Whitey Herzog

Whitey Herzog won with speed, defense, and pitching at a time when the rest of baseball chased home runs, and he won enough that his style took his name and became Whiteyball. He managed the Kansas City Royals to three straight division titles and the St. Louis Cardinals to three pennants and the 1982 World Series, and for a stretch he ran the Cardinals as both their manager and their general manager, the first man to hold both jobs since Connie Mack. He was as quotable as anyone who ever filled out a lineup card. The Veterans Committee elected him to the Hall of Fame in 2010.

The White Rat

Herzog was born Dorrel Norman Elvert Herzog on November 9, 1931, in New Athens, Illinois, a small town near St. Louis where he grew up rooting for the Cardinals. A minor league sportscaster in Oklahoma hung the nickname Whitey on him for his blond hair, after the Yankees pitcher Bob Kuzava, whose own nickname, the White Rat, soon attached to Herzog too. He signed with the Yankees but never broke through their stacked roster, and he spent eight seasons as a light-hitting reserve outfielder for four teams, batting .257. He summed up the whole experience in a line that became his trademark. "Baseball has been good to me," he liked to say, "since I quit trying to play it."

The Mets Farm Director

Herzog learned the front office before he ran a dugout, serving as the New York Mets' director of player development from 1967 through 1972, where he stocked the farm system that produced the 1969 champions and the 1973 pennant winners. When Gil Hodges died before the 1972 season, the Mets passed Herzog over for the manager's job in favor of Yogi Berra, and he left the organization bitter about it. He took the lesson with him, that a winning roster gets built years before it wins.

Three Division Titles in Kansas City

Herzog managed briefly in Texas and California and then took over the Kansas City Royals in 1975, where he won the American League West three years in a row, in 1976, 1977, and 1978. Each time the Yankees ended his season in the Championship Series, the first of them on a Chris Chambliss walk-off home run in the deciding game, and the losses stung. He was fired after a second-place finish in 1979, a manager caught between the job that taught him and the one that would make him.

Whiteyball

The style Herzog built fit the artificial turf and the deep outfields of the era, leaning on line-drive hitters, base stealers, airtight defense, and a deep bullpen instead of power. His 1985 Cardinals hit the fewest home runs in the National League and stole 314 bases, more than any team in decades, running and fielding their way to a pennant. "He got everybody focused on more team-oriented goals instead of individual goals," his second baseman Tommy Herr said. It was a radical idea in a sport built around the long ball, and Herzog rode it for a decade.

Manager and General Manager Both

The Cardinals hired Herzog in 1980 and soon handed him both jobs, manager and general manager, a combination the game had not seen since Connie Mack ran the Athletics. He tore the roster down and rebuilt it to his taste, trading the Cubs for the closer Bruce Sutter and, in the deal that defined the decade, sending shortstop Garry Templeton to San Diego for Ozzie Smith. He shipped a sulking Keith Hernandez to the Mets and never flinched at the criticism. "Getting rid of Hernandez," he said, "was an addition by subtraction." In 1982 his speed-and-pitching Cardinals beat the slugging Milwaukee Brewers in seven games for the championship.

The Denkinger Call

Herzog took two more pennants, in 1985 and 1987, and lost both World Series in seven games, but 1985 left a permanent mark. His Cardinals were one out from the title in Game 6, leading 1-0 in the ninth, when the umpire Don Denkinger called a Kansas City runner safe at first on a play the replays showed he was out. The Royals rallied to win the game and then routed the Cardinals in Game 7, and Herzog, who had argued the call all night, was ejected in the finale. He never quite got over losing that title, though he kept his respect for the umpire who blew the call.

The Best Manager of His Time and Place

For most of the 1980s Herzog was the best manager in the National League, voted so by the players themselves in a 1983 poll, the architect of a speed game that defined the decade in St. Louis. He won 1,281 games over 18 seasons, three pennants, and a World Series, and he did it with a folksy, blunt humor that made him a quote machine. "I'm not buddy-buddy with the players," he said. "If they need a buddy, let them buy a dog." He retired from the Cardinals dugout in 1990 and spent his last years in baseball running the Angels' front office.

A Late Honor

Herzog had to wait for Cooperstown, where the Veterans Committee elected him in 2010, and the Cardinals retired his number 24 the same year, the recognition arriving long after the pennants. He stayed close to the game and close to St. Louis, where they never stopped claiming him as one of their own. He died on April 15, 2024, in St. Louis at 92, survived by Mary Lou, his wife of 71 years.