Esteemed St Louis-based baseball writer Rick Hummel dies at age 77
ST. LOUIS >> Rick Hummel, an esteemed writer who covered the St. Louis Cardinals and Major League Baseball for five decades for the Post-dispatch until his retirement last year, has died. He was 77.
Hummel died in his sleep at his St. Louis-area home early Saturday after a short, aggressive illness, the Post-dispatch said Monday.
“St Louis lost a legend in Rick Hummel,” Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright said on Twitter. “Always fair. Always in a good mood. Always wearing some kind of goofy hat and mismatched pants that made me smile. The respect and trust he earned from players is a rare thing in our world.”
Hummel was nicknamed“The Commish” for running an American Professional Baseball Association board game football league with colleagues, and the moniker became so widespread throughout baseball that even baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and Bud Selig called Hummel by the label.
“Rick Hummel was one of the best and most respected baseball writers of his or any era,” Manfred said.
Selig knew Hummel dating to Selig’s time as Milwaukee Brewers owner.
“Baseball will miss Rick,” Selig said, “not only because he was one of the greatest baseball writers of our time, but because he was a wonderful friend, adviser, and clearly a great source of baseball knowledge to so many of us within the game for the last 50 years.”
Hummel was born on Feb. 25, 1946, in Quincy, Illinois. He attended Quincy High School, Quincy College and the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, receiving a journalism degree in 1968.
He worked for the Colorado Springs Free Press/sun while also serving in the U.S. Army and was hired in 1971 by Bob Broeg, the celebrated former Cardinals beat writer who was sports editor of the Post-dispatch.
Hummel first started covering baseball in 1973 and was subbing for baseball writer Neal Russo on a trip to Cincinnati when he covered Tom Seaver’s no-hitter on June 16, 1978. Hummel took over as Cardinals beat writer through 2002, then served two decades as the paper’s national baseball writer.
“The 51-year ride, except for a couple of broken windows, has been a smooth one,” Hummel wrote in a farewell column in the Post-dispatch last November. “I got to cover countless Cardinals playoffs, including three World Series champions, 35 World Series and the past 42 All-star games, starting and ending in Dodger Stadium.”