Hall of Fame Cardinals writer Rick Hummel retiring from Post-Dispatch after 51 years

Hummel began covering the Cardinals when Red Schoendienst was the manager, and was on the beat during Whitey Herzog’s tenure in the 1980s —  when the team went to the World Series three times and won in ’82.

“I love being with people who love their job, and he certainly does,” Herzog said last year in an extensive profile of Hummel’s career on these pages. “He loves the game; he’s very knowledgeable. I couldn’t have had a better beat writer for those 10 years, I was very fortunate to have him as my beat writer.”

Hensley has a similar feeling about Hummel.

“He’s grown to mean a whole lot more to me than the pearls of wisdom he puts on paper,” Hensley said. “He’s a great friend and confidante, someone I have always been able to count on to roll with the changes as our industry has changed. And he’s been a great mentor to many young writers that have come through our doors, and I’m sure around the industry as a whole, too.”

One of those who has flourished under Hummel’s tutelage is Goold, who now has Hummel’s former job as the Post-Dispatch’s lead Cardinals reporter.

“He means the world to me,” Goold said, adding that he “wouldn’t know what great baseball writing is if I didn’t have his guidance — his bar to try and reach.”