I Love The Cardinals Part 44 - Todd Zeile

The 1989 Cardinals were not that bad of a team.  They won 86 games and finished third in the standings behind the Cubs and Expos.  Several players had good years.  Pedro Guerrero had more than 40 doubles and drove in 117 runs, Vince Coleman led the National League in stolen bases, Ozzie Smith won a Gold Glove, Jose DeLeon led the National League in strikeouts, and Joe Magrane won 18 games with an ERA under 3.00.  

Most of the players returned from the 1989 season for the 1990 season, minus All-Star catcher Tony Pena.  The Cardinals traded for Pena prior to the 1987 season, while he helped them reach the World Series in 1987, his offensive numbers were disappointing during his time in St. Louis.  Plus the Cardinals had the best catching prospect in all of baseball at Triple A.  

Baseball America had Todd Zeile rated as the seventh best prospect in all of baseball entering the 1990 season.  The Cardinals brought him up at the end of the 1989 season for a cup of coffee and ended up handing him the starting catchers job for 1990.  Pena ended up signing with the Red Sox as a free agent.  

Zeile was hailed as a franchise player while he was coming up through the Minor League system.   He was an All-Star at every level he played in, hit for power, and drove in runs.  Zeile seemed like the real deal.  

Zeile has a whole bunch of Minor League cards celebrating his status as an uber prospect, many are from All-Star sets.  I can only imagine if he had been a Minor Leaguer a decade later during the Bowman craze, his cards would have temporarily been worth a small fortune.  I think I got this Arkansas Travelers card as a throw-in from an Ebay seller.  

Zeile's first season as a Cardinal was disappointing, but the team was a complete disaster.  He did hit 15 home runs, a decent amount for a Cardinals player at that time, but he also played some really bad stretches of baseball.  His season averaged ended at .244, throw out a hot month in August and Zeile hit under .230 for the better part of the season.  

Meanwhile, I had a pretty good Todd Zeile collection for 1990.   

The best of the bunch, in my opinion, was his 1990 Topps card.  I know some people point to his 1989 Upper Deck, or 1990 Donruss Rated Rookie, but this was my favorite.  You knew he was going to be good with a Future Star graphic going across the bottom of the card.  

At the end of the season the team worked on transitioning him to third base to give defensive wiz Tom Pagnozzi a shot to catch full time.  Pags flies under the radar, but he was a very good defensive player.  Won a bunch of Gold Gloves.  

Zeile's 1991 season went well.  He hit less home runs, down to 11, but managed to bump up all the rest of his numbers.  He hit doubles, drove in runs, got on base, and even managed to steal 17 bases.  The team finished second to the Pirates and won 84 games.  With a young core of Zeile, Ray Lankford, Bernard Gilkey, and Geronimo Pena it appeared the Cardinals were headed in the right direction.  

He still ended up with cool baseball cards at this point, but he started slipping after his 1992 season.  This Stadium Club from 1992 is one of my early 1990s favorites of Zeile.  

I always thought of 1992 as the end of Todd Zeile in St. Louis.  He made it another two and half years, but Cardinals fans generally lost their patience with him that summer.  Zeile hit only 7 home runs and had a slugging percentage of .364.  That was lower than second baseman Luis Alicea.  He just squeezed by Ozzie Smith though. 

Another good Zeile card from the early 1990s....

The Cardinals celebrated their 100th Anniversary in 1992.  The team wore patches to commemorate the occasion, but baseball cards rarely do anything to showcase any sort of special event logos.  Especially during the early 1990s.  The t-shirt that Zeile is wearing in this picture has the 100th Anniversary logo on it.  Nice touch.  

Although, the Cardinals did put the logo on their team set that season.....

bonus nicety that the photograph for the card was taken in Wrigley.  Not my favorite team, but the Cubs stadium does make for nice baseball cards.  

The anniversary logo also appeared on a set of Pacific trading cards, which celebrated the great players in team history, that were sold at area McDonald's restaurants.  

While Zeile was in the team set, which was a stadium giveaway, he rightfully missed the cut on the all-time Cardinals set. 

Let me share the most incredible Todd Zeile card in my collection before we get to the bad part of Todd Zeile's time in St. Louis.  

Who knew that MilkBone had baseball cards inside their boxes?  I am not sure what type of dog Zeile owns, but her name is Tiffany.  The picture showing Todd swinging is at some point in the at bat past the first pitch.  He never swung at that pitch, plus his batting gloves look extra tight.  

There were a lot of negative perceptions about Zeile his last few years with the Cardinals. See the last sentence of the last paragraph.  He always took the first pitch of every at bat, every time, all the time.  Zeile was constantly down in counts 0-1.  He played with his batting gloves after the first pitch.  He looked indifferent and unemotional about everything.  I am amazed that Zeile lasted with the Cardinals until the middle of 1995.  

The final straws came in 1995 when he had a contract dispute with the team in Spring Training.  The Cardinals played poorly during the first half of the year on top of that, so when the team decided to fire Joe Torre in season, they also traded Zeile to the Cubs.  The trade turned into a war of words between Zeile and August Busch, which ultimately ended in him getting booed most of the rest of his career in St. Louis.  His wife was even heckled once to the point where she had to leave the stadium.....

and she has not been back since.  I don't remember what sort of sales job Augie Busch did in presenting Zeile as a traitor, might have to go back and check that out.  Overall, not cool.  Especially the heckling the wife part.  

Zeile had a few more baseball cards that I liked towards the end of his time with the Cardinals.  The 1994 team set, which was a stadium giveaway, had a nice appearance.....

Always thought it was odd that the Cardinals pretty much stopped using the slugger bird logo after 1992, but he always popped up on odds and ends with the team.  For whatever reason that logo is used on this set of cards.

I also really liked his 1994 Studio card with the lockers in the background.  Actual locker room in Busch Stadium.  I know it does not look very nice compared to modern lockers, but it sure beats some of the other lockers in the set.  I believe the Angels cards all have cinder blocks with a metal bar going across.  Classy.  

For my last Cardinals card of Zeile I will go with his 1995 Topps 3D card.  

Sort of like the old Kellogg's card from the 1970s and 1980s.  Kind of a neat looking card.  

After leaving the Cardinals, Zeile ended up bouncing around the league.  In all he played for 11 teams in 16 years.  Zeile had good years, bad years, and even ended up getting traded for Mike Piazza.  His career ended in 2004 while playing in his second stint with the Mets.  

For all of the different teams, and garbage he took from Cardinals fans, Zeile actually had a decent career.  It ended well, he hit a three run home run for the Mets in his final at-bat.

I had some final thoughts on Zeile that has kept this post in my drafts for a while.  I might have to come back to it at some point, but