DOWNTOWN — For parts of four decades Cardinals’ pitching coach Dave Duncan has been a coach at the big-league and this season is his 29th a pitching coach, the most by any person every to hold the position. Manager Tony La Russa is fond of saying that most of the game is pitching and that Duncan handles all of the pitching decisions.

So when La Russa goes into Cooperstown, Duncan will surely go …

Fishing.

Many of the guesses for this week’s PCQ echoed of the coverage of pitching coaches in the last decade. The most familiar names got the most votes — from Joe Torre’s righthand man, Mel Stottlemyre, to the constantly rocking Leo Mazzone. But those pitching coaches have actually had far shorter careers in their positions than you’d assume. (One reader details it below.) The pitching coach whom Duncan is passing in the record books is Galen Cisco.

Cisco, a star fullback and captain at (the) Ohio State, did not have much of a tenure as a baseball player, but this, from Baseball-Reference.com, is what he did as a coach:

After his playing days, Cisco was a big league coach for nearly 30 years. He was a member of the Kansas City Royals staff from 1971 to 1979 and then was a Montreal Expos coach from 1980 to 1984. He then spent the next three seasons with the San Diego Padres before spending 1988 with the Toronto Blue Jays. He returned to the Jays as pitching coach from 1990 to 1995 and ended his career as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies staff from 1997 to 2000.

Leave it to readers to take it in a direction I could only hope the would. Several took the question below and went looking for a Cardinals’ connection.

PCQ: The PostCards Question

This is Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan’s 29th season as a pitching coach, making him the longest-serving pitching coach in baseball history. Who held the record before him? What was it?

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READERS ANSWER

MARK S., New York, N.Y.: I have to say that my first couple of thoughts were just on the pitching coaches that you hear a lot about in the media, Mel Stottlemyre, Leo Mazzone. But, upon further review, those guys are relative short timers in comparison to Duncan (Stottlemyre for 22 years … and Mazzone for 17 years). So, I had to go digging a little deeper but surprisingly not too deep as it was on Duncan’s biography page on the Cards’ website. He passed a gentleman by the name of Galen Cisco, who played from ‘61-’69 for the Red Sox, Mets and Royals, compiling a below average record of 25-56 with a 4.56 ERA.  …

Interesting to note that he was Whitey Herzog’s pitching coach while in KC. … Not sure if it is more unusual that he was the pitching coach for so many different managers over the early part of his career even while sticking with the same team, or that Duncan and La Russa have been together for going on 27 years now.

JEFF MAYFIELD, Lincoln, Ill.: I’m going to say — Galen Cisco.

DAVE MITCHELL, Waterloo, Iowa: The old record of 28 years was held by Galen Cisco, who coached from 1971 to 2000 for the Royals, Expos, Padres, Blue Jays and Phillies.

JIM MUELLER: Galen Cisco holds 2nd place with 28 years. To heck with the details, here’s the connection to Cardinals history:

On September 20, 1964 the Phillies were ahead of both the Cardinals and Reds by 6 1/2 games. The Phillies folded and lost a 6 1/2 game lead in one week. On the last day of the season, the Reds and Cardinals were tied for first. Cincinnati lost and it came down to the Cardinals-Mets game. The Mets got to starting pitcher Curt Simmons, but Bob Gibson came in and stopped the damage. (Gibson had pitched eight innings in a loss two days earlier.) The Cardinals won 11-5. Galen Cisco was the losing pitcher for the Mets. Had Cisco pitched a better game, the Cardinals wouldn’t have gone on to beat the Yankees in the World Series, and I wouldn’t have enjoyed 2nd grade quite as much.

AARON FREY, Peoria, Ill.: Galen Cisco was a major-league pitching coach for 28 years, which turned out to be much better than his career as a player. Cisco went 25-56 with a 4.56 ERA in his seven-year stint in the majors, during which he played for the Red Sox, Mets and Royals. He posted a decent 3.62 ERA for the Mets in 1964 but finished 6-19, one loss short of tying teammate Tracy Stallard (best known for serving up Roger Maris’ 61st home run) for the league lead. A third member of that rotation, Jack Fisher, finished with 17 losses, good (more like bad) for fourth in the NL.

CHAD KAHL: Official Cardinals web site bio of Duncan mentioned Galen Cisco.

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Every week during the regular season, a PostCards Question will appear at the bottom of The Post-Dispatch’s baseball writer Derrick Goold’s mailbag blog called PostCards, a spin-off of Bird Land. To submit answers to the PCQ write postcards@post-dispatch.com. With all answers please include your name and hometown.

PostCards will run online exclusively at StlToday.com.

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