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Johnny Keane Resigns as Cardinal Manager

Oct. 16, 1964 - Johnny Keane resigned as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals today, less than a day after the team had won the World Series from the Yankees.

The 53-year-old native of St. Louis ended 35 years in the Cardinal organization with a letter he had written on Sept. 28, at the beginning of the final week of the season, when his team was 1½ games out of first place.

Keane handed the letter to August A. Busch Jr., the owner of the Cardinals, half an hour before a news conference Busch had called in the expectation of announcing Keane’s return to the job he had taken over three years ago last July.

The letter had been discussed “very quietly” by Keane and his wife Lela, had been typewritten by her 12 days ago, and had been kept secret, he said, because “we didn’t want to upset the players during the pennant race.”

It caught the Cardinal owner, the players, and the baseball world by surprise, a few hours after the team had celebrated its championship at an emotional victory party at Stan Musial’s restaurant.

In the letter, Keane said only that he regretted “the necessity” of the decision to resign. Later, he conceded that it had been prompted by “an accumulation of a lot of little things” — generally taken to mean front-office intrigue. He said he was open to offers and that he wanted most to manage a major league team, but that he had conducted no negotiations with anyone.

Busch, the president of the Anheuser-Busch brewery, said he had offered Keane a better contract two days before the season ended, had been prepared to extend it beyond another year, and had been “shocked” at the manager’s resignation.

“I have no idea whatsoever as to what caused him to make this decision,” said Busch, seated in the board room of his brewery flanked by Keane and Robert L. Howsam, general manager of the team.

Howsam, whose arrival on the Cardinal scene had been part of the chain of events that reportedly led to Keane’s decision, said: “We thought Johnny would be our manager.”

Howsam became chief executive of the Cardinals after Bing Devine had been forced out Aug. 13, with the team 11½ games behind the league-leading Phillies. Devine’s departure after 25 years with the Cardinals was regarded as a revolution inspired by Branch Rickey, 82-year-old consultant to Busch and patriarch of Cardinal teams of two generations.

Devine became assistant to the president of the Mets on Sept. 29, the day after Keane wrote his letter of resignation and the day the Cardinal team — assembled by Devine — moved into a first-place tie.

By then, Keane’s position had been undermined by repeated rumors that he would be replaced by Leo Durocher, shortstop on the Cards’ “Gashouse Gang” of the 1930s, later manager of the Dodgers and Giants, and a close friend of Busch.

Durocher resigned as a coach with the Dodgers as the season ended, but by then the Cardinals’ storybook success had made Keane the toast of St. Louis.

Busch denied then, and again today, that he had offered Keane’s job to Durocher.

“I’ve known Durocher for a number of years,” he said. “I like him very much. Outside of that, there’s nothing to any of the rumors.”

Keane admitted the departure of his longtime friend and mentor, Devine, had been one of the factors in his decision, along with the rumors about Durocher.

“I can’t say that the rumors didn’t have anything to do with it,” he said. “I probably did put some stock in them. And I think the departure of Bing Devine might have had something to do with it. He was the man who brought me here.”

Keane’s case has only one parallel. In 1926, Rogers Hornsby, as a playing manager, led the Cardinals to the pennant and world championship and then was traded to the New York Giants.



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