Broadcaster, league president and St. Louis Cardinal’s baseball player Bill White has been inducted into the 2020 Cardinals Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony has been postponed due to COVID-19 and is expected to take place in August, 2021.
In addition to his successful baseball career as a left-handed first-baseman, White became the first African-American play-by-play broadcaster for a major league team (the New York Yankees) in 1971, and the first African-American president of a major sports league (the National League) in 1989.
White played for the St. Louis Cardinals for seven years (1959-65 and 1969) and for the New York and San Francisco Giants and the Philadelphia Phillies. During the 1964 Cardinals championship season, White placed third in the league MVP voting. He is also one of the few Major League Baseball players who have hit at least .300 and driven in at least 100 runs in three consecutive seasons (1962–64). White’s best statistical year came in 1963, when he posted career highs with 200 hits, 106 runs scored, 27 home runs and 109 RBIs.
White became a sportscaster on KMOX radio while he was still playing for the Cardinals. He became a full-time broadcaster after his playing career ended in 1969, and was the play-by-play man and color analyst for the New York Yankees television and radio broadcasts for 18 years. White also worked as a Monday Night Baseball announcer in the late 1970s
In 1989 White was elected President of the National League and served as league president until he retired in 1994. White released his autobiography in 2011 entitled “Uppity: My Untold Story About the Games People Play.” He currently lives in Pennsylvania.
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