The Cardinals Way
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Just as his father stayed in baseball through the end of his life, DeWitt Jr. can’t conceive of doing anything else. Reflecting on his tenure in September 2014, he said:
“I can’t say what I really expected twenty years would look like, but I feel good about how it’s all occurred and where we are. I will say this: I did feel back in 1996, when we bought the team, that we could build an organization that had every opportunity to be successful. You have to have a lot of good fortune to go along with it. That’s for sure. But I felt confident that, given our fan base and given the Cardinals franchise and brand, it was incumbent upon us to build on it, enhance it, and maintain it as best we could. And we have made every effort to do that.”
When it comes to succession, both DeWitts look at the future in the same way.
“I would think he would,” DeWitt Jr. said of DeWitt III succeeding him someday. “I think he views himself at this point as an all-in baseball guy for his career. You never know when things could change, but that’s clearly his view today.” Mozeliak, with his office right next to DeWitt III’s, has noticed this as well:
“Big Bill is still very active. But I will say my relationship with Billy continues to grow. And I make sure that I share with him on how we think about decisions because obviously his energy is more on the business side. But in a way, it’s like a minitutorial for him from time to time. I have talked to Big Bill about this and I certainly understand the long-term planning.”
I asked Mozeliak if the succession plan is similar to what he’s tried to build in every department throughout the organization.
“I would say that’s comparable. I mean, obviously he’s been working for this club for some time now, and his exposure to all the different areas is acutely high. From a day-to-day baseball standpoint, I mostly speak with his father. But that’s not to say we don’t grab lunch or stop by one another’s office from time to time and chat. I mean, we’re only separated by a wall, so we do see each other.”
That future comes with expectations unlike those for virtually any other baseball team, thanks to all the consistent success. It also comes, with the disruption of the hacking scandal, with some of the biggest challenges DeWitt has faced since he altered the underlying structure of the Cardinals back in 2003. It comes back to precisely what DeWitt was betting when, back in 2003, he hired Luhnow to, as his memo put it, “take advantage of the inefficient market.” And as Mozeliak pointed out, the success on the field cannot flag while they weather it all.
“The St. Louis Cardinals can’t blow something up,” Mozeliak said. “Our expectations here, I mean, I would get run up a flagpole. Bill would get sent down the Mississippi. It’s just not practical. This is more of a cultural level of expectation. I’ve always said that the one thing about working in St. Louis is they demand winning.
“And that’s the one thing that—like, my peers always make fun of me. They’re, like, ‘Ah, it’s an easy job here in St. Louis.’ But it’s really not.”
So now, even as the St. Louis Cardinals battle a changed, more intelligent competitive atmosphere that they helped create, they have a hundred years of success to live up to as well. DeWitt knows it’s up to his team to find the next innovation, the next logical extension of Branch Rickey’s work, to make sure that the next George Kissell is managing in the minor league system, that the next Stan Musial, Albert Pujols, or Oscar Taveras is progressing through that system, that the money is there to sign that next great Cardinals hero long-term, after drafting him or trading for him.
A new TV deal with Fox Sports Midwest, reported by Derrick Goold in July 20155 to have a value of more than $1 billion over the next 15 years, should help with the latter, and DeWitt acknowledged to Goold that spending would go up accordingly, a frightening thought for the rest of baseball, who struggled to keep up with the Cardinals when funded by a below-market TV deal.
As long as the Cardinals keep progressing, every team trying to chase and catch them—and there are many smart organizations—aren’t just keeping even. Twenty-nine other teams have hundred years of foundation to build before they can surpass what Branch Rickey passed on through Bill DeWitt Sr. and George Kissell to Bill DeWitt Jr., Jeff Luhnow, and John Mozeliak in St. Louis.
