About 20 minutes from downtown lies the final resting place of a misplaced legend. He was one of the greatest baseball hitters ever, a native Texan, and a Hall of Famer. Just down Martin Luther King Boulevard is Rogers Hornsby's grave.
He once said, "I don't like to sound egotistical, but every time I stepped up to the plate with a bat in my hands, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the pitcher."
Hornsby was famous for his abrasiveness. He was blunt, brash and bold: typical Texan attributes before they were popularized. Even at the peak of his fame, he retained the small-town demeanor he developed growing up in the isolated burg of Winters. Still scrawny by big-league standards early in his career in 1915, Hornsby decided to bulk up using the most common alternative before weight-training and supplements - back-breaking work on his uncle's farm. "I've never been a yes man," he once said. No-nonsense would be an understatement for Hornsby.
Hornsby was one of the most feared hitters of his time and one of the most consistent. His career batting average of .358 remains second best all-time. He also ranks in the top 30 all-time in nine other offensive categories. A common story about Hornsby says that once, a pitcher facing him cursed at the umpire for calling three close pitches balls, to which the umpire replied, "Young man, when you throw a strike, Mr. Hornsby will let you know."
"He was driven to be the best. That's all he could think of," grandson Rogers Hornsby III said.
In his glory years with the Cardinals, Hornsby led the National League in batting for six straight seasons, including the 1924 season in which he hit .424 - the 20th century record. Perhaps his best season came in 1922, in which he won the Triple Crown, leading in average, RBIs and homeruns. He eclipsed .400 for the first time in his career, batted in 152 runs, and hit 42 homeruns, twice the number the runner-up hit. He was League MVP in 1925 and '29 and won a second Triple Crown in 1925.
In his time, Hornsby never found the recognition and adulation garnered by others. He had the unfortunate luck of being the best hitter - after the infamous Ty Cobb.
Hornsby was a world champion in 1926 with the Cardinals - a title Cobb never won. But Hornsby was traded in 1927 after a dispute with Cardinal ownership and never led the league in batting after 1928. His final full season came in 1929, which his Chicago Cubs lost in the World Series.
"They didn't talk about Hornsby being a great hitter, they talked about Cobb being a great hitter," said 98-year-old Rolland Stiles, who played with Hornsby in 1933.
Stiles is the last living person who played with Rogers Hornsby. 1933 was his last year in the majors with the St. Louis Browns of the American League. In his three years, Stiles faced the likes of Ruth and Gehrig and almost beat Lefty Grove, if not for a picky umpire, he says. At some point in the season, a 37-year-old Rogers Hornsby took over as player/manager of the Browns. The aging great was six years removed from his glory years with the Cardinals. Stiles was his first starting pitcher as Browns manager.
"He took over for us in Chicago," Stiles recalls. "I pitched the opening game, we lost; I got knocked out."
Stiles remembers a Hornsby who didn't get the respect his career numbers merited.
"Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx [is who] they would talk about all the time ... they never talked about [Hornsby]," Stiles said. "People didn't seem to appreciate all the things he did like they did the other ballplayers."
Yet in a state that places its sports legends on pedestals of legendary heights, Hornsby is overshadowed by the modern stars that shine brighter. His legacy remains in St. Louis, where he is remembered as one of the legends of Cardinals teams past. Rogers Hornsby III gets autograph requests to this day when he goes there.
"He was always a very blunt person," Hornsby III said. "He riled a lot of people, but in success, you're going to do that."
Hornsby III remembers when his grandfather would take him to San Antonio Missions games and let him shag balls at Missions Stadium. Once, the manager of the Missions didn't want Hornsby's grandson to be out on the field, out of concern for his safety.
"Grandfather said 'No, I could take the lumps,' and disregarded what he said ...with kind of an attitude," Hornsby III said.
Hornsby III's memories of a kind man who would send him new baseballs and gloves contrasts with the view many players and media figures had of Hornsby.
What he had though, was an intense love for the game, a quality that marks every great player. He loved being a baseball player and would most likely be critical of some modern players. "Any ballplayer that don't sign autographs for little kids ain't an American. He's a communist," he said.
"I don't think he was liked very much," Stiles said. "They just didn't say nice things about him like they did the other great hitters like Cobb."
Once a year, Rogers Hornsby III returns to St. Louis, sometimes with three other namesakes.
"I got a son who's the fourth, and we got one a year and a half ago who's the fifth," said Rogers Hornsby III. "I'll go to the Cardinal's owner and say '3 and 4 are coming, 5 is staying home."
That's the most tangible part of the Hornsby legacy, but part of Hornsby is found in every Little Leaguer who grudgingly puts the bat and glove away in November. Hornsby is found in the eager expectancy of spring and frustration when baseball leaves for the winter. That is also the Hornsby legacy.
"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring," he once said.
Baseball is still looking out the window and waiting, but there will never be another Rogers Hornsby.
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