Super deal lifted 1967 St. Louis Cardinals

Peter Minuit

People my age can remember coming across the name "Peter Minuit," however fleetingly, in our American history studies in school. Remember that? If you don't, maybe you're younger than me and went to school when political correctness influences were active. This is not to suggest that P.C. is a bad thing although there can be excess zeal.
I was researching the great baseball player Orlando Cepeda when I was reminded of Minuit. I remembered a scholastic current events reading assignment that must have been in the fall of 1967. The World Series was approaching. So here was an article spotlighting Cepeda.
The angle was how the St. Louis Cardinals had come to acquire the star. "Not since Peter Minuit," the article stated, had such a terrific deal been struck.
Peter Minuit? The young people of today would probably say "huh?" Making light of Minuit's dealmaking would today rank alongside "Redskins" as an NFL team name. Or, "Fighting Sioux" at University of North Dakota. Prolonged battles were needed to remedy those name issues. As I expected, people associated with UND got over the nickname thing faster than was expected. The "battle" over that is going to start looking quaint and likely foolish in the institution's annals.
Sports fans can seize on team nicknames in a base way. So, fans of UND hockey opponents were known in one example to chant "smallpox blankets" in an unbelievable display of crudeness.
This raw element of college sports has been fading. As I write this in late summer of 2020, we have such pressing matters in front of us with the pandemic. It seems beyond foolish to think of the Neanderthal traits of a certain element of college sports fans. It ought to go into the dustbin along with the name of Peter Minuit.
 
Baseball's joy to offset war
So, "not since Peter Minuit" has such a shrewd "deal" been crafted, eh? This attempt at cleverness or cuteness in our scholastic reading assignment touched on the impending World Series of 1967. I was 12 years old and loved baseball as an escape from my mundane life and school routine. We read a lot about the swelling Vietnam war. Every impulse I had when reading about the war suggested to me it was terrible and indefensible.
I learned the word "strive" from a scholastic reading task. As in, the president of South Vietnam was "striving" to accomplish something. Well, whatever. We were supposed to root for the South in this "good guys/bad guys" dichotomy, a neat dichotomy dished up so well through incessant TV westerns, a panoply of entertainment in which it was so often suggested we had to overcome the "redskins" or Indians. The Indians were "the other" in this insidious presentation.
Orlando Cepeda himself might have reflected the struggles of non-whites. He was a dark-skinned man from Puerto Rico, not African-American, although such hair-splitting seems itself to be objectionable. Who cares? Well, a lot of people cared about color then, even years after the color line was broken by the Brooklyn Dodgers.
It's almost sad to reflect on the initial breaking of the barrier, embarrassing because years passed when the progress was so halting. Legal action or threats of same were finally needed for the Boston Red Sox to integrate. Pumpsie Green was their pioneering non-white.
One of my favorite early Minnesota Twins was Vic Power - what an unforgettable first baseman and interesting personality - and he should have been the first player of color with the New York Yankees. What a statement that would have been, for the heralded Yankees to have a black man of panache in the lineup. He had a flashy style on the field too. Not acceptable for the Yankees at the time. Power was knocking the cover off the ball in Triple-A. People carrying protest signs began appearing at Yankee Stadium demanding Power's promotion. No. The Yankees dispatched Power who then played nicely with non-major market teams, a nice story in the end but it could have been better and more heroic.
Power had black skin but like Cepeda was from Puerto Rico. Races did not matter in that island land. I have learned about how Power had to "learn" our culture. Presumably Cepeda had to also.
Cepeda spent part of his minor league development in St. Cloud MN, playing for the "Rox." So did Lou Brock, Gaylord Perry and Matty Alou. I graduated from college at St. Cloud. Today their baseball team is not affiliated with a big league club. It has resurrected the name "Rox" after a period of years when the name was "River Bats." St. Cloud is on the Mississippi River. Cepeda came back for a parade once.
 
Cepeda: from Giants to Cards
The story of the 1967 world champion St. Louis Cardinals is largely the story of Cepeda. Cepeda previously made a pretty big mark with the San Francisco Giants. He left the Giants in a 1966 trade that is not reflected upon in the most positive way. Oh, it was certainly positive from the standpoint of what he meant for the Cardinals. It probably meant the pennant and world championship for them. But why did the exciting player leave the Bay Area? There is suspicion that the Giants didn't like such a strong presence of players of color. The heart of their batting order had featured Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Cepeda. Juan Marichal was a stellar pitcher. Non-whites all.
How does Peter Minuit fit into all this? Well, my scholastic reading assignment tried making such a cute point over how the Cardinals braintrust had pulled off such a fantastic deal in acquiring Cepeda from the Giants. "Not since Peter Minuit."
So, if you're younger than me and probably studied American history when it had been "cleaned up," I'll give you a refresher on Peter Minuit. Minuit is credited with orchestrating the purchase of Manhattan Island for the Dutch from a Native American tribe, the "Lenape." Minuit purchased Manhattan for $24 worth of trinkets. Hah hah! Isn't that funny? Well, naturally the Native Americans did not have the same concept of property as the new Europeans. Exploitation set in.
Alas, it is said that history is really a story of "the strong exploiting the weak." It is not to be celebrated. Not intended for generating a chuckle or two among schoolkids in a reading assignment. My childhood was when some Neanderthal aspects were present. But of course, nothing as bad as the Vietnam war. I learned so much cynicism.
I could not have cared less that the South Vietnam leader was "striving" to accomplish something. I tried to find happiness in baseball cards and sports magazines. What else could I do?
For the record, the San Francisco Giants traded Cepeda for pitcher Ray Sadecki.
The Yankees' first player of color was Elston Howard.
A footnote re. Vic Power: In the days when blacks could be hassled trying to get access to the same restaurants as whites, Power opted often to get food at grocery stores, lots of salami and bananas.
 
More on my podcast:
My "Morris Mojo" podcast episode for today reflects on the exciting St. Louis Cardinals of 1967. The Redbirds were world champions with their win over the Cinderella A.L. champ, the Boston Red Sox. I invite you to click on permalink below:
https://anchor.fm/brian-williams596/episodes/The-Cardinals-of-67-ehthhh
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Peter Minuit with Native Americans