Ted Simmons, Joe Torre, Bob Gibson, Dal Maxvill
By Sally Tippett Rains
Steve Llndemann of Redwood City, California has a drawer-full of memories of his favorite team, the Cardinals. The photographer took photos of the team during 1970’s and has recently found them, hidden away in a drawer.
I grew up in St. Louis and remember going to lots of Cardinals games with my family during the late ’60s and early ‘70s,” said Lindemann. “ I often went with my brother and neighborhood friends, usually getting there by the Redbird Express and with $1 bleacher tickets.
“My family went crazy for the Cardinals along with most of St. Louis starting with their ‘dynasty years,’ notably 1964-1968, as well as years following.”
Those were the days of Harry Caray and Jack Buck, who were broadcast partners doing the Cardinals for 14 seasons, spanning from 1954 through 1969. Fans would bring their transistor radios to the games, and the KMOX broadcast could be heard throughout the stadium.
“I remember a game that ran past midnight that I attended with a large group of neighborhood friends and we were sitting in the bleachers,” said Lindemann. “As midnight hit, we were all having fun, raucously swinging our arms around, and we heard Harry Carry on the radio, talking about the wild fans in the bleachers who were going crazy.”
One game stands out in Lindemann’s mind was a home opener he attended with his family.
The Opening Day traditions for the Cardinals have continued for many years. Today, the players are introduced and driven around the field in Ford trucks or convertibles.
It was a memorable day for the 21-year old rookie starting pitcher, Jerry Reuss.In front of 26,841 fans, the Cardinals lost to the Giants 6-4. Despite the loss, fans who were at that game were able to see the great Willie Mays.
Mays, then nearly 40 years old, hit a two-run homer off the young starter. It was Mays’ fourth home run in four games to start the season.
Lindemann says he has so many happy Cardinals memories from his childhood. The Cardinals would hold “Autograph Night” where fans could walk around the field getting the players’ autographs.
The photo right, shows Lindemann’s megaphone popcorn box which he got signed on an Autograph Night.
And speaking of autograhps. There was the “the one that got away.”
“A close friend and I would hang out outside the Cardinals locker room after the game awaiting players to come by,” he said. “We got quite a lot of autographs, many of which were on Cardinals Programs, which sadly got thrown out by my Mom during a house move. Thankfully I still have my popcorn box megaphone which is still completely covered with autographs!”
The Cardinals have long had the tradition of the give-aways at games.
“I also loved the souvenir ball point pen that they gave out to all fans later, to commemorate their 1967 year to date attendance of over two million. The pens read “Thanks a Million / 2 Million Attendance.”
It’s hard to find photos that fans took at the games in the 70’s as this was before cell phones.Today people are snapping selfies left and right and posting their photos of the games on social media– but not back then.
Later in the 1990’s the disposable cameras became popular but Lindemann is one of the lucky ones to have photos of his own taken at Busch Stadium with his own camera.
Lindemann had an interest in photography and he would bring his Nikon camera with the big lens to the games.
“It all started when my Dad gave me an inexpensive “toy” film developing kit when I was around 10 years old,” he said. “It came with a small 6”x6”x6” light box and some small plastic developing trays and a safelight. I could place small film negatives and some light sensitive print paper on the box and expose it with its internal light bulb.
“When I saw the magic happening in the developing trays, I became hooked. My first prints were of my parents wedding years earlier, as those were large format negatives that were handy.”
Over the years he improved his camera work as he fell in love with photography and worked on the school paper, the Pilot at Lindbergh High School in St. Louis.
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My brother Don was four years older than me, and he was extremely bright and intensely interested in journalism,” said Lindemann. “He enjoyed documenting everything in our family’s life, including audio tape recordings of Cardinals games and family events. He started a neighborhood newspaper when he was around 15 years old, and would walk around canvassing neighbors for stories, then would type them up.”
Their mom, Arlene, shown left, with Don at Lambert Airport around that time, supported her sons interests, and would produce copies of the neighborhood paper on her office mimeograph machine.
“Don would walk around the neighborhood distributing them,” said Steve Lindemann. “He was the Editor in Chief of the Pilot in the 1969-70 school year, and his passionate interest in journalism and his determination to achieve excellence in all that he did rubbed off on me, and I followed in his footsteps.”