“We’re going to continue to make every effort to keep the Cardinals a top-tier franchise in every way,” DeWitt said, “whether it’s the best facilities for a minor league player, or a state-of-the-art ballpark in St. Louis. Clearly, on the field is where it all ends up mattering. We will keep striving to do the best possible job. That’s the goal. Whether we can maintain the level of success we have had remains to be seen. We stress over every ball game but always look three to five years out as well. The first thing I do every morning is check the minor league game reports from the day before, to find out how our prospects are performing and developing.”
DeWitt leaned back in his chair as we sat and talked in a New York restaurant in September 2014. As Mozeliak said to me, “It’s good to be Bill DeWitt.” A play-off-filled October beckoned, the fourth in a row. So, too, was the difficult calendar year to come, filled with the Taveras tragedy, the hacking scandal, but all set against the backdrop of one of the finest runs any baseball team has ever enjoyed. In retrospect, it’s not surprising that a visionary like Bill DeWitt, who saw 2015 as a graduate student in 1965, issued a note of caution at that moment.
He’s also the best reason to bet on the St. Louis Cardinals in the years to come. “Well, I always say enjoy the moment because baseball can be cyclical, and we all know what can happen if you get injuries to key players, or prospects who are coming up are not as good as you thought. I do think our decision-making process, which continually evolves, has been good, and it has enabled us to have success. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that success will continue, and that’s the beauty of baseball.”
Acknowledgments
A book such as this one cannot happen without the help of so many people along the way. I felt a great responsibility to tell this story properly, and that only increased as I had the privilege of seeing this organization up close across the country, from the very beginning of the player-development system right through to Busch Stadium.
The extent to which the Cardinals opened their organization to me was remarkable at the time, and even now as I reflect upon it. This came from a desire to allow me to fully tell the story of how the Cardinals remade themselves, but from ownership on down, the Cardinals didn’t shy away from any question or any period. If anything, their reluctance came during discussions about the team’s greatest advances.
This starts with Bill DeWitt, who was so generous with his time, his memories, and his careful documentation of a life spent within baseball. That he could spend so many hours in interviews with me in person, on the phone, and via e-mail while simultaneously running a major league ball club and leading the search for a new commissioner of baseball simply amazed me. It was a pleasure to get to know him as I worked on this book.
The same is true of the executives for the Cardinals during this time. Dan Kantrovitz found answers to the most obscure questions I had, ranging from his initial impressions of long-before-drafted players to his experience in high school with Jon Hamm. John Mozeliak didn’t shy away from any premise I presented to him and applied the macro thinking he uses as general manager to larger themes within the book.
I’m also thankful to all those with the Cardinals who not only let me observe them working, but would stop and answer questions I had, including Gary LaRocque, Matt Slater, Tim Leveque, Mark DeJohn, Oliver Marmol, Steve Turco, Ramon “Smoky” Ortiz, Ace Adams, Tony Ferreira, Chris Correa, John Mabry, Derek Lilliquist. and Mike Matheny.
This book also owes a great deal to the help and memories of Jeff Luhnow, Sig Mejdal, and Charlie Gonzalez, all of whom work for the Astros now, all of whom are fascinating in dramatically different ways.
Thank you also to Walt Jocketty, Terry Collins, Tony La Russa, Willie McGee, Whitey Herzog, and many others
who shed light on the Cardinals in ways large and small.
A huge thank-you to the players who helped me tell this story: Corey Baker, Chris Rivera, Sam Tuivailala, Rowan Wick, Nick Thompson, and Daniel Poncedeleon. Thank you to many other players who shared details or their personal stories with me as well, on or off the record.
I’m hugely grateful to all those who talked to me about George Kissell, particularly Tommy Kidwell, George’s grandson, who simply opened his home to me and allowed me an incredible opportunity: unlimited time with George Kissell’s papers, which had been sealed since George’s death back in 2008. Huge thanks to Joe McEwing, Mike Shannon, Todd Steverson, Robin Ventura, and many others throughout baseball who provided story after story about the impact George had on them.
