Lou Brock is elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985.
1985- Enos Slaughter is elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee.
Birthdays
Johnny Mize 1913 – Hall of Famer. Mize was a distant cousin of Ty Cobb and his second cousin married Babe Ruth.
Mize came up through the St. Louis Cardinals minor league system but was traded to the Cincinnati Reds in 1934.However, he suffered a groin injury and the Reds nullified the trade. In 1935, while struggling with one bad leg, he injured the other leg. Mize retired from baseball and returned home until the Cardinals asked him to see a physician in St. Louis. He had surgery for bone spurs He was kept with the Cardinals in St. Louis after surgery, as he would not have been able to play regularly that season in the minor leagues anyway. The organization thought that he might get some opportunities to pinch hit with the major league team. Mize made his major league debut for the Cardinals in 1936. In 126 games, Mize hit for a .329 batting average, 19 home runs and 93 runs batted in (RBI). He later said, “I’m the only guy who played in the major leagues because I couldn’t play in the minors.”
Mize was known as both “Big Jawn” and “The Big Cat” for his smooth fielding at first base. In 1937 he batted .364, but Cardinals teammate Joe Medwick took the title with a .374 average. He led the league in triples and OPS in 1938. In 1939, Mize finished second in the league’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) voting after leading the league with a .349 average and 28 home runs. Mize’s 43 home runs in 1940 set a Cardinals team record that stood for nearly 60 years. At the end of the 1941 season, however, Cardinals general manager Branch Rickey, who believed in trading players before their skills began to decline, traded Mize to the New York Giants. In exchange for Mize, the Cardinals received Bill Lohrman, Johnny McCarthy, Ken O’Dea, and $50,000. Mize was involved in a 1941 lawsuit against Gum Products Inc. The company manufactured a set of baseball cards called Double Play. Mize sued because he argued that the company did not have his consent to use his image in the card set. Gum Products Inc. won the lawsuit, but the company stopped producing its Double Play series because of the expenses it incurred during the legal proceedings with Mize.
10× All-Star (1937, 1939–1942, 1946–1949, 1953)
5× World Series champion (1949–1953)
NL batting champion (1939)
4× NL home run leader (1939, 1940, 1947, 1948)
3× NL RBI leader (1940, 1942, 1947)
St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame
Al Dark 1922 -Traded to the Cardinals in 1956, Dark served as their starting shortstop through the beginning of the 1958 season, when his diminished range caused him to be shifted to third base. He spent most of 1958 and all of 1959 with the Cubs, then played for the Phillies and Braves in 1960 before retiring as a player. Dark had 2,089 hits in his career.
Dick ‘Ducky” Schofield 1935 -Schofield made his MLB debut for the Cardinals on July 3, 1953, at the age of 18, entering as a pinch runner in a 10–3 loss to the Chicago Cubs. He later collected his first hit on July 17 that year and hit his first home run on August 16. During his first season in the majors, he recorded a .179 batting average with two home runs and four runs batted in (RBI). He did not hit another home run until 1958, when he finally qualified as a rookie. His grandson Jayson Werth played in the major leagues.
Fred Whitfield 1938 -Whitfield was signed by the Cardinals as an amateur free agent in 1956. He made his big league debut at age 24 on May 27, 1962. Pinch-hitting for future Baseball Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, he drew a walk off Bob Shaw of the Milwaukee Braves, but was promptly erased in a double play. Two days later he made his first start, going 1-for-4 at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, with his first hit a fourth inning RBI single off Al McBean that scored Red Schoendienst.
Doug Capilla 1952 -Capilla made his debut on September 12, 1976. He pitched for the Cardinals in a total of 26 games until the trade deadline on June 15, 1977, when he was dealt to the Cincinnati Reds for Rawly Eastwick.
Bryan Pena 1982 -On November 30, 2015, Peña agreed to a two-year, $5 million contract with the St. Louis Cardinals to be the primary backup to Yadier Molina.[In mid-December 2015, Peña accompanied an expedition to Cuba composed of former Cardinals including Joe Torre and Jon Jay, and other MLB officials and players. It was MLB’s first visit there since 1999, and one anticipated as an important step to help normalize relations with the United States that had begun to ease earlier in the year. He began the season on the DL after surgery to remove loose cartilage in his left knee, which he attributed to slipping on the dugout steps in spring training. On July 5, 2016, Peña announced that he was planning to join the Army Reserve after the 2016 season. Later that day though, he was informed that he was unable to enlist because such an action would violate the terms of his contract. Peña chose to become an ambassador for the troops instead. On November 21, 2016, the Cardinals designated Peña for assignment.
Jon Lester 1984 – He had a long illustrious career with Boston but on July 30, 2021, Lester was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for Lane Thomas. He earned his 200th career victory on September 20, 2021, against the Milwaukee Brewers, making him one of only three active pitchers (at that time) to achieve that mark. Lester made 12 appearances for St. Louis, going 4–1 with a 4.36 ERA and 40 strikeouts. Lester became a free agent following the season. On January 12, 2022, Lester announced his retirement. At the time of his retirement, he was the last active player from the 2007 Boston Red Sox’s World Series-winning roster.
Deaths
Jim Cosman (2013)
Other Baseball History
1991 – Pete Rose is released from federal prison in Marion, IL, after serving five months for tax evasion. He will now begin the second part of his sentence, consisting of 1,000 hours of community service at Cincinnati inner-city schools.