Whitey Herzog says he thinks that new Cardinals manager Mike Matheny will excel.

"Everybody knows that to be a successful manager, you have to have good players," said Herzog. "Managers don't win games. The players win them. But managers can lose 20 games a year if they don't use their personnel right.

"Matheny has the right makeup. I think the players will respect his knowledge. I know he'll be honest with the press. I told him, ‘Be honest with your players.'

"I told him, ‘If you're honest, you can always remember the truth.' You can't remember lies. One lie leads to another one and you don't remember what you said.'

"I told him, ‘Be yourself. Don't go to spring training and have the same program that Tony (La Russa) did. Do what you want to do."

Herzog and Matheny will have lunch together later this week and Herzog said he hoped to be able to accept an invitation from Matheny to sit on the bench with him during spring training games in late March in Jupiter, Fla., when Mary Lou Herzog recovers from a knee replacement.

"He's interested in my charts," said Herzog. When Herzog managed the Cardinals in the 1980s, he charted where every ball was hit off every pitcher, with each pitcher having a different colored pencil.

"I didn't have any computer," said Herzog. "I didn't care what the computers said. I wanted to know where they hit the ball off every one of my pitchers. That's how I set my defenses up.

"(Second baseman) Tommy Herr and Ozzie (shortstop Ozzie Smith) were in there every day looking at those charts and that's why we turned base hits into double plays. Look how many base hits (third baseman) Terry Pendleton took away in the hole."

Herzog noted that Matheny hadn't managed before but, he added, "Neither did I, except at Fort Leonard Wood when I was in the Army and I was 21 years old.

"I think it will work out. Look how many guys managed all those years in the minors and then came to the majors and couldn't handle it because they never had to deal with the press. The first thing they want to do is get rid of the stars. They don't want to handle the stars. They want all young kids. That's easy to manage young kids.

"I remember (former general manager) Harry Dalton saying to me, ‘I didn't know you could be a manager.' And I said to him, ‘How did anybody know you could be a general manager?' If you can do a job, you can do it.

"Mike's stepping into a good situation, but he's got to do it his way.

"If Matheny, after one year, has some success and isn't happy with some of those (coaches), then he's got to make some changes. He's got to get his own people."