The St. Louis Cardinals Rushmore Project
TOWER GROVE — I watched Bob Costas’ interview with Willie Mays and Hank Aaron the other day, and while the whole of the interview is brilliant there was a line from it I couldn’t shake. Costas said if there were a Mt. Rushmore for baseball — and why isn’t there, already? — Mays and Aaron would both be on it. Presumably Babe Ruth would be riding shotgun.
That leaves a fourth, the Teddy Roosevelt spot.
Does Teddy Ballgame fit? Stan the Man? What about Cy Young, Barry Bonds or, from sheer impact on the game, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis or Marvin Miller? For every one you settle on, three more bubble-up as possibilities.
The question has followed me for a few days, creeping in while I’m watching the ALCS. The upstart Tampa Bay Rays’ Rushmore would be … certainly Carl Crawford, definitely Joe Maddon (imagine those Buddy Holly glasses carved out of stone), maybe Evan Longoria or Carlos Pena and what about Danys Baez? I’m working on an all-time 40-man roster from a fusion of Colorado Rockies’ and Arizona Diamondbacks’ histories (more on that later this week), and the Rushmore Question infiltrated that thought process. The Rockies Rushmore: Larry Walker, Todd Helton, Andres Galarraga and Eric Young, for his opening-day homer, or … Ryan Turner, for what he respresented if not how he did.
A Redbird Rushmore? Four Cardinals and Hall of Famers.
The St. Louis Cardinals’ Rushmore …
Well, that’s the purpose for this blog.
Back in May 2004, tied to the departure of Kurt Warner from the Rams, The Post-Dispatch attempted to put together a St. Louis Sports Rushmore. A poll was conducted online. Articles written. An illustration drawn.
The STL Rushmore was: Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Warner and Mark McGwire. That monument might not be as permanent as imagine. Columnist Bernie Miklasz argued that any STL Sports Rushmore must include Bob Pettit. P-D writer Dan O’Neill captured the plight of the project:
The Mount Rushmore theme begs for specificity and direction. As defined by the American Heritage Dictionary, the word “icon,” used in this context, pertains to “one who is the object of great attention and devotion; an idol.” The explanation leaves plenty of room for interpretation.
That is precisely what makes it so fun to throw around.
… Another way to construct the foursome — and create more debate — would be to ask for the four “most popular” players in St. Louis sports history. The answer is a little more subjective, the list not as burdensome. Musial makes every list, unless it excludes icons of Polish descent. You could make a case for Warner, less so for McGwire. Ozzie Smith and Brett Hull, again, are strong.
But names like Willie McGee, Red Schoendienst, Jackie Smith, and Whitey Herzog deserve serious airtime. Why, you might even cast a write-in vote for John Mabry.
Coming up with one for Major League Baseball is a Sisyphean task. I came upon a few sites that have taken polls — Ruth is running away with a spot, of course. It would have to be constructed in stages.
With the blog’s new power of polls, there’s the technology to try and the offseason offers the time to
Four Hall of Famers and the current Franchise Player
experiment. Found a few attempts out there to put a Cardinals Rushmore together. Most, like the P-D’s Rushmore, starts with Musial and the consensus scatters from there. (For example, I mentioned it on the Bird Land@Facebook page and got some excellent suggestions; some surprising omissions, too.)
So, let’s start. Below is a list of 15 people from Cardinals history, and you can select four for a Cardinals Rushmore. The floor is open for additions, too. If, for example, you think Enos Slaughter, Dizzy Dean or Ken Boyer deserve a spot on the cliff’s wall, then make the case in the comments. The poll below isn’t by any means set in, um, stone. There is a good argument to be made for Bing Devine.
If nothing else, this poll will distill the discussion and serve as a good conversation starter …
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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. 
Pujols should be an automatic. True, he hasn’t sustained his greatness as long as Musial and Gibson did over the course of their career’s. But, when looking at where he currently ranks from a stat standpoint he clearly belongs with the Cardinal greats:
HRs: Pujols ranks second
Runs: 8th in the history of the orgnization.
RBI: 6th in the history of the orgnization
total bases: 6th
He is only going to continue to improve. Also, his case grows even stronger when you consider what a big part of the community he has been over the course of his career.
So, I think, Musial, Gibson, and Pujols are givens. The fourth spot is tough. Even though, possibly, I think Ozzie has had some votes taken away for not being involved in the community, I didn’t take that into consideration when voting. I only took into consieration what they did in their playing careers. I’ll go with Ozzie.