Longtime writer, Cards reporter Hummel dies

Rick Hummel, an esteemed writer who covered the Cardinals and Major League Baseball for five decades for the St. Louis Post-dispatch until his retirement last year, has died. He was 77.

Hummel died in his sleep at his St. Louisarea 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 . ... Still taking hand written notes that are impossible to read, and never misquoting. Still looking for the best in people and writing the truth.”

Hummel, who received a degree from the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism in 1968, worked for the Colorado Springs Free Press/sun while also serving in the U.S. Army. He 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, eventually serving as Cardinals beat writer through 2002 and then 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 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. There was the Mark Mcgwire-sammy Sosa home run chase of 1998 and ‘Whiteyball’ in the mid-1980s when Whitey Herzog’s Cardinals played a different game than any other club in baseball.”

Since retiring, he had written several baseball stories during spring training and early this season for The Associated Press.

Hummel was the 2006 winner of the Hall of Fame’s J.G. Taylor Spink Award for meritorious contributions to baseball writing, which in 2021 was renamed the Baseball Writers’ Association of America Career Excellence Award. A’S BROADCASTER TERMINATED >> Oakland Athletics broadcaster Glen Kuiper was let go by NBC Sports California after using a racial slur during a telecast while describing a trip to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

Kuiper was suspended by the network earlier this month following his slur that aired during a pregame segment of an A’s game against the Kansas City Royals on May 5. Kuiper talked about a trip to the museum with colleague Dallas Braden but seemingly mispronounced the word “negro,” making it sound instead like a slur.

“Following an internal review, the decision has been made for NBC Sports California to end its relationship with Glen Kuiper, effective immediately,” the network said in a statement Monday. “We thank Glen for his dedication to Bay Area baseball over the years.”

Kuiper apologized on the air later in that game, saying he said something that “didn’t come out quite the way I wanted it to.” He later issued a statement through the network when he was suspended, saying: “I could not be more sorry and horrified by what I said. I hope you will accept my sincerest apologies.”

Kuiper has been calling A’s games in the Bay Area for the last 20 years. He is the younger brother of former major leaguer and Giants announcer Duane Kuiper.

DAVID CARSON – ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH VIA AP Baseball Hall of Famer and retired St. Louis Post-dispatch writer Rick Hummel at the Cardinals spring training complex in Jupiter, Fla. in February.