This story was excerpted from John Denton’s Cardinals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
ST. LOUIS -- Asked during Friday’s 40-year reunion how he ever got over his Cardinals losing the 1985 World Series -- one where they came within three outs of winning it all in Game 6 and were steamrolled in Game 7 -- ace left-handed pitcher John Tudor gave a very telling nonanswer.
“I’ll let you know,” Tudor said in all seriousness without even a hint of a smile.
Then, Tudor -- who started the 1985 season 1-7, but closed with an eye-popping 20-1 stretch -- elaborated on the pain of missing out on a World Series crown.
“That hasn’t happened yet,” Tudor said of getting over the loss, one that included him surrendering five earned runs, four walks and three hits in 2 1/3 innings in the 11-0 loss in Game 7 to the Royals. “I still think about it all the time. That was a great, great year right up until the last day of the season.”
Dozens of players, coaches and executives from that 1985 team -- one famous throughout St. Louis and all of MLB for revolutionizing “Whiteyball” -- reconvened at Busch Stadium to celebrate one of the most iconic squads in the rich history of the Cardinals. World Series-winning flags fly forever at Busch Stadium, but the 1985 squad is still revered in St. Louis, even though it didn’t win it all.
That 101-win team adapted to its AstroTurf surroundings, maximized its potential and was masterfully orchestrated by Hall of Fame manager Whitey Herzog. That Cards team hit an MLB-low 87 home runs -- led by Jack Clark’s 22 long balls -- but it still batted .264 as a team, stole 314 bases and ran foes ragged.
“We’d have what we called a Cardinals rally back then,” cracked right-handed pitcher Danny Cox, who went 18-9 with a 2.88 ERA in 1985. “Vince [Coleman] or Willie [McGee] would walk, steal second, steal third and then we’d drive them in with a ground ball. That was a Cardinals rally.”
McGee won the NL MVP with a .353 batting average, 216 hits, 18 triples and 82 RBIs. Coleman won the NL’s Rookie of the Year by stealing 110 bases. Tommy Herr pulled off the statistical anomaly of driving in 110 runs with just eight homers. And the incomparable Ozzie Smith and the speedy McGee won Gold Gloves to spearhead the game’s best defense.
“Ozzie used to tell me, ‘All you have to worry about are balls in right-center; I’ll get everything else hit on my side,” McGee joked recently.
In the NLCS, that 1985 team proved to be even more clutch, getting epic late-inning home runs from Smith (in Game 5) and Clark (in Game 6) to beat the heavily favored Dodgers. During an appearance on FanDuel Sports Network with reporter Jim Hayes, Smith recited Hall of Fame announcer Jack Buck’s famous call word for word -- just as thousands of St. Louisans can do upon request -- from his epic NLCS homer:
Smith corks one into right … down the line … it may gooooo!
Go crazy, folks! Go crazy!
It’s a home run! And the Cardinals have won the game … by the score … of 3-2… on a home run by The Wizard!
Go crazy!
While the NLCS provided some of the most iconic memories in the Cardinals’ history, the World Series offered up a memory that still evokes heartache and frustration. The Cards won the first two games in Kansas City, but they dropped two of the next three across the state in St. Louis. In Game 6, the Cardinals -- clinging to a 1-0 lead in the ninth inning -- seemed to be in position to seal what would have been the franchise’s ninth World Series crown before disaster struck.
The details of play -- Jorge Orta tapped the ball to the right side, Clark flipped it to Todd Worrell presumably for the first out -- are seared into the memories of Cardinals fans of a certain age. Only umpire Don Denkinger, who had scurried into foul territory for a better look -- missed the call.
"If it happened now, they'd review it and overturn it," Denkinger told MLB.com in 2014.
“If Don had been standing where I had been standing, he couldn’t have missed the call,” said Herr, who had a close view from a few feet away as the second baseman. “The runner was going one way, [Denkinger] was shifting this way, Todd was going this way, and the throw was coming from that way. [Denkinger] got a little discombobulated. I was stationary, and it was obvious.”
Added Terry Pendelton, whose Cardinals still had several chances to win but collapsed defensively in that ninth inning and got blanked in Game 7: “I’ll never forget Whitey saying, ‘I have one regret in baseball is not pulling my team off the field and making them get it right.’ It was a tough thing to swallow, and it still is.”
Some 10 years later, Herzog -- who got kicked out of Game 7 -- did something few would have ever expected. He invited Denkinger -- the subject of death threats through the years -- back to a Cardinals reunion dinner like the one held on Friday.
“That did provide us some measure of peace,” Herr said of Herzog’s caring and selfless gesture toward the ump.
Rentería, Hrabosky, Jocketty get enshrined
While apologizing to the crowd for his short speech and limited English, Édgar Rentería caught former Cardinals manager Tony La Russa out of the corner of his eye and offered a few more words upon being inducted into the Cardinals Hall of Fame on Saturday.
“Thank you to Tony La Russa for showing me how to be a winner,” said Rentería, whose Cardinals came up short in the 2004 World Series.
Rentería was joined by left-handed reliever/TV commentator Al Hrabosky as part of the 13th Hall of Fame class in Cards history. Also, World Series-winning executive Walt Jocketty -- who lured La Russa and several top players to St. Louis -- was inducted posthumously.
Hrabosky, a Cardinals pitcher from 1970-77 and a broadcaster for 45 years, choked up when he told stories about friendships with Bob Gibson, Lou Brock and Ted Simmons. Joe Jocketty, son of Walt, had the most touching moments of the ceremony when he read from the speech written by his father before he passed away on April 25. Joey then added a line he knew his father would approve of him saying.
“He’ll always be right here where he belongs -- Baseball Heaven,” Joey said of his father’s spot in the Cardinals Hall of Fame.