guiding a staff that before the season had been doomed for mediocrity by virtually every baseball pundit. The team's ERA, 3.75, was second in the National League and nearly a run less than in 2003.
Jim Edmonds was the subject of trade rumors after the 2003 season, because of a lackluster second half in which he batted only .214. After shoulder surgery in the off-season, he returned to the Cardinals and hit .301 in 2004 with forty-two home runs and 111 runs batted in.
Cal Eldred, after leading Cardinals relievers in wins in 2003 with seven, appeared in fifty-two games in 2004 with a record of 4 and 2 and an earned run average of 3.76. After the season, Eldred was among ten Cardinals players eligible for free agency. He elected to remain in St. Louis.
Bo Hart started on the Cardinals in 2004 but was sent down to Triple-A after thirteen at-bats.
Jason Isringhausen, healthy all year in 2004 as the closer, tied for the league lead in saves with forty-seven.
Walt Jocketty was named major-league Executive of the Year by the Sporting News, based on the myriad moves he made as general manager in shaping the 2004 Cardinals without ballooning the team's payroll.
Steve Kline had his best year in the majors as a lefty specialist out of the bullpen in 2004, recording an ERA of 1.79 in sixty-seven games. In keeping with his personality, he also gave La Russa the finger from the bullpen during a game in June when he became upset at not being used. When La Russa found out about it afterward, he steamed into the shower to confront Kline. "I don't think he'll be mad," Kline later told reporters. "He loves me too much." He became a free agent after the season and was not re-signed by the Cardinals. He inked a two-year deal with the Baltimore Orioles.
Tony La Russa, after an 85–77 finish in 2003, managed the Cardinals to a 105–57 record in 2004 and a franchise-record 112 wins including the playoffs. If he wins eighty-one games in 2005, he'll move into third place on the all-time list of managerial wins, behind Connie Mack and John McGraw. He has 2,114.
Tino Martinez was traded after the 2003 season to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for a minor-league player. The Cardinals also agreed to pay $7 million of the $8.5 million due on his contract. He hit .262 with twenty-three home runs and seventy-six runs batted in.
Mike Matheny won the Gold Glove as catcher in 2004, just as he had in 2003. He became a free agent at the end of the season, and signed with the San Francisco Giants.
Matt Morris went 15 and 10 in 2004 but was plagued by inconsistency. His velocity was noticeably down and his record in the postseason—0 and 2 with an earned run average of 5.91—was disappointing. A free agent, with an uncertain future after once being heralded as one of the best young pitchers in baseball, Morris had arthroscopic surgery last November on his pitching shoulder. Rather than test the market, Morris re-signed a one-year contract for $2.5 million with incentive clauses. The amount was $10 million less than what he had made in 2004, a rare case in baseball of a player opting for honest reappraisal instead of greed.
Orlando Palmeiro, after hitting .271 with the Cardinals in 2003 as a role player, signed with the Houston Astros. He appeared in 102 games and hit .241.
Eddie Perez, after hitting .285 with eleven home runs in 2003 off the bench, signed with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He tore his Achilles tendon early in May 2004 and missed the remainder of the season.
Albert Pujols, after leading the National League in hitting in 2003 with a mark of .359, in 2004 became the first player in major-league history to hit thirty or more home runs his first four seasons. He also joined Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams as the only players to drive in 500 runs or more their first four seasons. Pujols hit .331 with forty-six home runs and 121 runs batted in.
Edgar Renteria hit .287 at shortstop in 2004 and drove in seventy-two runs. He became a free agent at the end of the season and signed with the Boston Red Sox.
Kerry Robinson was traded by the Cardinals shortly before the 2004 season to the San Diego Padres for outfielder Brian Hunter and shuffled back and forth between Triple-A and the parent club. He appeared in eighty games for the Padres, with four extra-base hits in ninety-two at-bats, all of them doubles. He hasn't hit a home run since the one described in this book.
Scott Rolen had his best year in the majors in 2004, hitting .314 with thirty-four home runs and finishing second in the National League in runs batted in with 124, despite missing much of September because of a strained calf muscle.
Garrett Stephenson did not pitch in major-league baseball in 2004 because of an injury.
So Taguchi continued to improve as a player off the bench for the Cardinals in 2004, hitting .291.
Woody Williams, bothered by shoulder tendinitis in spring training, got off to such a terrible start in 2004 that he contemplated retirement. But he finished strong to go 11 and 8 and was chosen as the Cardinals starter for the first game of the World Series. He filed for free agency after the season and signed with the Padres.
THE CUBS
Mark Prior, after going 18 and 6 in 2003 and finishing third in the National League Cy Young voting, discovered his own mortality in 2004 in his second full season in the major leagues. He missed the first two months with a sore Achilles tendon and elbow, and finished with a record of 6 and 4 and an ERA of 4.02.
