Managing had long been Solly Hemus’s goal. Throughout his playing days he filled a black book with notes and peppered his managers and coaches with questions. “I have a lot of ideas about managing,” he said, “and I’ve written them all down.” At 35, he thought he was ready. He proved that he wasn’t.

“Solly was easily despised,” pitcher Jim Brosnan said. “I thought he could have been a very good manager because of his knowledge, but he simply did not know how to handle different types of people.” He not only criticized players in front of their teammates, he couldn’t let go, continuing his harangues after the game when others were ready to move on. Stan Musial, who seldom said a bad word about anyone, thought Hemus lost respect because he tried to be Mr. Tough Guy one day and Mr. Nice Guy the next.

The Cardinals lost their first three games of 1959 and settled into last place. The panicky freshman manager began shuffling the lineup, even dropping the slumping Musial from his customary third spot in the order to sixth and eventually benching the legend. When center fielder Flood started slowly, Hemus banished him to late-inning defense. Eventually rookie right-hander Bob Gibson was shipped back to the minors after just three ugly relief appearances. The Hemus led Cardinals were inconsistent and lost 15 of their first 20 games.

It wasn’t all his fault however. He suffered by comparison with Fred Hutchinson, a commanding figure. The general manager didn’t want Hemus, and two of the coaches, Keane and Harry Walker, coveted his job. If Bing Devine couldn’t keep Fred Hutchinson after the 1958 season, he had wanted to hire Johnny Keane for the position but was overruled by Gussie Busch. Devine traded Wally Moon, a fine hustling outfielder who had had an off-year because of injury, to the Dodgers for Gino Cimoli. Devine also swapped the team’s best pitcher, Sam Jones, to San Francisco for Bill White, an outstanding ballplayer but the fourth left-handed first baseman on the Cardinals’ roster. Since the 38-year-old Musial was playing first to save his legs, White and Joe Cunningham had to pretend to be outfielders. (The other first baseman, George Crowe, served as a pinch-hitter.)

Most damaging to Hemus’s reputation in the long run, he alienated the team’s black players before the season was a month old. As a player in 1959, Hemus appeared in 24 games — mostly as a pinch-hitter — before concentrating on his managerial responsibilities. On May 3 he put himself into the lineup in Pittsburgh and stuck his leg in front of a pitch from Pittsburgh’s Bennie Daniels. As he ran to first base, he shouted at Daniels, “You black bastard.” Hemus said he was trying to fire up the club. Later in the game Daniels threw another pitch close to him, and Hemus flung his bat toward the pitcher, igniting a brawl.

Noting that Hemus claimed he had tried to put a spark into the Cardinals, Jim Brosnan said, “If that truly was his intention, he did it as awkwardly as he could. All he proved to me was that little men _ or boys _ shouldn’t play with sparks, as well as with matches.”

Wrote the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Hemus’ behavior seemed something less than expected from a major league manager.”

The Pittsburgh Press concluded Hemus “went to great lengths to set what turned out to be a bad example.”

After the game, Hemus held a closed-door meeting with his team.

In his book “The Way It Is,” Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood said Hemus told the team, “I want you to be the first to know what I said to Daniels. I called him a black son of a bitch.”

Flood said he and teammates “sat with our jaws open, eyeing each other” as Hemus spoke.

“We had been wondering how the manager really felt about us,” Flood said. “Now we knew. Black sons of bitches.”

During the session, Gibson said, “Hemus referred to Daniels as a nigger … It was hard to believe our manager could be so thickheaded and it was even harder to play for a guy who unapologetically regarded black players as niggers.”

Said Gibson: “Hemus’ treatment of black players was the result of one of the following: Either he disliked us deeply or he genuinely believed that the way to motivate us was with insults.”

Bill White said of Hemus, “I never had a problem with him, but some of the other players, especially Curt Flood and Bob Gibson, absolutely despised him, partly because he didn’t play them as much as they would have liked but also because they thought he was a racist.”

“Until then, we had detested Hemus for not using his best lineup,” Flood wrote in his autobiography. “Now we hated him for himself.” Flood and Gibson, who rejoined the club in July, were young players, not yet established. Roommates and friends, they fed each other’s rage. Flood batted .255 as a part-timer; Gibson was wild and got only nine starts despite a 3.33 ERA.

Gibson finally had enough and decided to quit. He was packing his gear when coach Harry Walker advised him not to worry about the manager: “He’ll be gone long before you will.”

Hemus might have been gone after his first year if not for Stan Musial. Owner Busch asked Musial if the manager should be fired. Despite their differences, Musial said Hemus deserved another chance. He believed inexperience was Hemus’s biggest problem.

The Cardinals posted a 71–83 record during the 1959 season and finished seventh in the National League never reaching .500, 16 games behind the NL pennant winner and World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Cardinals did play the league's best baseball from early May into late July, during which time they went 40–30. In the end, the pitching failed. Their 4.34 ERA was ranked worst in the National League.

Stan Musial experienced the worst year of his fabled career while playing part-time he appeared in only 115 games finishing with a .255 batting average, the first season he hadn't topped the .300 mark, and 14 home runs.

There were some bright spots to the season. Larry Jackson and Lindy McDaniel each won a team-high 14 games, though Jackson lost 13 and McDaniel lost 12. McDaniel found success, after an early season move to the bullpen, he appeared in relief in 55 games with 16 saves. Wilmer Mizell was the only other pitcher with at least 10 wins finishing at 13-10. Ken Boyer won his second straight Gold Glove and remained consistent at the plate with a .309 batting average, 28 home runs and 94 rbi's. Biil White in his first year as a Cardinal hit .302 with 12 home runs, despite being rotated in the outfield and first base.

Joe Cunningham had a truly "coming out" season leading the National League in on-base percentage at .453 and batted .345 to finish second to Hank Aaron for the National League batting title.

Ken Boyer, Joe Cunningham, Stan Musial, Wilmer Mizell, Hal Smith and Bill White were named to the National League All-Star team.

Stan Musial hit his 400th career home run on May 12th at Busch Stadium against the Cubs.