Tony La Russa has nothing on Mike Bertani. The Cardinals’ director of stadium operations counts eight World Series, 13 playoff series, three All-Star Games, three stadiums, and two presidential visits among his time with the team. In fact, the Redbirds have been Bertani’s sole employer throughout his entire life. “It’s been a great career,” says Bertani, who plans to retire at the end of this season, after 55 years with the Cards. “I started with Stan Musial and ended with Albert Pujols. It was a great run.”
• I started in 1957, at age 13, as a change boy. At that time, the ticket price was $1.85, so you physically had to carry quarters, dimes, and nickels back and forth to the sellers. Then you graduated to office boy, which meant you ran errands—we were an extra set of legs for the bosses.
• I started working in June 1957, and eight days later there was the All-Star Game—which paid separately—so my first paycheck was from the All-Star Game. I made $2.25: It was 75 cents an hour, and I worked three hours. I looked at my paycheck, and I was shocked because it was only $1.89. That was my first experience with taxes.
• In 1966, I started on a full-time basis; I became the assistant ticket director that year. My main duty was to get all the tickets from the vault at the old stadium on Grand and Dodier to the new stadium here on 8th Street… To close one stadium and open up another stadium, then host the All-Star Game, somebody told me it was like five years of experience in one year.
• How you like to keep your home in order, that’s what I try to do. The field crew, the cleanup crew, and the maintenance people are beneath me. My job is basically over once the stadium opens. Then I kind of step back, and our directors of security and director of event operations take over.
• During the ’82 World Series, once we clinched Game 7, we lost the field in about 10 seconds—people were pouring out. I was with the Milwaukee Brewers’ wives, so we had to get them downstairs to a private room right away. I couldn’t celebrate until later, about 45 minutes after the game.
• Whitey Herzog was so calm. If the team wasn’t hitting well, he’d walk into the office and say, “Could you hit for us tonight?” He always took the light-hearted approach.
• For Game 6 of the ’85 World Series, I was sitting with the Cardinals players’ wives. We thought were going to win it until the eighth inning, when the supposedly bad call came in. We were all excited, but then I had to take the players’ wives back to the bus because we had a Game 7.
• Scott Rolen had a good rapport with the groundskeeper, and he liked third base a certain way. When Mark McGwire was hitting, he liked home plate a little bit more firm. You do those little things that make the players feel more comfortable.
• With the overlapping and the construction [of the new Busch Stadium], it was tough for the construction people and tough for our operations department. We’d kind of get in each other’s way sometimes.
• I’m not a memorabilia type of person, although once we moved, I didn’t realize how much stuff I accumulated so I brought it home and now we have a Cardinal room in our new house. I don’t collect many autographs, but over 50 years you’ve got some odds and ends. There are two favorites: the seven World Series bats…and the pins that they made for every World Series and All-Star Game.
• As an office boy, I’d go down and get autographs from Hank Aaron and Willie Mays for the PR director. If I had just collected a ball for myself from all those guys, I could have retired already.
• Because I still know him kind of personally after all these years, [my favorite player] has to be Stan Musial. He’s such a great and humble person. On that “Stand Up For Stan” day, I got to drive him around the field on that cart, so that was a special day.
• I’m one of the luckiest people in St. Louis… The first time I looked up, I realized it had been 38 years and now it’s been 55 years. I kid people that I buried two stadiums, so before I mess up the third one, I’m going to retire.
• I get here at 7 o’clock in the morning with the maintenance people. Then I usually leave at about 4 on a non-baseball day. But during a baseball game, I’ll stay till about the sixth inning or 9 p.m. If you’ve got a long home stand that encompasses two weekends, you’re working about 22 straight days.
• I’m kind of a fidgety person—I’m up and down—but I’ll make sure that I watch at least half of an away game on television, and the other half I’ll listen to the radio. I really like baseball.
• You’ll get a little superstitious with baseball. Sometimes when you turn on the game once or twice and the other team scores, you’ll say, “Boy, I’m bad luck!” Then if you turn it on again and we score, I’m good luck.
• I’m still trying to judge if my job is my hobby or my hobby is my job.
• We had two biological children, and we adopted three children. On a 14-year period, we were foster parents and we fostered 41 children. When my kids were growing up, we used to come out here on weekends and play catch. That was kind of a perk of the job.
• I’ll really miss the camaraderie with my fellow employees and the players… I’ll probably still come down for ball games, though. I have to wean myself off baseball.
• I worked hard and always tried to do the job right. My dad always says, “Give it 100 percent.” Hopefully, people can see that.