A special thank-you to Red Schoendienst, who somehow remembers every single moment from his seventy-three years in professional baseball and took me through as many of them as I asked. If this book project had merely given me the chance to get to know Red, it would have been more than satisfying.
For insight through both their previous work and conversations during the writing of this book, thank you to Derrick Goold, Evan Drellich, and Bernie Miklasz, excellent baseball scribes.
Thank you to Hilary and Jason Schwartz, my in-laws, for their enthusiastic caretaking of my children during so much of this book process. The book in your hands couldn’t have happened without you.
Thank you to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra radio broadcasts, with hosts Adam Crane and Robert Peterson, and David Robertson’s great orchestra, for providing the sound track to so many writing sessions, including the final one for this manuscript.
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press: Rob Kirkpatrick, for believing in the project; Emma Stein, for sheperding the project to completion against the clock; Peter Wolverton, for making certain an unexpected man tied to the tracks didn’t derail our progress; and Joe Rinaldi, for helping me tell the world about this remarkable story.
To my parents, Myrna and Ira Megdal, I am grateful for giving me the unwavering belief in myself and my judgment and to pursue what matters most to me in life. I am thrilled to have this model to pass on to my children, and that you are both here to show them the way toward that life as well.
To Mirabelle and Juliet, my two young prospects, thank you for an endless supply of happiness, adorable pictures to help get me through my writing, and for all the thrills still to come.
And to Rachel, who never hesitated when I started talking about writing this book, only thought about how to help me make this happen: more today than yesterday. Not as much as tomorrow. It’s been lovely, since completing the book, to see you again. You haven’t aged a bit.
Notes
Prologue
1. “Matheny Weary of ‘Cardinal Way’ Slogan,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 4, 2014.
2. Lee Lowenfish, Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007).
1: The Cardinal Idea
1. Russell A. Carleton, “Why the Cardinal Way Is the Most Important Book in Baseball,” Baseball Prospectus, March 4, 2014.
2. Donald Ray Andersen, Branch Rickey and the St. Louis Cardinal Farm System: The Growth of an Idea (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976).
3. Steve Steinberg, “Robert Hedges,” SABR bio, http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/b91246d7.
4. Andersen, Branch Rickey and the St. Louis Cardinal Farm System.
5. Lowenfish, Branch Rickey.
6. Andersen, Branch Rickey and the St. Louis Cardinal Farm System.
7. William O. DeWitt, interview by William J. Marshall, September 29 and October 1, 1980, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project, University of Kentucky Library.
8. Lowenfish, Branch Rickey.
9. DeWitt, interview by Marshall.
2: The Language of George Kissell
1. Mike Wilson, “The Professor of Baseball,” St. Petersburg Times, March 16, 1997.
2. Joe Strauss, “Cardinals’ Kissell Is Honored for Contributions to Baseball,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 14, 2003.
3. Letter to George Kissell from Randy Voorhees, Mountain Lion Press, December 6, 1994.
4. Marty Noble, “As Carpenter Trains at Third, Kissell’s Legacy Remains,” MLB.com, March 16, 2014.
5. Warren Corbett, “Earl Weaver,” SABR bio, http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/0cfc37e3.
6. Wilson, “Professor of Baseball.”
3: Bill DeWitt Jr.
1. Memo from Bill DeWitt Jr. to Francis L. Dale, January 19, 1967.
2. Murray Chass, “Going, Going, Sold: Orioles Auctioned for $173 million,” New York Times, August 3, 1993.
3. Via the Associated Press.
4: Luhnow Enters
1. Alan Schwarz, The Numbers Game: Baseball’s Lifelong Fascination with Statistics (St. Martin’s Press, 2004).
2. Derrick Goold, “Top Ten Prospects: St. Louis Cardinals,” Baseball America, November 30, 2007.
3. Woody Allen, Stand Up Comic, 1964–1968, Rhino Records, 1999.
4. “UPI 8 Named for Swim Hall of Fame,” Chicago Tribune, December 9, 1967.
