‘THE CARDINALS WIN THE PENNANT!’
I have memories from before I was born.
I can envision scenes that played out while I was in the womb and 676 miles away.
Baseball on the radio makes it all possible.
For 18 years, Cardinals fans wandered through the wilderness, bereft of championships and without an addition to their collection of pennants. But in 1964, in a most improbable series of events, they won the National League on the final day of the season.
Non-Cardinals fans likely remember the season for the Phillies epic collapse. Philadelphia were in first place of the National League for 73 days of the 1964 season. With a dozen games to go, the Phils led by six and a half. They blew it, losing 10 straight games and Gene Mauch burnished his reputation as an choking manager, one he would later polish to a high gloss with the Angels.
As much as Philadelphia collapsed, though, St. Louis seized its opportunity. During that Phillies 10-game losing streak, the Cardinals won eight.
I can clearly envision those Cardinals players in loose wool unis, buttoned with navy piping and Cardinals in script. Bob Gibson, a competitively menacing man on the mound. Tim McCarver his catcher; they had a rapport that would repeat and amplify when McCarver was Steve Carlton’s preferred battery mate. Lou Brock was young and new to the Cardinals. I can see the lead he would take from first, the anticipation of him taking off and stealing second with his distinct, rolling start. Julián Javier. The block of Ken Boyer at third. Curt Flood, my second-favorite Cardinal and a hero of the American experiment a notch below Jackie Robinson.
The existence and vividness of my memory is down to these recordings. These LPs are a family heritage. I’ve got both the 1964 version and the 1967 commemorative album featuring the radio highlights from the year and the broadcasts of booth partners Harry Caray and Jack Buck, both progenitors of children and grandchildren who would shape sports broadcasting in significant ways. Harry went on to his own fame and self-caricature in the TV booth of the Chicago Cubs national cable network. His son Skip Caray had a long career with the Braves and its national superchannel cable audience. On this 1964 album he is credited as the writer. His grandson, Chip Caray, is now back in St. Louis broadcasting TV games of the Cardinals. But it’s Buck who fires my imagination, the voice of my childhoood, my summers, the narrator of time spent with my father – time I was not first nor last to enjoy as my older brothers and sister had their seasons of Cardinals radio broadcasts that were their own, as did my nephews, the two oldest of my father’s grandchildren who went on to do something constructive with their experience listening to Buck in the company of their grandfather.
Viva Los Birdos
Three years later the brewery had another championship to celebrate with a highlight record.
These recordings create those visual memories. The vinyl records have always been a part of my life, the distinctive covers – the 1964 version features a signed ball on the cover, Gibson’s signature most prominent -- put out as a giveaway by the brewery.
I think of this year as the Cardinals affirmatively winning it, as a team that came together to win 93 games. They didn’t back into the pennant because of the Phillies collapse.
The team’s season had an arc encapsulated in the 32 minutes of this album, just like radio delivers over 162 games and without the ending known. The recording is not all hagiography. As Jack Buck describes in this clip, there was a low point and it came June 5 in Cincinnati at Crosley Field. St. Louis took a 4-1 lead into the ninth. Then disaster struck.
The thrills and failures of a season-long drama – tragedy for the Phillies, triumph for the Cardinals -- did build to a crescendo and concentrate at the end of September and into October. The Cardinals contributed to that 10-game Phillies dive into ignominy with a three-game sweep, culminating on September 29 in St. Louis.
Immediately following the final out of the Cardinals 4-2 victory over the Phillies 4-2, the Reds lost to the Pirates in Pittsburgh. That put them into a tie for first, one of five days St. Louis spent atop the standings. Their biggest lead over the National League field was a single game, but that’s all it needed to be as long as it was on the last day.
Jack Buck wrote about this ‘60s run for the team in his autobiography, “That’s a Winner!”
“The Cardinals had a lot of success in the 1960s, winning the World Series in 1964 and 1967 and losing in the seventh game in the 1968 series. It was fun to be a part of it, but those were really Harry’s teams. He was the one shouting, ‘The Cardinals win the pennant! The Cardinals win the pennant!’ in 1964.”
You can hear that chaos in this final clip, with Harry Caray sitting next to team owner and brewery boss Augie Busch in the good seats as the final out is made.
Baseball on the radio can come from vinyl records, too. Fans of other teams do not draw the emotional charge from these that I do, nor should they. But it does highlight in a short time the story of this season six months before I was born and puts me in the story even before I was drawing breath.
There’s a story told in these archival recordings and I am part of that tale.