His was the name in the newspaper.
That meant something. It had gravitas. He was this almost mythical storyteller of my favorite thing — he wrote about baseball for the local paper. Rick Hummel was the chronicler of my childhood — of many of our childhoods.
In St. Louis, baseball is a community. A culture, really. And Rick Hummel, the legendary Post-Dispatch scribe who passed away over the weekend at 77, was a mainstay, a major player. He was the guy who covered the Cardinals. He mattered in this ecosystem, where he cohabitated with the players and managers and general managers, sure, but also the team's broadcasters and the longtime local sportscasters and, even, the familiar faces (and voices) at Busch Stadium, be it the organist or ushers or “That One Guy” or the vendor who said: “Anybody wanna sodee .