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8 2 Becoming a Business Bob Gibson is a picnic to catch because he works rapidly and is always around the plate with his pitches. —Ted Simmons, quoted in Bob Broeg, “Ted Simmons: Losing Drives Me Crazy!” A few weeks after the Cardinals’ World Series loss, a cold, rainy evening blanketed the St. Louis area on November 3, 1968. Harry Caray, owner of the team’s beloved radio voice since World War II, was taking a nighttime stroll along Kingshighway near Forest Park. Caray had been a St. Louis man all his life, growing up on the near north side of the city and breaking into the big leagues as a broadcaster the same season Schoendienst made his debut as a player. He had been born Enrico Carabina, reputedly taking his later, more recognized name from the stage moniker of a 1940s performer. In the blur of the inclement evening, an automobile appeared suddenly from around a corner and struck Caray near the Chase Park Plaza Hotel. He instantly suffered two broken legs, a broken nose, and a dislocated shoulder from the incident. While his body would heal, the ramifications of the event—and what had possibly caused it—would reverberate around St. Louis and Caray’s career for years to come. Gussie Busch was frantically worried about Caray from the time the owner received a phone call about the accident. Busch had long loved him and personally saw to it that the broadcaster received round-the-clock care. After spending a month in a hospital bed, Caray in December would be flown by Busch in Gussie’s private plane to his winter home at Pass-a-Grille on St. Pete Beach Becoming a Business 9 in Florida—near the Cardinals’ spring training home since 1947—for further mending. Harry was no different from Gussie’s troops on the field, for Busch saw each man in the Cardinal family as one of “his boys,” and after taking over as owner in 1953, he rewarded his baseball employees with salaries that no team outside of New York or Boston had ever seen. Back in the 1870s, when noted educator William Torrey Harris arrived as the superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools, he recruited an “all-star” lineup of teachers by paying them handsomely ; in a like manner, Busch attracted top talent to his Anheuser-Busch brewery with high-scale pay rates and had figured he could simply do the same in his pursuit of baseball talent.After gaining ownership of the team, one of his first such targets was the acquisition of a rising young infielder with the Chicago Cubs named Ernie Banks. The owner of the Cubs was Philip K. Wrigley, a man who like Busch had procured a fortune in another field and held on to his team as an endeared novelty. Accustomed to being able to purchase the people he wanted, Gussie was incensed when Wrigley turned down his offer of five hundred thousand dollars for Banks. Turning to one of his many advisers, the scorned brewmaster listened wryly as the assistant mumbled , “Uh, Mr. Busch . . . Mr. Wrigley needs half a million dollars about as much as you do.” Wrigley, with his chewing gum empire, always wished to be on the cutting edge of his business as well; as an example, in a few years he would be proud to announce that his gum was the first product sold using a Universal Product Code, or UPC, scanned at a checkout line the morning of June 26, 1974, at a grocery store in Troy, Ohio. Over time, Busch would settle into understanding the differences in business acumen between baseball and his original field. He came to take great individual “ownership” in his players, looking after them with interest on a personal level and demanding almost daily updates from Devine and his other general managers over the years about the players’ health, recent performances, and even private difficulties they may have been facing with which he might be able to help. One of his great joys was interacting with the players’ families at the annual company picnic each August, from which nearly everyone left feeling a little closer to the boss at the end of the day. Often, the picnics would be a showcase for the latest portrait of the Busch family painted by Flood, a gifted artist in addition to being a skilled ballplayer. While no one—including Flood, Devine, Musial, or Schoendienst—ever dared calling...

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