If These Walls Could Talk: St. Louis Cardinals: Stories from the St. Louis Cardinals Dugout, Locker Room, and Press Box

For my parents, Jack and Joyce McNeal. There’s no one I’d rather talk ball with than the Chief.

And to my wife, Colleen. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Contents

Foreword by Adam Wainwright

Introduction

Part I: The Current Era

El Hombre’s Return, The Return of Wainwright, The Departure of Shildt

Part II: 2014

Beating Kershaw Again, Wong Flips Out, Kelly Leaves and Then Comes Back Quickly, Jay the DJ, The Edge of A.J., Silent George Returns to St. Louis, Neshek’s Number, Lance Lynn Grows Up, Big City’s Roller Coaster, The Taveras Tragedy

Part III: 2013

Carpenter Becomes a Leadoff Hitter, Shelby Nears Perfection, Historic in the Clutch, El Hombre Visits, Big Mac Returns, Molina’s Mastery, Wacha! Wacha!, Young Guns, Wainwright: A Georgia Pitch, A Boston Bummer

Part IV: 2012

A Cure for the Winter Blues, Matheny Rules the Roost, Kozma’s Good Karma, Graceful Beltran and His Game 7 Woes

Part V: 2011

Holliday Overcomes Weird Injuries, Pujols Beats the Odds, Rasmus Moves On, The Cards’ Clutch Carpenter, Legend of the Rally Squirrel, Motte’s Moxie on the Mound and Off, Hometown Boy Steps Up, Playing Through Pain, Berkman’s Comeback, La Russa’s Last Run, Pujols Takes the Money and Runs

Acknowledgments

Sources

Foreword by Adam Wainwright

As I approach the end of my big league career, I feel more blessed than ever to have spent every single season with the same team—the St. Louis Cardinals. It’s a historic franchise with a winning tradition, and I’m proud to have left my mark on it.

I arrived as a young man who thought he had all the answers, but in the years since, I have learned you never have all the answers. As a rookie, I experienced the ultimate baseball high when I got the last out in all three playoff rounds. The most dramatic came in the seventh game of the National League Championship Series when I struck out Carlos Beltran with two outs in the ninth and the bases loaded, and we won 3–1. What a thrill!

I’ve been asked about that outing so often I often tell people I need a new moment. But really, I’ve had others. I closed out the 2013 National League Division Series with a complete game. I’ve won 20 games twice and 19 a couple of more times. I’ve been awarded a Silver Slugger and a Gold Glove. Of course, there have been setbacks. Injuries cost me all of one season, most of another one, and big parts of a couple more. There have been bad outings and disappointing outcomes, too.

I don’t think any sport gives you more ups and downs than baseball, as you can read on the pages that follow. Heck, just since this book was published initially in 2015, I’ve been on a roller-coaster ride that Cardinals fans have gone on with me. Up and down, up and down.

Up: we won 100 games in 2015. That’s the only season we won that many games when I was also on the Opening Day roster. Down: I blew out my Achilles in ’15, causing me to miss most of the season. Also frustrating: injuring my Achilles eventually led to tweaking my throwing mechanics that resulted in elbow problems, which made 2017 and 2018 the hardest seasons of my career.

Entering 2016 I remember something felt off about our entire team. We had made a number of changes going into that season, and it didn’t feel right. One of the hallmarks of playing for the Cardinals is finding a way to win—no matter what. When the odds are stacked against you, when it seems like there’s no possible outcome other than defeat, you will yourself and your team to victory. Well, those were three years when I saw our team find ways to lose games instead of win them.

Up: we returned to playing Cardinals baseball the right way in 2019. That team regained that old sense of that when we showed up to the ballpark, we felt we would win no matter how the job got done. Somebody was going to step up, and everything would fall into place. In situations where we would’ve found a way to lose a game the previous three years, we now found ways to win. Down: in the National League Championship Series, we got swept by the Washington Nationals after beating a tough Atlanta Braves team.

