The Rap on Manager Rapp
Vern Rapp was a guy I watched as a kid while he played as a catcher for the 1950 Houston Buffs. Rapp only batted .188 with 4 homers in 72 games in 1950, but he had some long-term resiliency, batting .266 in 16 minor league seasons that spanned to include some later year token pinch-hitting appearances between 1946 and 1976. Rapp put in 15 partial and full seasons between 1955 and 1976 then 1 full and 2 partial years as a major league manager of both the Cardinals and Reds.
Here’s an excellent article by someone identifying themselves as “retrosimba” that highlights the stones on the rocky road to success that derailed and quickly caused triumph to slip away from Vern Rapp in the bigs:
http://retrosimba.com/2012/03/08/mike-matheny-can-learn-from-pitfalls-of-vern-rapp/
At the end of the day, Vern Rapp was one of those hardworking, rigid thinking guys who was bound to run into conflict with eccentric players from the 1970s like Al Hrabosky over facial hair and fail to understand or be in touch with how his decisions might affect the egos of major stars like Lou Brock or the needs of a guy like Ted Simmons to use loud music in the clubhouse as a way of handling things inside after a tough loss.
Rigid. Mechanical. Out of touch. Unbending. These factors were bound to rattle out as behaviors that were going to get Vern Rapp fired. And so they did. Twice. Once in St. Louis (1978). And Once in Cincinnati (1984).
Managers like Vern Rapp ring too many bells that cannot be unrung. Poor Vern Rapp. After 1984, nobody in baseball rang his managerial bell again.
One irony: When former Buff Vern Rapp had the Cardinal managerial reins removed from his hands during the 1978 season, the club handed it to another slightly better known and accomplished former Houston Buff star named Ken Boyer.
Tags: Vern Rapp
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