West Newsmagazine 3-21-18

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MARCH 21, 2018
WEST NEWSMAGAZINE
CARDINALS SALUTE 2018
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107 East First St. North, Wright City, MO 63390
By WARREN MAYES
The St. Louis Cardinals shook up their
coaching staff after back-to-back years
of not reaching the postseason. The hope
is that St. Louis has re-energized its staff
by adding two ex-Cardinals players and a
well-respected pitching coach for 2018.
Manager Mike Matheny recognized the
need for changes after an
83-win season.
“We need to be growing,”
Matheny said. “We need to
be constantly searching for
excellence, and I think as
you bring in great people,
you create an atmosphere
where that’s more likely to
happen.”
José Oquendo is the
new third base coach.
Willie McGee will serve
in a myriad of roles. Mike
Maddux is the new pitching
coach and former third
base coach Mike Shildt
is the new bench coach.
Bryan Eversgerd, the Cardinals
Triple-A pitching
coach, has been promoted
to bullpen coach.
Oquendo
“We feel that by bringing in the experience,
past successes and baseball savvy
these three gentlemen [Oquendo, McGee
and Maddux] possess, our major league
coaching staff will be a strong benefit
to our ballclub,” Cardinals President of
Baseball Operations John Mozeliak said.
“Whether it’s coaching, teaching, game
analysis, game planning, these three men
bring a wealth of knowledge and experience
to our team.”
Oquendo, 54, who had stepped aside as
the team’s third base coach just prior to the
2016 season due to health reasons, returns
to the major league staff after serving as
special assistant to the general manager in
2017.
Oquendo spent 16 seasons as the Cardinals
third base coach [2000-15] and
was the team’s major league bench coach
in 1999 after spending the 1997 and 1998
seasons working in the farm system for
St. Louis. The “secret weapon” enjoyed a
17-year professional playing career, including
stints in the majors with the New York
Mets [1983-84] and St. Louis Cardinals
[1986-1995]. He was voted as the top utility
man on the All-Busch Stadium II team
in 2005.
A native of Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico,
Oquendo served as manager for Puerto
Rico in both the 2006 and 2009 World
Baseball Classics and for the World Team
in the 2009 MLB Futures Game.
Oquendo, who has had two operations
on his left knee and both micro-fracture
surgery and a replacement procedure on
his right, said he came back largely because
Mozeliak and Matheny asked him to return.
He said it was an easy decision.
“I really missed being out there [at third
base],” Oquendo said, noting that he wants
to “see if we can win some
games and get back in the
playoffs.”
McGee, 59, joins the
major league coaching staff
for the first time, having
spent the 2013-17 seasons
serving as a special assistant
to the general manager.
A member of the St.
Louis Cardinals Hall of
Fame, McGee enjoyed a
banner career that included
National League MVP
honors in 1985, two league
batting titles [1985 and
1990], four All-Star Game
selections [1983, 1985,
1987 and 1988] and three
Rawlings Gold Glove
awards [1983, 1985 and
1986].
After breaking onto the scene in a big
way during the Cardinals World Series win
in 1982, the switch-hitting McGee went on
to spend 18 years in the majors with the
Cardinals [1982-90 and 1996-99], Oakland
A’s [1990], San Francisco Giants [1991-94]
and Boston Red Sox [1995], accumulating
2,254 hits, 352 stolen bases and a .295
career batting mark.
“If you’ve held Willie McGee on a high
pedestal, I’ll tell you that you haven’t built
it high enough,” Matheny said. “He’s such
a sneaky teacher. He’ll tell you something,
and it has so much wisdom to it. He doesn’t
waste words. He doesn’t waste people’s
time.”
McGee will be away from his eight
grandchildren this summer, but his
15-year-old son and his wife of more than
30 years, Vivian, will spend time with him
in St. Louis this summer. He said he’s glad
to be a coach for the Cardinals.
“It’s always been in me as a ‘giver,’”
McGee said. “I’ve got all this experience
baseball-wise and life-wise in me to give
back. They can call me at 8 o’clock at night
and I can try to get a key to get down here
[to the Cardinals facility] and help them
do what they want to do to be better as a
baseball player.”
Maddux, 56, most recently was with the
[Lou Countryman photo]
See COACHING STAFF, page 45