Up: I was able to be teammates with future Hall of Famers Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, the best third baseman of our generation. Watching another teammate, Jack Flaherty, dominate through an unbelievable second half in ’19 was something else, too. What made it even more special was that our pitching staff fed off what he brought to the table. Down: COVID-19 shut down 2020. We were less than a week in when the positive tests started and we ended up not playing for 16 days. We had 17 players and coaches out at various times. At the start of it, we were stranded in a hotel in Milwaukee and unable to leave our rooms for nearly an entire week.

Up: we still found a way. As performers it was important for us to be able to play and bring happiness to people who were stranded at home and needed a reprieve. When we were holed up in Milwaukee, pitchers threw into their bed pillows, using two baseballs that had to be brought to us. The hitters took dry swings without damaging their hotel rooms. We all found creative ways to not go crazy while confined to our rooms. I’m still very proud and amazed we were able to make the playoffs that year. Despite all the doubleheaders and all the challenges of coming back from the shutdown, we found a way. We developed a mind-set that no matter what life threw at us, we would prevail. It was a true testament to the Cardinal way.

Up: the 17-game winning streak in 2021 was one of the craziest runs I’ve ever seen—much less been a part of. Down: we lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2021 wild-card game. We had chance after chance but just didn’t get it done. We left L.A. knowing we should have won that game, too. I really believe if we had, we would have gone on and won the whole dang thing.

Up: I stood on the mound and played catch with my buddy Yadier Molina often enough to break the all-time record for starts (328) made by a battery. I’ll never forget that, and if you ask me, it’s a record that will never be broken! Down: a lockout ensued before the 2022 season. Baseball’s a business, but that was not enjoyable for fans or players.

Up: Albert Pujols returned for 2022. Pujols brought to our clubhouse and our fanbase an excitement level I had not seen in years. The feeling that Pujols and Molina brought to the table could only be described as magical. To watch two iconic players destined for Cooperstown pouring their hearts out every game was incredible. Every night it seemed like Pujols passed some legendary name—Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Willie Mays—in some statistical category. Wild to even think about! Although it ended differently than we thought and hoped, we still had a whole season of memories no Cardinals player—or fan—will soon forget.

So as you can tell, the Cardinals have been on a heck of a roller-coaster ride. And it’s been a journey you won’t fully understand until you get the inside access you’ll find in this book. What happens in a baseball locker room is supposed to stay in the locker room. But on the pages that follow, you’re going to learn a lot of inside info that will make you appreciate Cardinals baseball even more. Enjoy!

—Adam Wainwright, Cardinals pitcher

Introduction

Bill DeWitt Jr. stood inside the Cardinals clubhouse at Busch Stadium, basking in another celebration. A steady flow of players, coaches and staffers, their family members, media members, and anyone with access to the clubhouse looked to shake hands with and offer congratulations to the chairman of the club.

From 2011 to 2014, watching the Cardinals spray champagne was as much a part of October in St. Louis as trick or treating. During that time they won a World Series, two pennants, and become the first team in the 21st century to make it to a league championship series—the final four of the major leagues—in four consecutive seasons.

As I stood in the clubhouse, trying to stay dry, I rattled off some of these superlatives to DeWitt and asked him, Is this the greatest era in the history of the Cardinals franchise or what?

He paused, long enough that I started to think my question was so obvious he didn’t need to answer. I’ll leave that up to others to decide, he said. I will say that we have a good thing going and I hope we can keep it going.

I’m not that surprised he didn’t answer me more directly. He had no reason to boast and, besides, comparing eras is difficult. But from the smile on DeWitt’s face and the twinkle in his eyes, I could tell my question was one he did not mind hearing. And if this isn’t the best stretch in franchise history, it has to be tied for first, as Tony La Russa might say. Lifelong St. Louisan and noted TV announcer Joe Buck, who knows a little about baseball, doesn’t remember seeing the Cardinals enjoy a greater run. I can remember back to the 1970s and I cannot recall a time when they were anywhere close to where they are right now at the major league level and with the guys they keep bringing up, Buck told me in 2014. They are the envy of baseball—the way they have built this system.

Longtime catcher A.J. Pierzynski, who spent the second half of the 2014 season with the Cardinals after spending 16-plus seasons on other teams, offered the perspective of one who has seen the Cardinals’ success from both sides. It’s almost the Cardinals’ birthright to get in the playoffs and win a World Series, he says. It’s pretty cool to be a part of.

