Cardinals mourn death of coach, a “passionate teacher”
PITTSBURGH — Dave Ricketts shaped generations of catchers as a coach for the St. Louis Cardinals and will be remembered for his “passion”, his “zeal for life” and a contagious eagerness to teach, friends, teammates and pupils said Sunday after learning the longtime coach had died early Sunday morning.
“I learned a lot from him,” said Cardinals third-base coach Jose Oquendo. “I learned how to teach. He was a friend and a good mentor. He had a great passion for teaching, and he knew how to get his point across in a unique way. He made sure you understood it. If he needed to repeat it 100 times or 1,000 times, he would do it until you got it done.
“He didn’t quit on anybody.”
Ricketts, who played for the Cardinals in the 1960s and returned later as a coach and instructor, died a day after his 73rd birthday. He had been battling cancer. He lived in St. Louis.
A native of Pennsylvania, Ricketts finished his major-league playing career as a Pirate and went onto coach for the Pirates at the major-league level. Former Pittsburgh pitcher and current broadcaster Steve Blass remembered as the hardest-working coach he’s had been around in 49 years with the game.
“He was totally dedicated to the game, to the team he worked for,” Blass said. “I’ve never seen a coach work harder than Dave Ricketts. … He had a zest for life and that was a part of his personal life and we are all better because it spilled over into his professional life.”
Ricketts worked closely with such catchers as Mike Matheny and Yadier Molina, and those around the clubhouse said both Gold Glove-caliber catchers gained some of their work ethic from Ricketts’ tireless work with them. Jeff Murphy, the Cardinals’ bullpen catcher, knew “Mr. Ricketts” since he was drafted and described how Ricketts “didn’t care if you were a first-round pick or a free agent, whatever you were he wanted to get the best you had.”
Ricketts won a World Series with the Cardinals in 1967.
Arrangements for services were not immediately available Sunday morning.
Manager Tony La Russa placed Ricketts in the category of the Cardinals’ Mount Rushmore of coaches, which includes longtime minor-league instructor George Kissell, the keeper of the Cardinal Way, and Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst. It was the young catchers who worked mostly with Ricketts, but it was the entire organization that benefited from Ricketts’ presence.
“Sometimes the word ‘great’ gets over-used, and it’s a shame,” La Russa said. “There have been some truly great Cardinals who have come through the organization, but I don’t know anyone greater or more beloved than Dave Ricketts.”
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
My first Cardinal home game was August 23, 1968. After traveling all day from Lincoln, Nebraska, my friend John & I arrived in mid-afternoon. Peeking through the centerfield gate down into the stadium, we observed Orlando Cepeda taking some extra hitting in an effort to get out of a slump. Pitching to him in the August heat that day was Dave Ricketts. As I recall, it was a long session. That night, Cepeda connected off Bob Veale for a 2-run homer that tied the game in an eventual Cardinal victory. But Dave Ricketts is the unsung hero of the story for his unequaled unselfishness.