A stroll down memory lane with HJ

[sighyoung]

It says here that he died of heart problems:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Roger_Freed


Another site says he's buried in Chino, California.

I didn't know he was a Rule V draft pick.

[Hungary Jack]

I also remember a Freed grand slam against the Astros in the bottom of the eleventh to win a game 7-6. It was the Sambito game. May 1 1980. It prompted this cheesy poem from a 12 year-old:

In the eleventh of a game last night
The Cardinals were losing without a fight.
The score was bad 6 runs to 3
And the game was lost it seemed to me.

The Cards loaded the bases with 2 out
They needed one big hit to win the bout
Then from the dugout number 7 appeared.
Big Roger Free the pitcher feared.

The count ran full, 3 and 2
And within the crowd nary a boo.
Sambito wound and fired the ball
With one heroic swing it was bound for the wall
And toward center field ball did fly.
And over the fence, it had said "goodbye"

Freed rounded the bases with a grand slam trot.
And the winner of this game--Houston was not.

I'm pretty sure the Freed grand slam off Sambito was in 1979. Freed was out of baseball by 1980. It's strange, I have so many memories of these mammoth big home runs he hit, but he only had a handful of home runs in his whole rather short, part-timer career.

That poem sounds like something I would have written when I was 12 Where did you find that?

Freed died quite young, I think in his late 40s. Anyone know what happened?

Yup. 1979. I am not sure how I got 1980 (Freed was no longer a Card), because I had verified it on baseball reference. Here is the box:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 5010.shtml

[Jmodene]

To give you an idea of how far back I go, my first poem was:

With Gibson and Torre and Brock and Alou,
We're sure to win it in '72.

[Radbird]

I remember bits and pieces of the early '60s. I vaguely recall the end of the '64 regular season with the Phillies' collapse and the Cardinals' surge.

But the first vivid memory I have was of this hit:

[Radio_Bugtussle]

Today (May 3) is the anniversary of my Busch Stadium debut.

Saw the Cardinals lose 4-1 to the Phillies on this day in 1969. I was eight years old. Lou Brock singled and stole second. It was down hill from there. Future Cardinal Rick Wise got the win for the Phillies. Steve Carlton took the loss.

The first Cardinal wins I saw came a couple months later when the Cards swept the Cubs in a Sunday doubleheader. Bill White played 1B for the Cards in the first game. Joe Torre and Mike Shannon homered in the second game.

[Simbagal23]

My favorite earliest Cards memory....my family moved to the STL area in 1978, we were so excited to be living near a big city. I immediately fell in love with the Cardinals.....we were at the game in August 1979 when Lou got his 3,000th hit of the leg of a Cubs pitcher. I remember being very upset as I thought the fans were "booing" Lou.....turns out, stupid me, they were "Louing" Lou.... Hey, I was a young, naive, small town girl....I was happy to discover my mistake!

Years later, I met Lou and his (second?) wife and I told him that story(after I worked up some beer courage!)....needless to say, they both got a laugh out of it.

[Hungary Jack]

My favorite earliest Cards memory....my family moved to the STL area in 1978, we were so excited to be living near a big city. I immediately fell in love with the Cardinals.....we were at the game in August 1979 when Lou got his 3,000th hit of the leg of a Cubs pitcher. I remember being very upset as I thought the fans were "booing" Lou.....turns out, stupid me, they were "Louing" Lou.... Hey, I was a young, naive, small town girl....I was happy to discover my mistake!

Years later, I met Lou and his (second?) wife and I told him that story(after I worked up some beer courage!)....needless to say, they both got a laugh out of it.

The pitcher was Dennis Lamp. I remember that he and Brock shook hands before Lamp left the game. I wonder if that would happen today, like when Biggio gets his 3,000 hit later this summer.

