St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum

History

The St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum was originally located in downtown St. Louis in the same building as the International Bowling Museum and the World Bowling Writers (WBW) International Bowling Hall of Fame, near the site of the old Busch Stadium and the new Busch Stadium. The International Bowling Museum closed its St. Louis site in November 2008 and moved to Arlington, Texas.

The Cardinals Hall of Fame likewise closed when the Bowling Museum moved and suspended public operations. However, the museum staff designed a new hall of fame and museum. The Cardinals moved the museum to the St. Louis Ballpark Village, which is located across Clark Street from Busch Stadium and opened in 2014. The new facility was constructed within the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum and Cardinal Nation Restaurant in Ballpark Village.

Voting criteria and process

In January, 2014, Cardinals chairman and chief executive officer William DeWitt, Jr., announced a plan for a formal, annual, Cardinals Hall of Fame induction process. Included components of the voting and induction process are a "Red Ribbon" committee of baseball experts, a six-week fan voting process in the spring, and an enshrinement ceremony in the summer. All former Cardinals already enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York and those honored with their number retired were automatically enshrined into the inaugural class of the Cardinals Hall of Fame on August 16, 2014.

To be eligible for the Cardinals Hall of Fame, a player must have played three seasons for the Cardinals and have been retired from Major League Baseball for at least three years. Players are divided into two categories, "modern players" and "veteran players." Players who have been retired 40 or more years are classified as veteran players. Each year, a Red Ribbon committee selects one veteran player to be inducted and nominates another 6 to 10 players for whom the fans vote. The vote is then accomplished on the Cardinals official MLB.com website. The two players with the highest online vote total are inducted. Additionally, the team may opt to elect personnel who fulfilled other roles besides playing, such as a coach, broadcaster or front office personnel. The team creates a plaque for each elected member of the Hall. The plaques are created by the same company who creates the plaques for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. 26 total members were inducted for the first class of 2014.

Cardinals Hall of Fame inductees

Positions that are listed were played the equivalent of a full season for the Cardinals.

Selected artifacts

The Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum contains over 15,000 total artifacts and 80,000 photographs, second only to the National Baseball Hall of Fame as the largest collection of baseball antiquities. The sections of the Museum include: the Plaque Gallery, a Sportsman's Park Room, a Busch Stadium II Room, a Busch Stadium III Room, a Championship Gallery, a Uniform Timeline, a Look at the Current Cardinals, a St. Louis Browns Display, a St. Louis Stars Display, and a Temporary Exhibit Room that has included displays on Stan Musial and a history of the Cardinals Farm System.