"Thank you. I'm glad to be here, of course. Everyone said I was going to cry. I think I made it. I don't know.
"In the 1980s, when I started managing the Cardinals, we had a guy come into the Hall of Fame by the name of Enos Slaughter. He was selected in December and he came to the winter meetings the latter part of January. And the first thing out of his mouth was, 'It's about time. Should have happened 20 years ago.'
"I don't believe that at all. You know, any time is a good time when you receive an award like this.
"And I am grateful to the commissioner's office, to the people that elected me, to all my buddies back here.
"I want it to be known I've got three Hall of Fame players, and if all three hadn't played for me, I wouldn't be here today. I'd probably be back in Illinois digging ditches or something. But that's the way it would be.
"Now, I've got to congratulate Jon (Miller) and Bill (Madden). They were always at the top of their profession and they rightly deserve to be here today. And I'm really happy for both you.
"I've got a player over here that I was sorry to see come to the Cubs, played in my division. A little bit tougher to beat the Cubbies after Andre (Dawson) went there. He was a fine, true player. He played hard. He had bad knees. I've never seen him not run out a ground ball. And I just admired the way he played baseball. And congratulations to you.
"Now, I saved Doug Harvey for last. And the reason for that is Doug and I didn't see eye-to-eye all the time. Doug was a great umpire, a great umpire. I mean, I never got in 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. We'd send a message out to him, 15 minutes, severe thunder showers and lightning at Busch Stadium. And there was God. And about 15 minutes later they put the tarp on, and the field was so muddy, it took two hours to get the field ready when he took the tarp off. That's how much rain had hit underneath the tarp.
"So, Doug, I want to say one thing. My sincere congratulations. You're a very deserving guy. It's sunny now, the rain's over, don't put the tarp on. But one thing: Please don't kick me out of Cooperstown.
"You know, when something like this happens to you, you say to yourself, how did this happen?
"And then you start thinking about all the people, good people you worked with, all the good people you worked for, all the good coaches that worked for you.
"And 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 happen if it hadn't been for some illustrious people that just helped me.
"I was a 17-year-old, 5-foot-10, 150-pound outfielder from New Athens, Ill. I signed a contract with the New York Yankees. I went to McAlester, Okla. What a wonderful town, 12,000 people. A good place for a guy like me to break in.
"I played for wonderful manager, Vern Holscheit. He and his wife, Ellen, treated me like I was at their home.
"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?' He said, 'We got a game tonight.' I said, 'Vern, by the time I was 5, I'm German, I had drank more beer than milk. Every time I had an evening meal,' I said. 'On Sunday we had a beer. Generally we had fried chicken, mashed potatoes or either potato salad.'
"He said, 'OK.' He was my manager. He let me have a beer. Luckily, I got four hits that night. Never heard anything about it again. So that was very nice.
"But in the Yankee chain I had a lot of people push me. Besides Holscheit and the great city of McAlester, and which I love dearly and owe a lot to, Harry Craft was a guy who was always in my corner. He kind of saved my career. Claimed me on waivers when I wasn't doing so good at Washington.
"I was able to get nine years. Wasn't a very good player, but I did get nine years in the big leagues and there was only 16 teams and 50-something minor leagues, and I got my pension.
"I was the kind of player everyone wanted; when they got me, they didn't know what the hell to do with me.
"So, anyway, Harry Craft was great to me and I was wishing he would be here today.
"But Lee McPhail was the farm director, and he was always in my corner. Every time he'd come to one of clubs I was playing with he'd talk with me and was very good to me, traded for me when he was the general manager of the Baltimore Orioles. I was just hoping he'd be here because he meant a lot to my career.
"And I came out of the service in '54, during the Korean War, the Yankees invited me to their rookie camp, and that's when I met (Casey) Stengel. And when I met Stengel, it was like an enlightening thing because I would go to bed at night, 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 the big thing about Casey was they thought he was a clown when they brought him back to New York. But Casey was an outstanding teacher, he was a very smart baseball man and he and I became fast friends.
"And I'm not going to tell the story, but I knew him, the reason he took a liking to me, and I was almost like a pet to him. He played with Bud Herzog and I'm sure he thought I was his grandson. I'm sure of that. And I never told him any different.
"He said, 'How is Granddad?' I'd say, 'Oh, he's great.'
So, you know, Casey and I used to sit in the press room during spring training and every night we would have a few pops and talk baseball, amongst other things. And Casey told me so many things that I've been using the rest of my life. But for some reason he knew that 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, some autographs, I was a great leader and I had not done anything in my life.
"But, anyway, Casey told me so many things that became valuable to me. He said, 'You're going to be a manager. You've got to learn how to handle the press. When I managed the Mets, you got a bad team, here is how you handle the press.' He said, 'You're very nice to them.' And then he said, '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.'
"Well, that was the way to handle the Mets, I'll tell you that.
"The other thing he said, 'You're going to get interviewed a lot.' Just had ABC, NBC and CBS, and then ESPN and then all the super stations. Our jobs got a little tougher. We'd have to go out into the field. Instead of doing three interviews, a lot of times we'd have to nine. Casey said, 'Always ask the guy when he's going to interview, how much time you got? And secondly, when he says 15 minutes, how many questions you want to ask me? Three.
—"'Now,' he says, 'when he asks you that first question, you talk for 15 minutes and then you only get in one-third of the trouble.' And that's what I've always tried to do.
"Now, of course, Casey always told me this: He said when you manage, you hire good coaches. Don't worry about this coach is taking your job because, he said, if you don't own the club or die on the job, you're going to get fired, anyway. So, don't worry about it.
"So, as smart as I am, most of it is because of Casey Stengel. He's been awful good to me. If he was alive — I saw him three weeks before he passed away. I was coaching in Anaheim and we remained great friends. And I've got numerous stories which we don't have a lot of time for that because some of these guys were pretty long-winded and I want to catch up a little bit.
"But what I want to say, the reason — another reason — I'm here is because of my family out there and because of the great fans in Missouri and Kansas City and Cardinal fans. Al Kaline told me he was married to Louise for 55. My wife, Mary Lou, is out there. We've got 57. So, we got you. That's first thing I ever led you in, I'll tell you that.
"My daughter, Debbie here, with her husband, Kurt, and they've got three children. My only granddaughter, she's my favorite, Kirsten, and her husband, John, and my great grandson, Evan. Happy to see them.
"John, my ballplayer, and his wife, Maggie. John is playing ball for, of all places, Chi-Chi, California and his manager is Garry Templeton, who I didn't have — well, I had some trouble with him a little bit, but Garry has been great to him. And then, of course, my oldest son, David, is here with Karen. They've got four boys. I've got Jake, and Catherine is here — and I guess everybody is here. Where is Ben at? Ben came all the way from Okinawa. Can you imagine? He flew here from Okinawa. He's in the Marines.
"Yeah. And then they got three young boys that are the apple of my eye. They live in Tulsa, Trevor and Jordan. And, really, now I look at Jim and Jim and Andy are out there. And they live in St. Louis. I don't have to go as far to see my grandsons and everything. They got two wonderful kids, Alec and Harry. And I just love them all so much.
"And you know, when you have something like this happen like this, you've got a great family, and the reason I got out of baseball when I did, I wanted to spend a little time with them. And I certainly didn't think I could find another Gussie Busch.
"And ever since December, every question that anybody asks me is this: 'What's it feel like to be a Hall of Famer?'
"Well, I didn't know. I kept saying I won't know until July 25th. Well, now I can tell you what it feels like. Being elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., is like going to heaven before you die.
"Thank you, very much."
