Congratulations to Whitey Herzog, the newest Hall of Famer-elect, and maybe the most universally loved Cardinals figure whose nickname isn't a variation on The Man. Whitey presided over one of the most exciting effective teams in the history of baseball, yolking a desire for speed at all positions to a group of speedsters who, saints be praised, could also use that speed to play defense and get on base. When people talk about baseball As It Should Be Played they aren't really talking about the lumbering fifties or the dynastic seventies, even if they inadvertently reference those players—they're talking about Whiteyball.
Forget Jack Morris—if one figure defines baseball in the eighties, in all its powder-blue, polyester glory, it's Whitey Herzog, who created a style of baseball that was perfect for the era's enormous, astroturfed cookie-cutters and rode it to three pennants and World Series championship.