Former KC Star Royals beat writer Dick Kaegel to be honored by Baseball Hall of Fame
.jpg "Photo ©2012 David Bergman / www.DavidBergman.net -- Portrait for MLB.com in Scottsdale, AZ on March 31, 2012.")
The 1964 World Series pitted the St. Louis Cardinals against the New York Yankees, and Redbirds second baseman Julian Javier was nursing a bruised hip. His innings and at-bats went to Dal Maxvill of Granite City, Illinois.
Another opportunity presented itself. Dick Kaegel, a young sportswriter for the Granite City Press-Record, suggested to his boss that the newspaper should cover the games and Maxvill in St. Louis.
A lifetime of baseball writing, which later continued at The Star, started with that event. And now Kaegel’s career will be honored with the craft’s highest tribute, the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, following balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America.
The award “for meritorious contributions to baseball writing” will be presented during the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s induction weekend on July 23-26 in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Kaegel, 81, covered the Royals for The Star from 1988 to 2003, and for MLB.com from 2004-14. He retired after the Royals’ 2014 World Series appearance, having followed Salvador Perez, Eric Hosmer and Alex Gordon and the rest of that season’s team.
Fifty years earlier, Kaegel was covering Lou Brock, Bob Gibson and Maxvill.
“I went over there with a speed graphic camera (first produced in 1912) and a notebook,” Kaegel said. “I covered the games and got some great pictures.”
After Gibson’s complete-game victory in Game 7, Kaegel snapped a shot of Maxvill at his locker, standing between legend Stan Musial, who had retired a year earlier, and Red Schoendienst, who would soon be named the Cardinals’ new manager. The Press-Record had its lead image for the next day’s edition.
That coverage helped land Kaegel an associate editor’s job at The Sporting News. He also worked as the publication’s editor-in-chief, covered the Cardinals for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and wrote as a columnist for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
When he arrived at The Star in 1988 to cover the Royals, Kaegel was asked why he wanted to return to a job as a traveling beat writer after holding editor and columnist roles.
“I said of all the things I’d done in my career, I loved covering baseball the most,” Kaegel said.
The daily interaction with players and managers made the job unique, but Kaegel said the circle was much wider than that.
“The bosses who allowed you to do this, the copy editors, the writers you work with, and some you worked against, and the people who work at the ballpark, running the elevator, serving food — it’s all been part of it, and I always appreciated them,” Kaegel said.
The appreciation was returned Tuesday as congratulations poured in from friends, colleagues, players he covered — like Perez and Mike Sweeney — and some he didn’t, such as current slugger Jorge Soler.
“In my wildest dreams,” Kaegel said, “I never expected something like this.”