5. Bill Madden, “Walt Jocketty Gets Axed from Cards Because of Numbers Crunch,” New York Daily News, October 7, 2007.
5: Happy Days Are Here Again
1. Bernie Miklasz, “Check Your Jocketty Conspiracy Theory at the Door,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 5, 2007.
2. Girsch Michael bio, http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/stl/team/frontoffice_bios/michael_girsch.jsp.
3. Kevin Goldstein, “Future Shock: Organizational Rankings, Part 1,” Baseball Prospectus, March 8, 2010.
4. Derrick Goold, “Draft Analysis, St. Louis Cardinals,” in Baseball America Prospect Handbook, 2010, ed. the Editors of Baseball America (Baseball America, 2010).
5. Murray Chass, “A Jocketty Jeer for Cardinals,” MurrayChass.com, September 26, 2010.
6: After He’s Gone
1. Derrick Goold, “Cardinals Top Ten Prospects,” Baseball America, January 14, 2015.
2. Derrick Goold, “Cardinals’ Taveras Will Sell Tickets in the Future,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 18, 2012.
3. B. J. Rains, “Mozeliak Discusses the Future of the Cardinals,” Fox Sports Midwest, October 25, 2012.
4. Alex Halsted, “Cardinals Calling Up Top Prospect Taveras,” MLB.com, May 31, 2014.
5. Goold, “Cardinals Top Ten Prospects.”
Epilogue: Transition and the Irreplaceable Cardinal
1. Nick Piecoro, “Diamondbacks Still Interested in James Shields, Despite Tight Budget,” Arizona Republic, January 13, 2015.
2. Evan Drellich, “Radical Methods Paint Astros as ‘Outcast,’” Houston Chronicle, May 23, 2014.
3. Michael S. Schmidt, “Cardinals Investigated for Hacking Into Astros’ Database,” New York Times, June 16, 2015.
4. Bob Broeg, “Candy-Store Complexes Gone,” Sporting News, January 3, 1976.
5. Derrick Goold, “Cards, Fox Sports Midwest Reach Lucrative TV Deal,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 30, 2015.
Index
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
A-B. See Anheuser-Busch
Abreu, José
Adams, Ace
Adams, Matt
advisory board, Luhnow creating
Aiken, Brady
Albert, Jeff
Alicea, Luis
Allen, Woody
Almaraz, Joe
analytics. See also STOUT system
Chass’ disdain for
free agency strategy incorporating
hacking scandal and Mozeliak’s unwavering approach to
Jocketty finally incorporating
Jocketty’s hesitations with<
br />
Kantrovitz on Craig and
Luhnow’s mandate with
Mejdal on methodologies for
Mejdal preparing for draft with player evaluation and
organizational inefficiencies highlighted by
Pujols’ decline shown with
rapid acceptance of
shrinking advantage of
St. Louis Cardinals’ gradual implementation of
St. Louis Cardinals history with
St. Louis Cardinals marrying scouts with
St. Louis Cardinals revamped with
Tendu analysis and
Vuch’s expertise in
Anderson, Sparky
Angelos, Peter
Anheuser-Busch (A-B)
Ankiel, Rick
Antinoja, Ron
Antonetti, Chris
Arango, Fernando
arbitration, salary
Arizona Diamondbacks
Bacon, Francis
Baker, Corey
on Cardinals farm system continuity
on Cardinals farm system grooming personnel
Cardinals farm system’s competitiveness and
Double-A promotion of
draft of
family supporting
goals and aspirations of
on Greenwood’s improbable success
LaRocque on potential of
Molina catching
skills and challenges facing
Tuivailala helped by
on Tuivailala’s promotion
on working through struggles
Ball, Phil
Baltimore Orioles
Bando, Sal
Barrett, Charlie
Baseball America Prospect Handbook
Baseball Prospectus