Sunday Night Baseball Cardinals HoF Whitey Herzog 1983 Topps #186

With Sunday Night Baseball in St Louis for the evening we take a look at Cardinals Hall of Fame Manager Whitey Herzog

1984 Topps #186 Whitey Herzog

Whitey Herzog led the Cardinals to three NL Pennants and a World Championship during 11 seasons as the clubs manager. His 822 wins with the Cardinals rank 3rd in team history behind fellow Hall of Famers Tony LaRussa and Red Schoendienst.

Flip

1983 Topps #186 Whitey Herzog (b-side)

This 1983 Topps card captures Herzog fresh off the Cardinals World Series victory. Note that the final line of the card tells us his 1982 Cardinals squad finished in first place in the East with a 92-70 record, but it does not mention the teams World Championship.

Herzog's additional HoF Qualifications  1985 Manager of the Year, 1281 career victories, 26 Post Season Ws, 6 division Wins, and two 100 win seasons.

Above in Whitey Herzog's playing stats one sees that his career lasted eight seasons with four clubs. He was primarily a backup outfielder who never started more than 100 games. In 1959 he had an impressive .446 OBP in 157 plate appearance, the following year he had career highs in HR (8) , RBI (38)  and Runs Scored (43).

1983 Topps Manager Cards
This non-sequential Managers subset of the 1983 flagship contains some interesting names, HoFs Herzog, LaRussa (White Sox), Frank Robinson (Giants), Joe Torre (Braves), Tommy LaSorda, Dick Williams (Padres), Earl Weaver, Bobby Cox (Blue Jays), and Sparky Anderson (Tigers). The Phillies manager in the set is Pat Corralles.

Whitey Herzog HoF Index 
1958 Topps (forthcoming)
1960 Topps #92 (HoF Election)

Sources and Links
Baseball-ref

Welcome to the Hall of Fame Whitey Herzog!

Just watched Whitey Herzog speak about getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. If you get a chance to catch the interview, it is definitely worthwhile.

Herzog still knows his baseball and was very interesting, genuine, and humorous. Among the insights that he shared was his opinion that all three rounds of the playoffs should be 3 rounds and that MLB should not allow TV to dictate so much of the playoff schedule. For the post season games he stressed the necessity of using instant replay.

For the Collector
1960 Topps #92 Whitey Herzog

Whitey Herzog's Rookie Card is his 1957 Topps #29 card which has gone as low as $5.25 in recent auctions - there is probably a slight bump currently and the card will likely come down next year. The 1960 card featured here is a common and likely could be had for 50 cents, or less.

The only autographed Whitey Herzog card in recent ebay sales was a 2003 Topps Retired Signature Edition Autograph which went $11.45 and features Whitey in a Royals Uniform.


Sources and Links
Whitey Herzog HoF Index
ebay
Vintage Cardboard