COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — In 1915, James Roy Stockton, a young sportswriter from St. Louis, traveled to Cuba to cover spring training of the hometown Federal League club and started a tradition that, as of Sunday, continues today.

It’s been a pet project  for awhile — compiling a list of  baseball writers, like John Lowe of The Detroit Free Press,  who got their start or their inspiration from being in, from or connected to St. Louis, a city whose rich broadcasting history is well known. This past weekend a visit to  the National Baseball  Hall of Fame and its writers wing helped connect the dots to reveal the rich lineage for our city and our paper.  There is  now an uninterrupted line stretching nearly a century  of Hall of Fame writers who have covered  baseball for the St. Louis fans and The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

With  Rick Hummel’s official induction into the “Scribes & Mikemen” wing of the Hall of Fame, a Hall of Fame writer has covered baseball in St. Louis for 92 consecutive years.

Ever since Stockton  boarded a ship to Havana, fans here have had the best.

Moreover, there  is a direct chain between Stockton and Hummel. In 1917, Stockton joined the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where he would cover the St. Louis Browns and go onto fame as the chief chronicler of The Gas House Gang. During his time penning the histories of Dizzy Dean, Pepper Martin & Co., Stockton also acted as sports editor and  made a hire —  a young  Bob Broeg. As Stockton retired from the P-D in 1958, Broeg was in full swing as baseball writer and columnist. Broeg joined the beat  in time to  translate Stan Musial’s greatness into words, and in the 1970s he hired Hummel. From Stockton to Hummel to Broeg there is a seemless transition of  Cardinals beat writers from  The Roarin’ of the 1920s to the Podcasts of 2007.

It’s all right there on a wall in Cooperstown.

But there’s more.

The award that Stockton, Broeg and Hummel received that gains entrance to the writers wing is the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, named for The Sporting News editor, who became publisher of the St. Louis-based baseball magazine in 1914.

Several of their peers  – some of whom grew up here reading their baseball reportage  – believe that Bob Burnes and Neal Russo  should be up on that wall,  beside their Cardinals-covering  contemporaries. Burnes was among the first to blend sportswriting and sports broadcasting, though Stockton also had his own radio program and was a part of the Cardinals first telecast some 60 years ago.  Russo has the respect of his colleagues  for his wit (press box comedian, don’t you know) and intelligence. Found an article that referred to him as the “Mad Genius.” Russo bridged the beat from Broeg to Hummel, covering the Cardinals from 1958 to 1977.

One writer who is on the wall and is rarely thought of as a St. Louis-based  journalist is perhaps the most famous baseball writer of them all: Red Smith. From 1928-1936, Smith worked for  The St. Louis Star-Times. He began at the paper as the Browns beat writer and moved eventually to other league and covering the other team, competing with Stockton.

It was Smith who nominated Stockton to be the commissioner of baseball.

(The first “Commish”, so to speak.)

In the nomination, according to the Hall of Fame, Smith wrote of Stockton:

He is … “a man of many gifts and fierce integrity, whose years as one of the country’s finest baseball writers have given him a rich background of experience and knowledge.”

Stockton was renowned for his sharp writing and its barbs.  With his written criticisms, Stockton “could thrust so cleanly that he didn’t even draw blood,” Broeg wrote.  (Same compliment can be given to the  self-dubbed ChatMeister, Joe Strauss,  though  he might have  cut a little deep in answering today’s first question … and rightfully so.) Stockton did not serve as commissioner of the major leagues, though he did lead the Florida State League for a short time. His protege continued on covering the Cardinals and developing his own voicce. It’s one most people still reading this know well.

Mr. Broeg remains the voice of the Post-Dispatch sports section, as his influence is everywhere among my colleagues, from Hummel to Bernie Miklasz and beyond. I toured the Hall of Fame on Monday with friend and former hockey scribe Gary Mueller – Mr. Plus/Minus, is what I call him — and GM sprinkled our walk with stories about Broeg. The man with the bowtie nicknamed Musial, helped write the first pension plan for baseball players, bought Bob Gibson a pivotal ham-and-egg sandwich,  and was essential in developing many of the current practices at the Hall of Fame.

Mr. Broeg’s boundless joy for sports and life sprang from his writing, seized the reader by the hand and led them on a frolic through anecdotes like a child does a parent through a toy store. He also, as we talked about often this past weekend, nurtured the younger writers.

When I returned from Alaska, where I went on my first assignment as Blues beat writer for the Post-Dispatch, there  in my mailbox was a letter.

It was  signed “BB”.

It is here, at my  desk,  to my left, along with a few other prized letters.

In his autobiograhy, Mr. Broeg wrote what could be read as a suggestion for young sportswriters, young baseball writers. He opens Chapter 49:

Sportswriting has gone from prosy paeans to obsessive locker-room coverage, and what athletes say has replaced what athletes do.

Oh, somewhere in this promised land is a compromise.

We don’t need over-written flowery pieces preceded by ryhmes or limericks.

Which brings us to  ”Commish”, the clear descendent of Stockton and Broeg, no rhymes or limericks necessary.  Rick wrote about his experience in Cooperstown this weekend and  Bernie spoke for so many of us with his column from Sunday’s induction. There’s little  that I can add, save for what a pleasure it’s been working to the right of  Mr. Hummel after years of reading Mr. Hummel. And what a learning experience, too.  Rick keeps me sane. He has saved the lives of many cell phones  by reminding me with just a little glance  that chucking the  closest object that’s just begging to be thrown maybe isn’t the best thing to do in public. He’s also taught me:

• To listen more than you talk.
• Know the umpires, know the people around the game as well as the people playing the game. Everybody has a story to tell. That doesn’t mean everyone has a story you will write about it, but everyone has a story you should know or that they want you to know.
• You can always know the game better.
• You always have to know the game better.
• That  there is room for different opinions.  I remember the first time I disagreed with Rick’s opinion on a  spot of strategy, and, man, did I wonder what  screw was loose in my mind,  what nuance I was missing.  Rick confirmed that my opinion wasn’t wrong, it just wasn’t his. For that I am ever grateful.
• Know your audience. Nobody knows Cardinals fans and what they want to read better than Mr. Hummel. He did, after all, help create them.
• Questions can be pointed without being bombastic. Too often, in this generation, we think  tough  questions are  rude questions and the  weight of a question is measured in volume not  intelligence.  Want to know why  Rick gets great quotes? He asks great  questions.
• Trust is nurtured, developed … and always at stake.
• Don’t lose sight of what’s most important.
• Though not in so many words, he  repeats that one to me every so often.

It is a daunting lineage that Rick joined years ago, but he is worthy. I have been asked by several other journalists in recent days  if there is anyone who doesn’t speak glowingly of the person Rick Hummel is. I haven’t met one. Not a player. Not a front-office person. Not a reporter. Not an editor. He is like his predecessors. Sharp with words, kind with colleagues, reverential to the game.  A baseball writer’s baseball writer.

Here’s hoping he plans to pound the keyboard for many more years, carrying the coverage to 100 years of Hall of Fame writing and beyond. He fits the city, fits the  position and when the plaque goes up at the newly christened  Broeg/Hummel Press Box there is a fitting saying that should accompany the names there. To follow a theme and with apologies to Ford Frick, it should  read:

Baseball writing’s perfect gentlemen

-30-