An architect behind the pitching staff that returned the Cardinals to October prominence and the pitching philosophy seeped into the roots of player development and one of his earliest pupils will be reunited this fall in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, with custom-tailored red jackets waiting.
Longtime pitching coach Dave Duncan and former Cardinals ace Matt Morris will be inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame along with 1940s great Whitey Kurowski this September. Morris, who won 101 games for the Cardinals, was selected by the fans for the Class of 2024. Kurowski, a three-time World Series champ during the Swifties era, was selected by the Red Ribbon Committee. And Duncan, one of the most highly regarded pitching coaches in major-league history, was chosen for the honor directly by Cardinals ownership.
The inductees were announced Friday night.
The ceremony will be Sept. 7 at Ballpark Village.
People are also reading…
Duncan, 78, spent 16 years as the Cardinals’ pitching coach, and he’s the fourth-longest tenured coach in club history. During his time with the team, manager Tony La Russa as well as other members of club leadership credited him with reviving pitchers’ careers, maximizing talents with his meticulous preparation, and building upon while feeding into the Cardinals’ reputation for strong defensive play. He kept his pitchers grounded. Quite literally.
Duncan is “the perfect pitching coach,†La Russa often said. He added: “There isn’t any pitching problem you can present that he can’t handle. I don’t think every coach can say that.â€
“Papa Dunc,†as some of his pitchers called him, came to ºüÀêÊÓƵ with La Russa, and he spent most of his 32 years as pitching coach beside La Russa with the White Sox, Athletics, and Cardinals. During Duncan’s time leading the pitching staff, the Cardinals had the third-lowest ERA (4.08) and also the third-lowest ERA for starters (4.16), all while overlapping with Atlanta’s Hall of Fame-bound trio of Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, and Tom Glavine, and not boasting the same budget for pitching as other NL rivals. A former executive with the Cardinals once said that Duncan “saved the team millions†by turning overlooked, undervalued pitchers into All-Stars.
Two of those pitchers, Jeff Suppan and Kyle Lohse, each signed a $40-million contract after a year or so with Duncan as manager and Yadier Molina at catcher. Suppan found his with the Brewers, and Lohse signed his with the Cardinals before then leaving for a $33-million contract with the Brewers.
Duncan traveled with two large trunks that housed his handwritten database on hitters. He would color-code the results of at-bats and link them to specific pitches so that the Cardinals could use that for scouting reports and defensive positioning. Former catcher and manager Mike Matheny referred to the trunks once as “The Holy Grail.†They were early analytics. Duncan preached pitching to contact, getting the defensive involved, and pitching low in the zone. One spring training, on a large dry-erase board in his office, Duncan tracked the number of outs and the number of extra-base hits based on balls on the ground or in the air.
He was attempting to illustrate to Brad Penny (and anyone else watching) how damage happened in the air and there were outs to get on the ground.
Duncan once asked Joel Pineiro to just give him a spring training start, just one spring training game where all he threw was a one-seam sinker. That outing revived Pineiro’s career. Even if it sometimes led to clashes with colleagues, Duncan vigorously defended his preferred approach even as the Cardinals sought to change how they developed pitching and the game began to chase high velocity, four-seam fastballs, and the modern power-spin game.
“In my opinion, Duncan is the best pitching coach in the business,†a rival NL executive once told the late Joe Strauss. “You make guys better by finding a key to their success. I don’t know anyone who is better than he is at finding and turning that key.â€
With Duncan as pitching coach, the Cardinals had the lowest ERA in the majors in 2004 and 2005. In 2005, Chris Carpenter became the second Cardinal ever to win the Cy Young Award. The Cardinals reached the playoffs in nine of Duncan’s 16 seasons, won three NL pennants, and two World Series championships. When asked once where he would consider managing, La Russa said wherever Duncan was coaching.
One of the winningest pitchers not yet honored in the club’s Hall of Fame, Morris went 101-62 with the Cardinals and had a 3.61 ERA over eight seasons and 237 appearances. His win total ranks 11th in club history, and he struck out 986, the sixth-most in Cardinals history. In 2001, the first of his two All-Star seasons, Morris emerged as the leader of the rotation as it and the team mourned the sudden death of Darryl Kile. That summer, Morris, the Cardinals’ lone All-Star, went 22-8 with a 3.16 ERA. He finished third in the Cy Young Award voting behind Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, and Morris received votes for the MVP Award.
After his debut in 1997, Morris was a key starter for the postseason revival on his way to the third-most postseason starts in Cardinals history. He pitched in the postseason in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, and 2005.
The Cardinals’ first-round pick – and 12th overall – in the 1995 draft, he joins Ted Simmons as the only two first-rounders who are also Cardinals Hall of Famers.
Morris will turn 50 just before his induction.
The right-hander retired after the 2008 season he spent with Pittsburgh.
Duncan left the Cardinals after the 2011 championship season in order to spend more time with his wife, Jeanine, as she battled brain cancer. Jeanine died in 2013. Six years later, their son, former Cardinals outfielder and ºüÀêÊÓƵ radio personality Chris Duncan, also died of brain cancer in 2019.
Third baseman Kurowski played his entire career with the Cardinals, hitting .286 with a .821 OPS and a .455 slugging percentage in 916 games. He appeared in four World Series, helping the Cardinals to win three of them. His ninth-inning, two-run homer on Oct. 5, 1942, was the title-clincher in Game 5 against the Yankees. Four years later, in a World Series against the Red Sox, he hit .296, scored five runs, and had a dazzling play on an attempted sacrifice bunt in the final inning of Game 7 to help secure that championship.
From 1943 to 1947, Kurowski was selected for five consecutive All-Star games.
Morris, Kurowski, and Duncan will be the 11th class inducted into the Cardinals Hall of Fame and bring the total number of people honored at the Ballpark Village museum to 55.
The author of this article was a member of the committee that elected Kurowski.
Morris finished ahead of three other candidates during the online fan balloting that happened earlier this year. The right-hander was on the ballot with former teammate Edgar Renteria as well as George Hendrick and lefty Steve Carlton, a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Players who have retired within the past 40 years are eligible for the fan ballot. Players must be retired three years before being eligible for the Cardinals Hall of Fame.
Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina will first be eligible to appear on the fan ballot for the 2026 class. Adam Wainwright will be eligible for 2027 induction.