The younger Lindemann became the photo editor for the school paper and was a staff photographer for the yearbook, taking Graphic Arts and Photography classes at Lindbergh.
His photos, like this one of Willie Mays, along with Willie McCovey, where he added the text, got him noticed.
“I was incredibly fortunate to land a sports photography job with Suburban Newspapers in St. Louis staring in early summer 1972,” he said. I typically photographed high school sports events, but I also got a press pass to Busch Stadium, and it helped me hone my skills.”
He took the photo of Bob Gibson at a game in the 1970’s. That’s Joe Torre at third base.
“Looking back on it today, it’s hard to believe, I had just turned 16 when I took these photos,” he said. “How lucky I was to have a sports photography job with a local newspaper as a young kid. This was taken at the first Cardinals game that I was able to photograph using a field-level press pass.”
This game was May 10, 1972, the Cardinals vs Astros game at Busch Stadium, with Gibson was the starting pitcher. The Cardinals lost game 10-7, but Lindemann remembers everything about the game.
“I got a field-level view of players who would eventually become Hall of Famers,” he said. “Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Joe Torre and Ted Simmons as well as many other All-Stars and Gold Glove award winners.”
The photo, left, shows Lou Brock, just before getting ready to steal one of the 63 bases he stole during the 1972 season.
“I likely shot these with my Nikon F film camera,” said Lindemann, “Along with a manually-focused Nikkor 200mm f4 lens.”
“I didn’t have any water with me, and I started to feel woozy like I was going to pass out from the heat. I also lacked the confidence to ask for help from anyone, as I was quite young compared to the other photographers and staff around me. Finally, after I felt I could take no more, I stopped taking photos and luckily I made it to the exits to get a drink. I learned a number of lessons on that day.”Along with the Cardinals, he also got a press pass for the Football Cardinals as they were known before they moved to Arizona. At the Football Cardinals games it was the exact opposite from the heat of the summer. Those footbal games could be very cold.
“Just the opposite of being overheated happened as I was taking photos of a winter-time Cardinals football game,” he said. “It had recently snowed and we were in a deep cold snap. I used my press pass to be on the sidelines near the players, which was great of course. However in order to operate my camera controls (which was entirely manual, and not automatic like they are nowadays), I couldn’t use gloves.
“So instead my hands were bare throughout my time on the field taking photos. My hands got colder and colder, and by the games end, I felt like I was nearing frostbite. As I walked to my car after the game was over, I found my frozen fingers did not have enough strength to grasp my car key and unlock my car. Fortunately, a kind policeman was nearby and gave me a hand in opening up my car door.”
The photo below is of the Redskins at St. Louis Cardinals, Sunday, September 23, 1973
“It’s a photo that I took at the Season Opener at Busch Stadium,” said Lindemann, “Quarterback Jim Hart, #17, hands off to #27 RB Eddie Moss for this inside run.”
Lindemann graduated from high school in 1974 and that essentially ended his Cardinals (baseball and football) photography, as after high school the family moved to California, where along with the Cardinals, he watched Giants games.
He did keep his interest in taking pictures and was a photographer for the newspaper at Foothill Junior College in Fall 1974, and for the Chico News and Review newspaper at California State University – Chico while going to school there.
For a time he ran his own photo business concentrating on youth sports photography and composite wall-art. Though he did not pursue photography as a career, he always kept it as an active hobby.
The day he discovered all these photos he posted some of them on Facebook and they were very well received. It is 55 years later and he is literally half a country away, but the photos bring back all the memories of those days. If he had not found the photos, he would not have been able to share this photo of Ted Simmons after he hit a Grand Slam driving in Bob Gibson, Jose Cruz and Joe Torre.
“I look back on all of this, my time growing up in St. Louis was an incredibly wonderful time in my life. I was surrounded by a loving family and so many great friends, many of whom I met through our stared interest in journalism, photography and graphic arts.
“I feel so fortunate that I was able to land a job as a sports photographer with the Suburban Newspapers at such a young age. I learned so much, had so many fantastic experiences and me tso many wonderful people in the St. Louis area. All of this helped me to grow up and mature as a person, and I’ve carried these wonderful memories and friendships with me throughout my life. Photography still remains a fun hobby for me to this day. I’m so glad I found these photos to share with your readers.”
Photos by Steve Lindemann.
