Hummel: Strauss was more bark than bite

Joe Strauss (left) and Rick Hummel at the St. Louis Cardinals spring training workouts. Photo by Chris LeeWith Joe Strauss, the glass was always half empty, if that.

Woodward and Bernstein had nothing on him, as far as conspiracy theories. If it was 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky, Joe would want to know why it wasn’t raining, contrary to the forecast. Had God changed his mind?

But that hard-bitten, take-nothing-at-face-value attitude was what made Joe Strauss a top-notch baseball scribe and, for three years after he got off the beat, a first-rate sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch.

And he probably worked even harder at his column job than he did covering the Cardinals, which he did…