Giants' Manager, St. Louis Native Recalls his Cardinals Fandom, Busch Stadium Memories

To try and guard against getting emotional when his San Francisco Giants faced the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday night, Tony Vitello jogged over to the Busch Stadium much earlier in the day and took several laps around the concourse, out near the bleachers and close to the spot where David Freese’s walk-off homer landed in Game 6 of the 2011 World Series.

With every step that Vitello – a St. Louis native, a graduate of nearby DeSmet High School and a boyhood Cardinals fan – took, a memory from his childhood flooded back to him. Even though many of those remembrances happened at Busch Stadium II – the predecessor to the Cardinals’ current digs – Vitello had emotions filling his heart and maybe some moisture welling around his eyes.

Vitello, 47, thought about the time him and his buddies were sitting in the right field bleachers and because they were short on funds, they dug into the nachos that a fan sitting in front of them left behind. He recalled being “20 yards” away from where Mark McGwire’s No. 62 low liner landed before reaching the seats. And he thought back to all those Opening Days of seeing Ozzie Smith’s summersaults and the Budweiser Clydesdales circling the warning track. Despite smiling as he thought back to those memories, Vitello was left with one regret.

“I’m upset that I don’t get to see Jack Buck here, listen to his voice and get to meet him,” Vitello said before his Giants faced off against the Cardinals on Monday in the first of a three-game series.

“I’m kind of wowed by the Whitey (Herzog) photo that’s in the manager’s office, I’m excited to see friends and teammates here and I’m excited that my mom only has to drive instead of having to fly all the way out to San Francisco. So, there’s a lot going on, but it’s good to be back in this park. It’s been a big part of my buildup as a player, coach and being from a city that’s known as being a phenomenal baseball city.”

Vitello, a national championship winning manager at the University of Tennessee, likely wouldn’t describe his first year as an MLB manager as memorable. His Giants have been beset by injuries all season and they limped into St. Louis on Monday at 62-88, fourth in the NL West and riding a three-game losing streak. San Francisco has been solid at home (36-39), but it is tied for MLB’s second-worst road record (26-49) and it has been outscored by 77 runs on the season.

That certainly hasn’t been easy on the fiery, first-year coach, who still hits ground balls to his players during infield practice. Vitello, and former Giants star and GM Buster Posey, have come under fire for the franchise spending gobs of cash each of the past two offseasons only to falter badly. Having already lost many of their veteran regulars to injuries, the Giants shut down star slugger Rafael Devers on Sunday with a core muscle injury that will require surgery in the coming days.

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The trip back to St. Louis is a nice diversion from the struggles of a long season admitted Vitello, who will stay in his hometown for Thursday’s off day rather than flying back with the Giants to Los Angeles for Friday’s game against the Dodgers. He said many of the reasons he fell in love with baseball and ultimately became a highly successful manager is because of his roots in baseball-loving St. Louis.

“It’s just a different vibe of appreciation for good baseball,” said Vitello, who noted that one of his favorite things to do in elementary school was tear sheets off the calendar as a countdown to Opening Day. “A guy like (former Cardinal Mike) Laga, (Tom) Lawless or (David) Eckstein can be put on as big of a pedestal as (Mark) McGwire and Ozzie Smith. I think San Francisco has that same vibe, and you get louder cheers for a sac bunt than you do for a home run at times. But it’s nice to be around people that really know the game and appreciate when it’s played the right way.

“So many of us, whether it’s thinking about it daily or you have to talk to a shrink about it, so many of our roots go back to our childhood experiences and (baseball) was so important every day. It’s good to be here in the fall in September because for me that was a time when my dad was coaching soccer and the Cardinals were building up probably toward a playoff run and then the playoffs and World Series. It had a certain vibe to it.”

Vitello said he had no clue how many friends, family and former baseball teammates will be in attendance over the next three days because few have hit him up for free tickets. “Maybe they think I’m cheap,” he cracked.

As for him arriving at Busch Stadium earlier in the day to soak in the stadium and revel in the memories the run sparked, Vitello said he will likely have a smile plastered across his face this week regardless of how his youth-filled Giants lineup fares against the Cards.

“I came earlier and run and got it all out of my system, so that hopefully I can do a decent job tonight,” Vitello said. “But (during his run) I looked over and remembered a high school guy eating leftover nachos, and thought, ‘He probably doesn’t belong in this (managerial) spot.”