Cardinals’ Herzog: Charming, Witty, Insightful and a Winner

Whitey Herzog does his schtick. He has one of the few surviving flat-top haircuts in public life. He entertains with funny stories. He does notable voice impressions.

Herzog has become a media magnet, a charming, witty and often insightful man. He also likes the attention. Just because he wins, it’s no reason to be overlooked.

Like in 1966, way back in the dark early years of the Mets, he was the third base coach when Wes Westrum was the manger. It was Herzog who got his picture in the papers, lying down to tell a runner to slide or jumping up to tell him to go home. Back in spring training, Casey Stengel--then the manager emeritus--asked Herzog: “What’re you gonna do about them 1,100 strikeouts?”

Herzog asks the question with a pretty good rendition of Stengel’s growl. That’s one of the voices Herzog does. Herzog replied to the Old Man’s demand: “I ain’t stopping any SOB at third base.”

Now, a whole career later, Herzog recalls: “We run everybody home and after 100 games we were 48-52. We got ninth-place rings.”

Herzog’s wisdom was rewarded with a front-office job and eventually moved on to Texas to embark on a managing career that has taken him to the playoffs for the fifth time in nine full seasons.

He does not care to be unknown. His full nickname is White Rat and on the lawn of his home in Independence, outside Kansas City, stands a large concrete white rat. If his Cardinals and the Royals, the other team he won with, meet in the World Series, he’ll have his own home in each city.

He had a caricature of Stengel on the wall of his office in both stops and he often quotes the wise words of Stengel in that growl. “I like the way you play, but I got other guys I like better,” Herzog quotes Stengel on the day he was traded from the Yankees to the Kansas City A’s who may as well have been a Yankee farm. “Have a good year and I’ll get you back.”

“The trouble with that,” Herzog said, lapsing into his own tones, “was that I never had a good year.”

Years after, Herzog used to delight in kibitzing with Stengel. He has great fondness for Gene Autry, the man who owns the Angels.

Herzog does Autry’s cowboy twang, too. Like the time Herzog was on the outs in Kansas City after winning three successive division titles. In one of them, he had some conflict with first baseman John Mayberry over his mental lapses during the playoffs with the Yankees. Herzog says, since Mayberry was a favorite of ownership, he knew that meant the end of Herzog “as soon as I didn’t win.”

That was clear to him, he said, slipping into Autry’s twang and calling him The Cowboy. Like the time at the 1979 All-Star Game when Autry encountered Mrs. Ewing Kaufman, wife of the Royals’ owner. “How’s Mr. K.?” Autry inquired. “He’s fine,” Mrs. K. said.

“And how’s my good friend, Whitey?” Autry said.

“Who gives a rap,” Mrs. K. replied.

“Whitey,” Herzog said, doing Autry again, “then I knew you were in trouble.”

The day after the season ended Herzog left his house early. When his wife asked where he was going, Herzog replied: “I’m going out to get fired and then I’m going golfing.” And so it was. It was no surprise, but Herzog still regards finishing second with those Royals his best managing job.

His dreadful pitching staff gave up 808 runs and his team didn’t get eliminated until three days were left in the season. “How come I can remember that and I still can’t find my keys?” he said.

He built the Royals into what survives as this team. He decided Frank White could win at second base. He came to the Cardinals when they were down and won the World Series in his third season, with Keith Hernandez as Most Valuable Player. He won the Eastern Division championship this year rebuilding, and piecing together a bullpen to replace Bruce Sutter, who was thought to be irreplaceable.

He thrives on communication with his players and with the media. He points out that his clubhouse has never been closed to the press even though the trend now is to a “cooling-off period,” which permits players to run out. “Writers don’t lose any games,” Herzog said.

In between he had to deal with cocaine problems on the Cardinals, which were mirrors of less-understood problems on the Royals. He had conflict with Hernandez before the drug issue. He says he still admires Hernandez greatly. But in the aftermath of the final game with the Mets, in which Hernandez got five hits in a great pressure performance, Herzog showed some sting.

He was asked what he thought of what Hernandez had done and he responded waspishly: “That’s why he makes $1.6 million; you don’t expect him to pop up five times. But I’ll take Mattingly any time, no matter what you people say. And I’m not so sure I wouldn’t take my guy, over him.”

Jack Clark is “his guy.” It’s a comparison defensible only out of pique. Herzog has his pique over Hernandez. The next day he was more paternal on the question. Hernandez was the best first baseman he’d ever seen and the most alert player he’d ever seen on defense. If he was as deep into offense, he’d hit .450, Herzog said.

He also mused that he might have handled Hernandez’s problem better than merely waiting for Hernandez to bring it to the manger’s office. “Maybe I should have gone to him,” Herzog said. “Maybe that’s what I shudda done.”

He much prefers going on the record with tales of the two years he refereed basketball in the old American Basketball League. When the players yelled at him, he yelled back at them.

He did college games, too. Like the game at Rockhurst when the Washburn coach flattered Herzog and got all over the other ref. “I told him, if he got on him, he got on me,” Herzog recalled. The other ref called a foul and the coach got all over him. “It was the only time I ever tried to get a coach,” Herzog said. “He was winning by 14 and he lost by five. I realized that was wrong and I never did that again.”

But he still liked telling about it. He liked it almost as much as telling about 86-year-old Cardinals owner Gussie Busch saying--Herzog does his growl, too--to him: “Whitey, you’re crazy.”