Summer of '68: The Season That Changed Baseball--And America--Forever Read Online Free PDF Page A

Illustrated ’s Neil Leifer photographed the St. Louis Cardinals’ starting nine, sitting in front of their individual lockers, the more conventional shot would have been to have each of the 1967 world champions in uniform, ready to take the field for another game. But for the final takes, only manager Red Schoendienst was in uniform, holding his red Cardinals cap loosely in his hand.
    Fanned back alongside of him, each astride a red-and-white stool, were the players who made up the best team in baseball. Their civilian threads were bright hues of blue, red, yellow, and even an off-pink. The scene would have held its own with any of the day’s fashion shoots. The Cardinals’ ranks included Roger Maris (the single-season home-run leader), catcher Tim McCarver, pitcher Bob Gibson (the reigning World Series MVP), third baseman Mike Shannon, outfielders Curt Flood and Lou Brock (the top base-stealer in the game) and first baseman Orlando Cepeda (one of the top Latino players of the day).
    At this point in history, they were also considered the best team that money could buy. Sports Illustrated had no reservations about hanging a price tag on each of the stars: Maris, $75,000; McCarver, $60,000 ; Gibson, $85,000 ; Shannon, $40,000 ; Flood, $72,500; Brock, $70,000 ; and Cepeda, $80,000. Of course, such figures seem like a pittance today. As Gibson later remarked, today one would be hard-pressed to sign a utility infielder for the team’s total payroll of $607,000. Yet in ’68 this was considered an unprecedented chunk of coin. At the same time, there was no arguing the fact that the investment had certainly yielded results. The Cardinals were a budding dynasty, the world champs in 1964 and 1967, and many expected them to repeat in 1968. But the team was also perceived by some fans and certainly some sportswriters as enjoying the spotlight, the fancy threads, and the big money a bit too much.
    Among the everyday players, the flamboyant Cepeda had established himself as one of the team leaders. Nineteen games into the 1966 season, the Puerto Rican star had been traded away from his adopted city, San Francisco. At first he dreaded leaving the Giants for St. Louis, a city that he considered to be as segregated as any in America’s heartland. Then he met his new teammates and quickly became one of their most vocal clubhouse personalities.
    “When I was traded from the Giants to the Cardinals in ’66, it was a complete shock to me. A real heartbreaker,” Cepeda said. “I grew up with the Giants’ organization. While I’d had my differences with them before the trade, you always thought you’d be with the team you came up with. I was a Giants player, first and foremost, and then to be shown the door was difficult.
    “People need to remember it was a different time back then. Almost everybody thought they’d begin and end their careers with the ballclub that signed them. It’s not like today when you go from one team to another. Back then you were proud to play with the same team your whole career. But I have this gift—I never look back. And that’s what I did after I was traded to St. Louis.”
    When Cepeda joined the team, he was surprised by how fast his new teammates made him feel welcome. It soon became apparent to the slugger that the Cardinals were “a bunch of great personalities, great teammates, and we knew how to play the game.”
    Cepeda added, “Each and every one of them went out of their way to tell me how much I was going to like playing in St. Louis, how we were going to win a World Series together. You couldn’t have asked for more. I’ll be honest—it took me awhile to get over that trade. But soon I realized what a good situation I was in. Soon I was beginning to look at those guys as my brothers.”
    Cepeda became so at home with the team that he helped with a pregame ritual that the old Cardinals still love to talk about. Before big games, Cepeda would stand atop the money truck, the place