COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. • The journey from New Athens began on Nov. 9, 1931, when Dorrel Norman Elvert Herzog was born with the help of a midwife. Herzog has said his mother had meant to name him Darrell, but the name was misspelled on the birth certificate.

Fortunately, as Herzog grew up, he didn't have to answer much to Dorrel or Norman or even Elvert. In grade school and high school, he became "Relly." In his first pro season in McAlester, Okla., in 1949, he became "Whitey," as named by a local sports writer. Later he became "the White Rat."

On a Sunday afternoon that was alternately rainy, then sunny, then rainy, then sunny again outside the Clark Sports Center, Herzog officially became a Hall of Famer. His baseball career was marked by scant success as a player — he had 25 career homers and batted .257 in nine seasons as a big leaguer — but it also was marked by considerable success as a manager in both Kansas City and St. Louis, where he won a total of six division titles, three league championships, all with the Cardinals, and the 1982 World Series with the Cardinals.

Herzog, dressed in a nifty pinstriped suit with a Cardinal red tie, said that ever since it had been announced in December that he was a Veterans' Committee choice as a Hall of Fame manager, people had asked him, "'What's it feel like to be a Hall of Famer?' I kept saying, 'I won't know until July 25.'

"Well, now I can tell you what it feels like. Being elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, is like going to heaven before you die."

Sitting behind Herzog on a stage that included 47 already inducted Hall of Famers were former Kansas City third baseman George Brett and Cardinals shortstop Ozzie Smith and pitcher Bruce Sutter, all of whom Herzog managed.

"If all three of them hadn't played for me, I wouldn't be here today," said Herzog. "I'd probably be back in New Athens, Illinois, digging ditches or something."

A smallish crowd by recent Hall of Fame standards of about 10,000 was on hand to sit outside in the indifferent weather. About half that or more seemed to be Cardinals fans and included were former Cardinals who played for Herzog in St. Louis such as Jack Clark, Rick Horton, Jeff Lahti, Steve Braun and John Costello, plus coach Mike Roarke, trainer Gene Gieselmann and clubhouse men Buddy Bates and Frank Coppenbarger.

Herzog praised fellow inductees Andre Dawson and umpire Doug Harvey, although Herzog's praise of Harvey was mixed. Herzog always had called Harvey a "lousy weatherman" as an umpire.

"Doug and I didn't see eye to eye all the time," said Herzog. "Doug was a great umpire. I never got into trouble with him or arguments with him over balls and strikes, safe or out, fair or foul. It was always a day like today.

"He wouldn't put the damn tarp on."

Herzog had said the day before that Harvey had ejected him more times than all other umpires combined.

It had rained, occasionally very hard, during Harvey's speech, which was pre-recorded (Harvey has been receiving radiation treatments for throat cancer), but then it stopped before Herzog spoke.

"I want you to notice that I stopped the rain," Harvey said as he spoke briefly at the podium.

Herzog then said in his speech: "It's sunny now. The rain's over. Don't put the tarp on. Doug, one thing, please don't kick me out of Cooperstown."

For most of his speech, Herzog was in control, although his voice broke a couple of times.

"You know, when something like this happens to you, you say to yourself, how did this happen?" said Herzog. "And then you start thinking about all the good people you worked with, all the good people you worked for, all the good coaches that worked for you.

"I'm not here because I'm a player. I'm here because of managing. And I had a lot of good players play for me. None of this would have happened if it hadn't been for some illustrious people that just helped me."

Herzog started with manager Vern Hoscheit at McAlester, a New York Yankees farm team.

"He and his wife, Ellen, treated me like I was at their home," said Herzog. "I remember one Sunday afternoon we had a night game, and he invited me to go to a chicken place, family-style, with mashed potatoes and everything else, and when Vern asked me what I wanted to drink, I said, 'Well, I always drink a beer on Sunday when I had my dinner.'

"He said, 'Beer? We got a game tonight.' I said, 'Vern, by the time I was 5 — I'm German — I had drank more beer than milk.'

"(Hoscheit) let me have a beer. Luckily I got four hits that night. Never heard anything about it again."

The former manager that Herzog talked most about, though, was the legendary Casey Stengel, who managed the Yankees when Herzog was a rookie in their system in 1954 but often was a mentor to Herzog during his managing days.

"When I met Stengel," said Herzog, "it was like an enlightening thing because I would go to bed at night, (and) instead of thinking about girls, I would be thinking about what the hell he talked about all day. He had his own language, and it took me hours sometimes to figure him out.

"But Casey was an outstanding teacher, he was a very smart baseball man, and he and I became fast friends."

Retelling one of his favorite stories, Herzog said he was sure that Stengel, who used to play for the New York Giants, thought Herzog was the grandson of former Giants third baseman Buck Herzog.

"And I never told him any different," Herzog said. "He said, 'How's Granddad?' And I'd say, 'Oh, hell, he's great.'"

Herzog said that "for some reason, (Stengel) knew I was going to be a big-league manager. My high school teachers would have died if they had heard him say that. But the big thing is, he knew.

"And he wrote on some pictures . . . I was a great leader and I had not led anything in my life."

Stengel had two main pieces of advice for Herzog by which Stengel thought Herzog should live his managerial life.

"(Stengel) said: 'You've got to learn how to handle the press. When you've got a bad team . . . , you're very nice to them. You feed them and you drink (with) them, and you stay up all night with them having a few pops. Put them to bed about 4:30, and by the time their deadline comes, they won't even put the score of the game in.'

"The other thing he said is that you're going to get interviewed a lot. Casey said: 'Always ask the guy how much time you (need)? When he says 15 minutes, you say, "How many questions you want to ask me?—"' "

Stengel said that if the answer was three, "when he asks you that first question, you talk for 15 minutes. And then you only get in one-third of the trouble."

"So, as smart as I am, most of it is because of Casey Stengel."