Tim Roske/AP
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. He was nicknamed “The Commish” for running an American Professional Baseball Association board game with colleagues, and the moniker became so widespread throughout baseball that even Commissioners Bud Selig and Rob Manfred called Hummel by the label.