St. Louis Cardinals fans should stop whining about Keith Hernandez’s Hall of Fame exclusion

I think the lack of baseball is really starting to get to St. Louis Cardinals fans.

Every day is a different argument between fans on social media. The topic lately has been the selection of Bill White, Tom Herr and John Tudor to the Cardinals Hall of Fame over former National League Most Valuable Player Keith Hernandez who tied Pittsburgh Pirates great Willie Stargell for the honor and shared it with him in 1979.

Let me say first that I take exception with people who claim the team “got it wrong” when it named the three winners. This is a fan-based endeavor and if its who the fans wanted, how could it be “wrong?” It’s pretty silly to argue about this topic because, with three players getting even every single year, it’s not a matter of who is going to make it as much as it is a matter of when they’ll get it. I’m willing to wager that Hernandez gets in sometime in the next three years. And, with the hub bub that has happened in the past few days, it would surprise me at all it it’s in 2021. Thanks to the baseball season almost certainly doomed to being played with no fans in attendance, wouldn’t it be better to be honored next year anyway?

Hernandez was a talented player, there is no doubt about it. He should have been right there with Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee and Herr when we think about Cardinals legends of the Whitey Herzog designed teams of the 1980s. But, shockingly, while the Cardinals were still basking in the glow of their 1982 World Series championship, we were all shocked to hear that the slick-fielding, steady-hitting first baseman had been traded. And not just traded. He was dealt to the New York Mets, of all teams. Those 1983 Mets weren’t the imposing squad that included Dwight Gooden, David Cone, Kevin Mitchell and Darryl Strawberry later in the 1980s. They were one of the worst teams in baseball, the Siberia of the National League. And he basically was given away for nothing.

It didn’t make any sense. Trading Hernandez didn’t do much to make St. Louis better. And his veteran leadership was a key to turning around the Mets. Fans in St. Louis were livid. I remember when I heard the news. Everyone thought Whitey had lost his mind. We didn’t find until much later that the reason Hernandez had to go was because he was about to be exposed as being a major player in the Major League Baseball cocaine controversy that stained the game for years. And it wasn’t just that he was going to be embarrassed that Hernandez was traded. Years later, Herzog revealed that the formerly affable Hernandez had become a problem in the clubhouse and served as a distraction to the team.

Ultimately, I think it was Hernandez’s exit that soured fans on the once popular player in St. Louis. While some have argued that everyone deserves a second chance, I don’t think it’s the moral part of the issue that changed the way people feel about Hernandez. It’s the fact that he went from being a Busch Stadium idol to a central figure of the home team’s bitter rival changed the way people think about him for the worse. Hernandez really began to belong to New York more than St. Louis after he left. He’s a broadcaster there to this day and he was cemented in the national conscience as a Mets fan not only by being seen on that high profile team for years, but also by starring as celebrated Mets player on Seinfeld.

Hernandez would be further replaced in the Cardinals timeline by the fact that the team filled his spot at first base with popular slugger Jack Clark who led St. Louis to National League pennants in 1985 and 1987. Clark offered exciting home run power that Hernandez didn’t. After that, guys like Mark McGwire, Albert Pujols, Matt Carpenter, Lance Berkman and others played first base to spectacular results. If Cardinals fans were forced to rattle off a list of the top five first baseman in the last fifty years, I’m afraid Hernandez wouldn’t be at the top of it. He’d be lucky to make the bottom half. Especially if we opened up the question to the best first baseman in franchise history and added Stan Musial, Johnny Mize and Sunny Jim Bottomley to the list of options.

Bottom line, if Hernandez is a victim of anything, it’s that circumstances caused him to make a bigger name for himself elsewhere. I’m sure being a star in New York City is much more lucrative than being a star in St. Louis. So he probably wouldn’t change things even if he could turn back time and solve the problems that caused his departure from the Cardinals. So let’s not cry any tears over him missing out on an honor he probably doesn’t really covet in the first place. We’ll see, when he’s elected in a couple of years, if he embraces the chance to be welcomed back into the Cardinals family.

Scott Wuerz

Belleville News-Democrat

Scott Wuerz has written “Cheap Seats,” a St. Louis Cardinals fan blog for the Belleville News-Democrat, since 2007. He is a former BND reporter who covered breaking news and education.