After Pedro Guerrero retired and Andres Galarraga signed with the Rockies, the Cardinals needed to think outside the box to fill their first base vacancy. On February 12, 1993, the Cardinals announced that they had traded outfielder Felix Jose and utility infielder Craig Wilson to the Royals for infielder Gregg Jefferies and minor-league outfielder Ed Gerald. […]
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At age 40, Jim Edmonds hoped to tack one more year on the end of a major-league career that had spanned 17 seasons and more than 2,000 games. Unfortunately, just two weeks after Jim Edmonds signed a minor league contract to return to the Cardinals, a lingering Achilles injury forced him to announce his retirement.
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Just one day before the Cardinals and 24-year-old Albert Pujols were set to meet in Phoenix, Arizona, for an arbitration hearing, the two sides agreed to the richest contract in team history, one that would keep the young star in St. Louis through the 2011 season and two World Series championships. On February 19, 2004, Pujols
On his way to helping the Cardinals capture the 10th World Series in franchise history, utility infielder Scott Spiezio inadvertently started a fashion phenomenon at Busch Stadium. Spiezio had been a World Series hero for the Angels in 2002, but he came to St. Louis after two subpar seasons with the Mariners. On February 17,
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Nolan Arenado was 10 games into his major league career when he arrived in St. Louis for the first time in May 2013. The young slugger already had three home runs to his name, and as he prepared to face Cardinals starting pitcher Shelby Miller, all-star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki sidled up alongside the rookie with
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Just a few days away from his 90th birthday, Stan Musial picked up the phone at his office at Stan the Man Inc. On the other end of the line was a White House representative, calling to tell him that he was being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian award.
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Tony La Russa had yet to manage a game for the St. Louis Cardinals, but his Oakland connections were already paying dividends. On February 13, 1996, the A’s traded Dennis Eckersley to St. Louis for minor-league reliever Steve Montgomery, making Eckersley the fourth former Athletics player alongside Mike Gallego, Rick Honeycutt, and Todd Stottlemyre to
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More than 43 years after he helped the St. Louis Cardinals win their first World Series championship, Jesse Haines was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee at age 76. It wasn’t a bad achievement for a pitcher whose former minor-league manager with the Tulsa Oilers expected him back in
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A little less than four years before John Stuper won Game 6 of the 1982 World Series, the Cardinals obtained him in a minor-league trade that wasn’t even mentioned in either the St. Louis Post-Dispatch or the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In the deal, the Cardinals sent infielder Tommy Sandt to the Pirates in exchange for Stuper,
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In his final year on the National Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, Joe Medwick finally got the call he had been waiting 20 years to receive. On January 23, 1968, Medwick woke with a swollen jaw from a toothache that would require a trip to the dentist in the afternoon. Before that, however, he went
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