ST. LOUIS — I still remember when I was a little kid and found out Whitey Herzog was from New Athens, Illinois. Being from Freeburg, Illinois, myself, this was a big deal.
You mean to tell me one of the biggest figures in St. Louis sports history came from my little neck of the woods? How did that happen? Then imagine my absolute befuddlement when my dad told me my late grandfather had been a childhood friend of Whitey's? I thought my head was going to explode.
But I think my connection with Whitey Herzog was like most southern Illinoisans, and fellow St. Louis Cardinals fans for that matter.
It's the Mike Shannon effect. Or the Pat Maroon effect. This was OUR guy. He's one of us. He cared about the same things we did. Here's a guy who wanted to work hard, put out the most exciting baseball product he possibly could and then cap off the day's work with a cold one surrounded by friends.
He may have been a baseball genius, but at his heart, he was a small-town local kid who got to live out his dreams and never forgot that. That's why we loved him. And that's why we're going to miss him so much.
The very first thing I ever did in the sports department at KSDK was meet Whitey Herzog.
I was an intern at the station in 2017 and sports director Frank Cusumano called me one morning, knowing I wanted to get in to sports. He said, "I'm going to interview Whitey today. Do you want to come along?" It took about .5 seconds for me to answer.
I was lucky enough to talk with Whitey a few times, and the thing that always stood out was his memory. I'm convinced the man could recount every single second he ever spent on a baseball field.
Once, he told the story of his most embarrassing moment in baseball, being thrown out to end a Major League game in his rookie season. He rattled off every single detail from 60 or so years ago. The score. What the batters ahead of him did. The pitcher. The reaction. All of it. So I went back to the station and thought I'd do some investigating. I pulled up the game he was referring to on Baseball Reference ... and everything was correct down to the most minute detail.
And talk about a baseball life?
Whitey was once on a team with Satchel Paige. He has an entire brand of baseball named after him. He was beloved by his players and had more post-playing relationships with former players than any coach you can find.
If you wanted to get Herzog's attention and you were from the New Athens area, you could always shout out his nickname. No, not "Whitey." Not "White Rat" either. If you gave out a shout of, "Hey Relly," Dorrel Norman Elvert Herzog, would likely look your way. If you knew that nickname, he knew where you were from.
I could go on and on about Whitey's importance in baseball history and his place in the pantheon of Cardinals greats. But you know all that.
His lasting legacy is that he was our friend.