Cardinals announce three new inductees to their franchise hall of fame

The St. Louis Cardinals announced their annual team Hall of Fame class on Friday, celebrating some of their most dramatic successes and innovations in pitching from the turn of the century as well as a three-time World Series champion.

Pitcher Matt Morris was elected to the Hall of Fame via fan vote, pitching coach Dave Duncan was named an organizational selection, and third baseman Whitey Kurowski was selected by the Red Ribbon committee.

“We take great pride in the selection process we use for electing new members of the Cardinals Hall of Fame,” Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt, Jr. said in a statement. “I’d like to thank our fans as well as the Red Ribbon Committee who cast their votes for this year’s induction class. Congratulations to Matt Morris, Dave Duncan, and the late Whitey Kurowski on this tremendous honor. We look forward to celebrating the achievements of these players during our induction ceremony in September.”

Duncan was Morris’s pitching coach for the full stretch of the latter’s time in St. Louis, during which he established himself as a home grown ace starter before transitioning to a depth role later in his career.

Making his debut in 1997 and pitching for the Cardinals through the 2005 season, Morris topped 200 innings on four occasions, including as a 22-year-old rookie in a season where he posted a 3.19 ERA and was runner up as NL Rookie of the Year.

His best season was in 2001, his first full season after returning from Tommy John surgery in 1999. That year, he won 22 of his 34 starts and finished third in voting for the NL Cy Young, striking out 185 batters and allowing just 13 home runs.

Morris pitched in five separate postseasons for the Cardinals, starting game two of the 2004 World Series. He has the fourth-best winning percentage in franchise history among pitchers who have thrown at least 1,000 innings, and his 11 playoff starts rank third in franchise history.

In his ninth year on the ballot, Morris was elected ahead of pitcher Steve Carlton, outfielder George Hendrick and shortstop Edgar Renteria.

Long considered one of the greatest coaches in the history of any major league franchise, let alone the Cardinals, Dave Duncan’s time in St. Louis overlapped directly with that of Tony La Russa, running from 1996 through 2011. His 16 years as a coach are the fourth-most in franchise history, and he won two World Series championships in 2006 and 2011 along with the 2004 NL pennant.

Duncan’s specialty was education in the art of the sinker, and by encouraging pitchers to seek soft contact and rely less on overwhelming strikeout stuff, he was able to extend and maximize the careers of several veterans over his time with the Cardinals. The successful St. Louis stints of players like Jeff Suppan, Jeff Weaver and Woody Williams are a testament to that success, as well as his ability to sculpt pitchers with raw skill into talented hurlers.

Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright and Morris are among those who thrived under Duncan’s tutelage, to say nothing of the impact his views on pitching had in shaping the career of Yadier Molina. During his time with the Cardinals, Duncan oversaw four 20-game winning seasons, as well as Chris Carpenter’s 2005 Cy Young Award and the top three finishes in 2009 of Carpenter and Wainwright.

His son, Chris Duncan, was also a key contributor to the 2006 World Champions, slugging 22 home runs as a rookie and then 21 in 2007. Chris Duncan also became a beloved local radio host before dying tragically of brain cancer in 2019. Dave Duncan’s selection to the Hall of Fame this year marks the second straight year honoring a coach from La Russa’s time in St. Louis, following last year’s induction of José Oquendo.

Kurowski’s major league career was perhaps the least likely of all three of this year’s inductees, owing to a bone infection in his youth which left his right arm several inches shorter than his left. While that may have interfered with his ability to serve in World War II, it left him available to patrol third base for the Cardinals, where he was a three-time World Champion in 1942, 1944 and 1946.

Born George John Kurowski in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1918, his shock of white hair as a child formed the basis for a nickname which would make him the second-most notable Whitey in Cardinals franchise history. He made the All-Star Game in every year between 1943 and 1947, and twice was a top-10 finisher for league MVP. His peak in that category was a fifth place finish in 1945, a year in which he posted a career-best .323 batting average and 21 home runs.

Kurowski died at age 81 in 1999 near his lifelong home in Pennsylvania.

The Cardinals will officially enshrine this year’s Hall of Fame inductees in a ceremony at Ballpark Village on Saturday, September 7. This year’s three new additions make a total of 55 members of the Cardinals Hall of Fame, the Gallery of which is free and open to the public.