[JL21]

This is an awesome thread. Just yesterday, I have no idea why, I thought "What was the first Cardinal team I really followed, from start to finish?". And for me, it's the '89 team. They had high hopes because of the odd year pattern, they had a solid lineup, they had a good young arm in Joe Magrane, a solid bullpen... and they hung around all year, surviving a healthy dose of innings from guys like Matt Kinzer and Don Heinkel. They even procured good production out of Frank DiPino and John Costello. On the farm and coming up soon was a dynamite prospect who couldn't miss named Todd Zeile. And Petey Guerrero was the most clutchy of clutchtastic players, finally giving Whitey his replacement for Jack Clark. Tom Brunansky gave hope of an actual 2nd offensive weapon (though it ended up being empty hope to a point). The Secret Weapon had found his everyday role at 2B.

Ultimately, it wasn't to be for that team, as they stormed back on the Cubs, culminating with a game-winning homerun in a rainy early September game by Petey to cut the division lead to 1/2 a game.... and then, with Todd Worrell on the shelf, they faded out of the picture.

[jim]

The last year of Busch I took a stroll down memory lane by trying to recall every single game I went to as a kid. Alot of detective work was involved, because often I could only remember one or two details. My family made one trip per year to St. Louis, which was always the highlight of my summer. That made it a little easier to figure stuff out. Here is my list, and the details that I remembered to help me find them.

I remember that the Cards beat the Phillies 8-0 and that Gibson pitched. It was hotter than blazes in St. Louis that day:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 7220.shtml

I was a huge Dolphin fan as a kid, and I remember following the Dolphins 17-0 win over the Chiefs on the scoreboard. I also remember the Cards beating the Pirates:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 9170.shtml

This is the one that stumped me. I remember almost getting my hands on a Joe Peppitone foul ball (my mother hated the man), I remember beating the Cubs, I remember it was on a school day, I remember it was really warm, and I remember wearing a jersey I had gotten for my b-day. What fooled me was the weather, I swore it was May or June. But I searched a 3 year window and this was the only game that made sense, then I looked up the weather in the weather almanac - BINGO. Made sense I wore a jersey from my b-day (April 10):
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 4130.shtml

Easy one, my Khoury League team made a trip down to see this DH and one of the cars broke down and they missed Gibby's grandslam:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 7261.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 7262.shtml

A good year 1973 was, four games! I remember this because my Dad loved the Big Red Machine, I loved Johnny Bench, and Pete Rose led off the game with a double and the Reds cruised.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 8120.shtml

Another Khourly League team visit. They used to sell the lineup cards already typed up with the starting lineup, and we were seriously bummed to see Aaron not in the lineup. When they announced the lineup and Aaron was in it, we all went crazy. Bad game for the Cards, but we got to see Hammerin' Hank.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 7140.shtml

And one more Khoury League visit. We made it to the state championship and had to play a Belleville team (we lost). So depressing, lots of tears, but once inside the park with our dirty uniforms life was good:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 8100.shtml

This one I remember the Cards scored in the 1st, and Willie Stargell almost jacked one in the 9th, but the Cards won 1-0. I remember it was late in the season.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 9260.shtml

This one was easy because I still have the scorecard:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 8050.shtml

Another real easy one. I'll give you a clue as to how I remembered this one so easy, I BIG celebrity died this day and Ernie Hayes played his music all night.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 8160.shtml

I remember horrible fog that didn't entirely burn off until about game time. We sat in the OF Loge Box and you could hardly make out the players at homeplate taking BP.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 6120.shtml

Free tickets to the last game of the season.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes ... 0010.shtml

And at this point my older sisters and brothers had moved out, and my own baseball schedule got so busy that we just never found time to make it down. I probably went five years without seeing a game.

That's my stroll down memory lane. It took me weeks to put this list together, some of it involved a great deal of detective work. Weather reports, scanning box scores, asking Mom and Dad for some details. It was alot of fun compiling this.

[StL Dan]

I remember the stadium PA system playing "Heart of Glass" during pre-game warmups.