The Cardinals might have made playing in October seem like part of the club’s DNA, but they have endured as many challenges and hardships as any team. They have bid farewell to Hall of Fame manager La Russa and the great slugger Albert Pujols before welcoming him back in his swan song. They’ve dealt with their share of injures like every team, losing pitching mainstays Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright and Jason Motte for one season each.

It’s not just all the winning that has given reason to spoil Cardinals fans. How they have won has been just as exciting. No team in any sport has pulled off as many dramatic victories as the Cardinals in a four-year span. Consider this lineup of thrillers.

• Game 5 of the 2011 NLDS: Chris Carpenter outduels good friend Roy Halladay, the National League’s best pitcher at the time, in a 1–0 complete-game victory against the Philadelphia Phillies to give the Cardinals their first playoff series victory since the 2006 World Series.

• Game 6 of the 2011 World Series: In what is regarded as one of the greatest World Series games ever, the Cardinals were nine outs from the end and trailed the Texas Rangers by three runs but rallied for an 11–9 victory. Twice the Cardinals were down to their last strike, and twice hometown hero David Freese delivered massively clutch hits, including a walk-off home run in the 11th inning.

• Game 5 of the 2012 NLDS: They haven’t forgotten this one in the nation’s capital. The Cardinals trailed 6–0 early and 7–5 entering the ninth at Washington when they rallied for four runs—all recorded with two outs—to pull out a 9–7 victory against the Nationals.

• Game 3 of the 2013 World Series: In the only Fall Classic game ever decided by a walk-off interference play, Allen Craig rushed home with the winning run after an errant throw to third led to him being tripped. Adding to the drama, Craig was playing with a sore left foot that had kept him out of the lineup for seven weeks before the World Series, inspiring teammate Matt Carpenter to describe his effort as Gibson-esque.

• Game 1 of the 2014 NLDS: Trailing Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers 6–2 in the seventh inning, the Cardinals erupted for eight runs against the game’s best pitcher and then held on for a 10–9 victory against Los Angeles. Kershaw had been given a four-run lead 67 times in his career and never lost until Carpenter and Co. got him again.

There have been more than comebacks and shutouts to keep Cardinals Nation on the edge of its collective seat for the past four years. There was Pujols’ three-homer show in the World Series, Michael Wacha’s breakout October, Matt Carpenter’s classic at-bats against Kershaw, La Russa’s bullpen-phone snafu in Texas, the wild-card game in Atlanta that turned on an infield-fly call, and much, much more. And that’s just the postseason.

No wonder Cardinals fans have gained a reputation in some baseball circles for being spoiled. How could they not be? It’s only natural to get a bit greedy when you have witnessed so much history that has gone in your team’s favor.

I feel fortunate to have been in St. Louis for this run and to even have been a Cardinals employee for part of it.

As a journalist, I am a fan of good stories, and the Cardinals have provided me no shortage of opportunities. We moved to St. Louis from San Diego in 2000 when I took a job as baseball editor for The Sporting News. Since I was named after the greatest Cardinal of them all (Stan the Man), it seemed almost destined. Though I oversaw coverage for all 30 teams, The Sporting News was based in St. Louis so Busch Stadium became my office away from the office.

As The Sporting News tried (and tried) to re-invent itself, I eventually became a full-time baseball writer. Eventually, the re-inventions caught up to me, and I was laid off the day after I returned from spring training in 2013. Soon enough, I was able to hook on with foxsports.com and write about the Cardinals.

I also have raised a son, Jackson, who has to be about as big a Cardinals fan as you will find. My youngest daughter, Kate, can tell you that. Many times she has requested a five-minute, no-Cardinals talk zone at the dinner table. We moved from San Diego to St. Louis before Jackson entered first grade. He had started out a Padres fan. (Yes, they exist.) But it did not take long to switch allegiances. If he had not converted by the end of the 2000 season when the Cardinals won 95 games and the Padres 76, Pujols’ arrival in 2001 completed his transformation.

