El Birdos: The 1967 and 1968 St. Louis Cardinals

doug feldmann

In 1953, August A. Busch purchased the St. Louis Cardinals for nearly four million dollars. His dream included not only the best players money could buy but a brand new Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis. The early sixties found Busch working on both, and by May 1966, when the new Busch Stadium was opened, the St. Louis Cardinals were on the cusp of greatness. A world championship would follow in 1967, and in 1968 the Cardinals battled the Tigers in a classic seven-game series, narrowly losing their bid for back-to-back titles. This volume looks back at the outstanding Cardinal teams of the 1967 and 1968 seasons. Beginning with the ownership shift in the early 1950s, it examines the events leading up to the opening of the new stadium and tracks the various player trades, policy changes and inside dealings of baseball that produced one of the era's great teams. The effects of Branch Rickey's farm system on both the franchise's success and the sport of baseball are discussed, as are the rumblings of labor trouble that would directly involve one of the Cardinals' own. An appendix contains detailed statistics from the 1967 and 1968 seasons. An index and period photographs are also included.

Genres baseball

410 pages, Paperback

First published April 3,2007

This edition

Format: 410 pages, Paperback
Published: April 17, 2007 by McFarland
ISBN: 9780786429653
ASIN: 0786429658
Language: English

About the author

doug feldmann

Doug Feldmann is an American author of thirteen books, focusing mainly upon baseball history and the sport's sociological impact on urban and small-town America. His work has been recognized in multiple-time nominations for the Casey Award and the Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research. He is a professor in the College of Education at Northern Kentucky University and a former baseball scout for the Cincinnati Reds, Seattle Mariners, and San Diego Padres. He completed his Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies at Indiana University (1999), his master's degree in Secondary Education at Rockford University (1995), and his bachelor's degree in English and History at Northern Illinois University (1992), where he was an outfielder on the baseball team and a walk-on punter on the football team.