1953 St. Louis Cardinals season

The 1953 St. Louis Cardinals season was the team's 72nd season in St. Louis, Missouri and the 62nd season in the National League. The Cardinals went 83–71 during the season and finished in a tie for third place with the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League.
Prior to the start of the season, August A. Busch, Jr. of Anheuser-Busch bought the team from Fred Saigh. That started a reign that would last until March 1996, when William DeWitt, Jr., Drew Baur and Fred Hanser bought the club. Realizing the Cardinals now had more resources than he could possibly match, Bill Veeck, owner of the St. Louis Browns decided to search for another city to which to move the Browns. As a first step, he sold Sportsman's Park to the Cardinals. He would have probably had to sell the park in any case; the park had fallen into disrepair over the years, and the city had threatened to have it condemned. With the Browns' declining revenues – despite collecting rent from the Cardinals – Veeck could not afford to bring it up to code. Busch heavily renovated the 44-year-old park and renamed it Busch Stadium. Within a year, Veeck also sold the Browns to Jerold Hoffberger and Clarence Miles, and the new owners moved them to Baltimore as the Orioles.

Offseason

December 3, 1952: Grant Dunlap was purchased by the Cardinals from the Shreveport Sports.

Regular season

Notable transactions

May 18, 1953: Billy Johnson was released by the Cardinals.
May 23, 1953: Jackie Collum was traded by the Cardinals to the Cincinnati Reds for Eddie Erautt.
June 14, 1953: Hal Rice was traded by the Cardinals to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Pete Castiglione.

Player stats

Batting

Starters by position

Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in

Pos	Player	G	AB	H	Avg.	HR	RBI
C	Del Rice	135	419	99	.236	6	37
1B	Steve Bilko	154	570	143	.251	21	84
2B	Red Schoendienst	146	564	193	.342	15	79
SS	Solly Hemus	154	585	163	.279	14	61
3B	Ray Jablonski	157	604	162	.268	21	112
OF	Stan Musial	157	593	200	.337	30	113
OF	Enos Slaughter	143	492	143	.291	6	89
OF	Rip Repulski	153	567	156	.275	15	66

Other batters

Note: G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in

Player	G	AB	H	Avg.	HR	RBI
Peanuts Lowrey	104	182	49	.269	5	27
Harry Elliott	24	59	15	.254	1	6
Sal Yvars	30	57	14	.246	1	6
	67	52	9	.173	0	3
Dick Sisler	32	43	11	.256	0	4
Ducky Schofield	33	39	7	.179	2	4
Ferrell Anderson	18	35	10	.286	0	1
	9	31	9	.290	0	1
Eddie Stanky	17	30	8	.267	0	1
	16	17	6	.353	1	3
Les Fusselman	11	8	2	.250	0	0
Hal Rice	8	8	2	.250	0	0
	11	5	1	.200	0	1
Vern Benson	13	4	0	.000	0	0
	9	0	0	----	0	0
Fred Marolewski	1	0	0	----	0	0

Pitching

Starting pitchers

Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

Player	G	IP	W	L	ERA	SO
Harvey Haddix	36	253.0	20	9	3.06	163
Gerry Staley	40	230.0	18	9	3.99	88
Vinegar Bend Mizell	33	224.1	13	11	3.49	173
Joe Presko	34	161.2	6	13	5.01	56
John Romonosky	2	7.2	0	0	4.70	3

Other pitchers

Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

Player	G	IP	W	L	ERA	SO
Stu Miller	40	137.2	7	8	5.56	79
Cliff Chambers	32	79.2	3	6	4.86	26
Willard Schmidt	6	17.2	0	2	9.17	11
Jack Faszholz	4	11.2	0	0	6.94	7

Relief pitchers

Note: G = Games pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; SV = Saves; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

Player	G	W	L	SV	ERA	SO
	60	6	7	18	4.21	57
Hal White	49	6	5	7	2.99	32
Mike Clark	23	1	0	1	4.79	17
	20	3	1	0	6.31	15
	7	0	0	0	6.35	5
	3	0	0	0	6.00	0
Eddie Yuhas	2	0	0	0	18.00	0

Farm system

LEAGUE CHAMPIONS: Dothan, Hazlehurst-Baxley, Paducah