Red's 70th anniversary highlights big day for debuts - STLtoday.com
LOUIS • While Chicago gets gussied up and effervescent about Day 1 of Kris Bryant , the Cardinals will spend Friday celebrating Year 70 of Red Schoendienst . On April 17, 1945, the Ol’ Redhead slipped into a big-league jersey for the first time... Schoendienst’s first big-league hit was a triple for Billy Southworth’s Cardinals in a 3-2 loss. Schoendienst went on to rap 2,448 more hits in his career and, in 1989, earn induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Not too shabby for someone the Cardinals signed off a park bench. A few years, sitting in the seats behind home plate at Busch Stadium III, Schoendienst told me about how he became a big leaguer. A buddy showed him an announcement in the paper that was a casting call for the National League ballclub in St. Louis, some 55 miles away. He and his friend hitchhiked to St. Louis to participate in the tryouts and hopefully stick around for the big-league game afterward. The Cardinals asked Schoendienst to stick around, and he didn’t have a place to sleep so he grabbed some zzzz ’s on a bench. Schoendienst didn’t get a ride home until the Cardinals offered him one – so they could sign him. A Hall of Fame player, Schoendienst also served the Cardinals as the club’s winningest manager in the second half of the 20th century. Source: www.stltoday.com