The deal was certainly sealed when the Cardinals played their first game at Busch Stadium following 9/11. We went together that night with no tickets and no sense of what the mood would be like. As we were approaching the stadium, a stranger gave us two tickets that happened to be for seats 20 rows behind the plate. We had a great view when Jack Buck read his poem in tribute to the occasion. I have no idea if the Cardinals won or who they even played, but that really didn’t matter that night.

Since 2015 I’ve known Busch Stadium as my office. I was hired as senior writer for Cardinals Magazine just weeks before the first edition of this book dropped in May of 2015. In the years since, I have been fortunate to work at the same place as John Mozeliak, Wainwright, and all of the Cardinals.

That has given me an inside perspective on all the ups and downs the Cardinals have experienced the past eight seasons, and there have been many. There was 2021’s 17-game winning streak, the bizarre 2020 pandemic season, 2019’s run to the National League Championship Series, the first managerial firings of the DeWitt Jr. era, and the march to 325 by Wainwright and Yadier Molina.

Without a doubt, the most special year in my time so far has been 2022 when the return of Pujols gave us a summer to remember. Pujols’ summer-long exploits had Busch Stadium rocking like it hadn’t since his first turn with the team. In the pages that follow, I hope you enjoy looking back on the magical ’22 season, as well as those epic four seasons I wrote about initially before Busch Stadium became my office. My objective in the chapters ahead was to share as much fascinating, interesting, and inside-the-clubhouse-walls information that I could about the Cardinals. There were certainly many heroes, victories, and celebrations to draw from. I hope you enjoy.

Part I: The Current Era

El Hombre’s Return

Spring training did not get off to a rousing start for the Cardinals in 2022. To begin with, camp for all 30 major league teams opened nearly a month late as management and players bickered over a collective bargaining agreement. For a team breaking in a rookie manager, Oliver Marmol, this was less than ideal.

Once the Redbirds began reporting, nearly every day seemed to bring a discouraging development. The backbone of the team, All-Star catcher Yadier Molina, was a late report because of personal reasons. Those reasons were never revealed, but I later learned that Molina was not sure he wanted to leave his beloved Puerto Rico for another season of absorbing the physical punishment that goes with his job.

Management had been prohibited from communicating with players during the winter-long lockout, and that proved to be a problem with regards to two of the Cardinals’ top pitchers, Jack Flaherty and Alex Reyes. Both came to camp with arm issues the club did not know about and both would be limited all year. Flaherty, the team’s Opening Day starter in 2020 and ’21, would barely top 40 innings for the season as he battled through a balky shoulder. Reyes had it even rougher. He didn’t step on a mound before succumbing to season-ending shoulder surgery in late May.

The club went into spring planning to give its young and coming sluggers a chance to audition for the designated hitter’s position coming to the National League, but in such a condensed camp, there wasn’t a lot of time. There would not be as much time for anything, adding to Marmol’s challenge as a first-year skipper.

Not even two weeks into camp, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak felt his lineup needed a lift, and, heck, maybe all of Cardinals Nation could benefit from an unexpected boost. Late in the afternoon on Sunday March 27, after watching New York Mets aces Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer toy with his team’s lineup in a spring training tilt, Mo decided it was time. He pulled out his cell phone and called Albert Pujols, who was at home in Southern California weighing his options for what would be the final season of his Hall of Fame career. Mozeliak knew others on the club had been reaching out to Pujols about returning to St. Louis and he had pondered such a move for weeks, months, even years. I always thought there might be a reunion somewhere along the way, said Mozeliak, the Cardinals’ general manager when Pujols left after the 2011 season. It’s always hard to speak in those types of terms. But daydreaming is free, so dream.

Pujols felt as healthy as he had in years, which allowed him to work out over the winter without limitations. He even played a few weeks of winter ball for the first time. As the 2022 season approached, Pujols felt there was still a little bounce in his step, and plenty of boom in his bat. If Pujols had not been expecting to hear from the Cardinals’ front office, he certainly had been hoping. Other teams had been reaching out, but he had his eyes on a reunion with the Cardinals. He answered his phone and heard Mozeliak present the opportunity the Cardinals had in mind. They wanted him to DH against left-handed starters and spell Paul Goldschmidt at first base on occasion. It took about