Sammy Sosa had his worst year ever for the Cubs in 2004, hitting .253 with thirty-five home runs and only eighty RBIs. He was fined $87,400 for arriving late to the Cubs' season finale at Wrigley and then leaving fifteen minutes after the game had started. Sosa, who makes around $17 million, then accused the Cubs of mistreating him.
Kerry Wood missed several weeks of the 2004 season because of tendinitis in his triceps, only adding to the injury woes Wood has experienced since breaking into the major leagues. He went 8 and 9 with an earned run average of 3.72. He also hit eleven batters in 140 innings, including three Astros in a single game.
Carlos Zambrano emerged in 2004 as the most effective starter of the Cubs triumvirate, going 16 and 8 with an ERA of 2.75 in 209 innings.
The Cubs, based on their finish in 2003 in which they advanced to the National League Championship series, were picked by many pundits to make it to the World Series in 2004. Plagued by injuries, they did not live up to expectations, but were still contending for the NL wild card late in the season. Then at the end of September, a one-and-a-half game lead turned into dust when they lost seven of eight games. As only the Cubs could do and only baseball could do to them, the slide began when they lost to the Mets in extra innings after being ahead 3–0 with two outs in the ninth.
A Note on Sources
Close to 90 percent of what appears in Three Nights in August was based on personal observation and interviews. I spent several weeks with the St. Louis Cardinals during spring training in 2003 and attended about fifty regular-season games. In the depictions of various players and personalities in the book, I also used written sources. The archives of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch were invaluable. I also utilized articles from Baseball America, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the Sporting News, and USA Today. In writing of the events leading up to and following the death of pitcher Darryl Kile, an article in the St. Louis Cardinals' publication Gameday Magazine was particularly helpful, as was an interview with Flynn Kile on ESPN. This book also could not have done without the historical box scores compiled by the Web site Retrosheet.org, which go back more than a hundred years. The Web sites of Espn.com and Mlb.com were enormously helpful as well. Below is a list of selected bibliography.
Baseball America 2003 Almanac. Durham, North Carolina: Baseball America Inc., 2003.
Baseball America 2004 Almanac. Durham, North Carolina: Baseball America Inc., 2004.
Baseball Register 2003 Edition. St. Louis: Sporting News Books, 2003.
Baseball Register 2004 Edition. St. Louis: Sporting News Books, 2004.
Birnbaum, Phil, Deane, Bill, and John Thorn. Total Baseba
ll: The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia, 8th Edition. Toronto: Sport Media Publishing, 2004.
Castle, George, and Jim Rygelski. The I-55 Series: Cubs vs. Cardinals. Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing Inc., 1999.
Gentile, Derek. The Complete Chicago Cubs. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2002.
Golenbock, Peter. Wrigleyville. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.
———. The Spirit of St. Louis. New York: HarperCollins, 2000.
Holtzman, Jerome, and George Vass. Baseball, Chicago Style. Chicago: Bonus Books, 2001.
Honig, Donald. The Man in the Dugout. Chicago: Follett Publishing, 1977.
James, Bill. The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers: From 1870 to Today. New York: Scribner, 1997.
Koppett, Leonard. The Man in the Dugout. New York: Crown Publishers, 1993.
Lau, Charley, with Alfred Glossbrenner. The Art of Hitting .300. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Lewis, Michael. Moneyball. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.
Libby, Bill. Charlie O. and the Angry A's. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1975.
Light, Jonathan Fraser. The Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1997.
Logan, Bob. Miracle on 35th Street: Winnin' Ugly with the 1983 White Sox. South Bend, Indiana: Icarus Press, 1983.
Myers, Doug. Essential Cubs. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1999.
The Scouting Notebook 2004. St. Louis: Sporting News Books, 2004.
Smith, Curt. Voices of the Game. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
Will, George. Men at Work. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Acknowledgments
There are many people to thank for the creation of Three Nights in August, but first and foremost is my editor at Houghton Mifflin, Eamon Dolan. A few lines of praise are inadequate to describe the seminal role that Eamon played from beginning to end with patience, support, love, tough love, a few necessary head slaps to the overly fragile psyche, and everything else that counts in the creative process. He demanded with a quiet relentlessness, dedicated to making this book as good as it could possibly be. In a profession in which the invaluable art of editing is becoming a lost art, he proved himself to be a Picasso.
Among the St. Louis Cardinals, the list is long because of the graciousness that was consistently shown. Pitching Coach Dave Duncan must be highlighted not only because he unfailingly answered all my questions despite continual interruptions to his concentration but also because he helped me fix my laptop when it became besieged by a virus one terrible morning in Houston. Bench Coach Joe Pettini provided valuable help on the Zen of just about everything that was baseball related. Bullpen Coach Marty Mason provided valuable help on the Zen of pitching, and of course there is the Secret Weapon, Video Coordinator Chad Blair. Traveling Secretary C.J. Cherre made my life infinitely easier in trying to keep up with the blistering seasonal schedule of the Cardinals during 2003. Equipment Manager Rip Rowan and assistant Buddy Bates made me feel like a welcome presence in the clubhouse despite working twenty-five hours a day. So did Head Athletic Trainer Barry Weinberg and Bullpen Catcher Jeff Murphy.
Other members of the Cardinals organization who must be thanked include Chairman of the Board and General Partner Bill DeWitt, Jr., Vice Chairman Fred Hanser, Limited Partner Dave Pratt, General Manager Walt Jocketty, Assistant General Manager John Mozeliak, and team media gurus Brain Bartow, Brad Hainje, and Melody Yount. Among the Cardinals players, all of them were giving of their time despite continual demands by the media. Several in particular went above and beyond the call of duty during the 2003 season: Steve Kline, Cal Eldred, Mike Matheny, Orlando Palmeiro, and Eddie Perez.
Outside the Cardinals family, a tip of the hat to Joe Strauss, who covered the team in 2003 for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The same to Rick Hummel of the Post-Dispatch, who may well know more about baseball than any other person in the history of the game. On the broadcast side, television announcers Al Hrabosky and Dan McLaughlin always made for interesting bus trips from the hotel to the ballpark, and it's difficult to think of anybody in life who has more character and more stories than the radio voice of the Cardinals, Mike Shannon. There is also Ed Lewis and Jim Leyland and Rollie Hemond and Jerry Reinsdorf, baseball men to the core.
Last but not least, thanks to agent David Gernert for putting Tony La Russa and me in the same room together at the outset. And, of course, there is La Russa himself, a manager of unique distinction, but more important, a man with qualities of loyalty and honor and decency as rare as they are gratifying.
Index
A
Alderson, Sandy, [>], [>]
Alfonseca, Antonio, [>]–[>]
Alomar, Sandy, [>]
Alou, Moises
batting skills, [>], [>]–[>]
Game 1 plays, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
Game 2 plays, [>]
Anderson, Sparky, [>], [>], [>], [>]
"Andro" (androstendione), [>]
Ankiel, Rick
early career, [>]–[>]
injuries, [>]
La Russa's feelings about, [>]
sent to Double-A, [>]–[>]
2004 season, [>]
ARF (Animal Rescue Foundation), [>]
Arizona Diamondbacks, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
Atlanta Braves, [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>]
B
Babe, Loren, [>]
Bagwell, Jeff, [>], [>]
Baines, Harold, [>], [>], [>]
Baker, Dusty
Game 2 decisions, [>], [>], [>]–[>]
Game 3 decisions, [>]
managerial skills, [>]
Bako, Paul, [>], [>]–[>]
Baltimore Orioles, [>], [>]
Bando, Sal, [>]
Bannister, Floyd, [>]
Bard's Room (Comiskey Park), [>], [>], [>]–[>]
baseball theft, [>]–[>]
base running, [>]–[>]
base stealing, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]
Bates, Buddy, [>]
Batista, Miguel, [>], [>]
batters. See hitters
batting practice, [>], [>], [>]–[>]
Beckett, Josh, [>]
Bell, George, [>]
bench players, [>], [>], [>]
Benes, Alan, [>]
Benes, Andy, [>], [>]
Biggio, Craig, [>], [>]
Blair, Chad, [>]–[>], [>]
Blue, Vida, [>]
Boggs, Wade, [>]
Bonds, Barry, [>], [>]
Borowski, Joe, [>]–[>], [>]
Boston Red Sox, [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>]
Boswell, Tom, [>]
Bottenfield, Kent, [>]
Brinkman, Eddie, [>]
Brock, Lou, [>], [>], [>]
Broglio, Ernie, [>]
Brown, Mordecai, [>]
Buck, Jack, [>], [>]
bullpen, [>]–[>]
Burnett, A.J., [>]
Burns, Britt, [>]
C
Cairo, Miguel, [>], [>], [>], [>]
Canseco, Jose, [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
Caray, Harry, [>], [>]
Carter, Joe, [>], [>]
Castillo, Luis, [>]
catchers, [>]
changeup pitches, [>]
Chicago Cubs
Broglio-for-Brock trade, [>]
history of, [>]–[>]
rivalry with Cardinals, [>]–[>], [>]
2004 season, [>]
wins at Busch Stadium, [>]
Three Nights in August Page 30
