Who are the last 5 Cardinals to play every game in a full season?

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It's a long, grueling marathon that is the Major League Baseball season. Being able to show up to work every day and play shows some high levels of durability, perseverance, and commitment. It is an accomplishment however, that is hardly ever seen in this day in age.

So far this season, Juan Soto, Eugenio Suarez, Marcus Semien, Ronald Acuna, Jr., Matt Olson, and Anthony Volpe are the only players to have played in all of their team's games this season. There were only two players last season who played in all 162 games ( Matt Olson and Dansby Swanson both with Atlanta) so this has become a very rare achievement.

When it comes to the history of the Cardinals, the longest "Iron Man" streak, which means consecutive games played without missing a game, belongs to Hall of Famer Stan Musial. " Stan the Man " played in 895 consecutive games from April of 1952 to August of 1957, which stands as the 8th longest streak in MLB history.

The reigning National League MVP Paul Goldschmidt leads the Cardinals in games played this season, as he has only missed four games. Goldschmidt is also the last Cardinal to go a season without missing a game as he appeared in all 58 Cardinal games in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, after only missing one game in 2019. Albert Pujols appeared in 161 games in 2001 and 2008, and Jose Oquendo played in 163 out of 164 games for the Redbirds in 1989, these two are the most recent out of many Cardinals to play a season with just missing one game.

Keith Hernandez and Tom Herr didn't miss a game in the strike-shortened 1981 season (103 total games) which is very admirable, but focusing on just the seasons that were fully played out, who in Cardinal history has gone a full 162-game season without missing a single game? Here are the most recent, and these names are not so recent.

Ken Boyer, 1964

It has been almost 60 years since a Cardinal player played in 162 of 162 games, it really shows how much the game has changed. But the '64 season was arguably the best of Boyer's great career wearing the Birds on the Bat.

1964 was Boyer's 10th season in St.Louis, and that year he slashed .295/.365/.489 with 24 home runs, a league-leading 119 RBI, and he won the National League MVP. '64 was also his 7th and final All-Star season, and the year he won his only World Series as a player, beating his brother Clete in the '64 Fall Classic against the Yankees.

Boyer would go on to play one more season with the Cardinals before bouncing around to multiple teams in the final years of his career, but he will forever be known for his time as a Cardinal. One attribute was his durability, as in his 11 seasons in St. Louis, the most games he ever missed in a single season was just 11.

Curt Flood, 1964

Flood was alongside Boyer as the two players who did not miss a game on the Cardinals '64 championship team. Flood manned center field for 12 seasons in St. Louis after acquiring him from the Reds when he was just a teenager, the first trade completed by then General Manager Bing Devine.

More known for his defense, Flood had a great season at the plate in 1964, with a career-high .311 batting average, where he also saw himself lead all of baseball in hits with 211 and he was an All-Star for the first time in his career.

His impact off the field fighting the Reserve Clause and helping create what would become free agency in sports may gain more attention now than his playing career, but Flood was a player that the Cardinals were able to rely on for his bat and glove for just about every game for over a decade.

Bill White, 1963

White was another member of that '64 championship team who in the season before that, played in all 162 games for the Redbirds.

The Cardinals took a risk trading for White in 1959, a young first baseman with limited experience after missing an entire season due to his service in the military. They traded their ace at the time, Sam Jones to the New York Giants in the deal, but it turned out to be another trade pulled off by Devine that set the cornerstone of what would become a championship ball club. White would be a big part of that, as he instantly became an All-Star player in St. Louis.

In all of his first three seasons with the Cardinals White was a two-time All-Star back when they would play two All-Star games in a season, and was an All-Star again in 1963. In the season where White did not miss a game, he had career highs in hits (200), extra bases (61), RBI (109), and Slugging percentage (.491), on top of that he won his 4th straight gold glove.

Don Blasingame, 1957

A name I would not expect a whole lot of Cardinal fans to remember or recognize, regardless he appeared in all 154 games the Cardinals played in the 1957 campaign.

Blasingame was a smooth and steady defensive player and a hitter who was just trying to put the ball in play and use his speed. He took the reigns of being the Cardinals' second basemen after Red Schoendienst was traded to the Giants in 1956. 1957 was his first full season as an everyday player and he literally played every day that year.

It happened to be his best offensive season by a fairly wide margin, hitting 8 home runs and driving in 58, two numbers that Blasingame never really came close to again, and he had a career-high 21 stolen bases. In 1958 he was a reserve on the National League All-Star team, then was traded to the Giants one year later. In Blasingames career he was never known for his offensive prowess or being a star-studded player, but he was a gamer, as he surpassed over 140 games played in a season six times in his career, 4 of those years in St. Louis.

Stan Musial, 1943, 1946, 1948-1949, 1952-1956

What more can be said about the exceptional career of Musial? All of the All-Star appearances, the 7 batting championships, the 3 MVPS and 3 World Series titles, and still to this day holding several offensive records in Cardinals history. Musial played his entire 22-year career with the Cardinals and in 9 of those seasons, he did not miss a single game. And of course, in those seasons he was outstanding in all of them, as he was in the prime of his career.

He won his first MVP in 1943 as a 22-year-old where he led the league in AVG/OBP/SLG and OPS, he would lead the league in those categories again in 1948 while also just following short of the Triple Crown (Ralph Kiner and Johnny Mize hit one more home run than Musial in 1948) and he had 103 extra-base hits which seem difficult to even fathom. 1949 was the first of 3 consecutive seasons where he finished runner-up for MVP while still leading the league in several offensive categories, and this was right before Musial had the longest streak of his career without missing a game.

From Opening Day 1952 to late August 1957, Stan "The Man" Musial did not miss a game, not a single one, which adds up to 895 consecutive games played. During that remarkable stretch in what were his age 31-36 seasons, his 162-game average saw him slash .330/.419/.575 with 31 home runs, 116 RBI, and just over 200 hits. It didn't matter that he was getting old, it didn't matter that he never got a day of rest during this stretch, it didn't matter that he was playing scheduled doubleheaders, 10 games in a week, the constant nonstop grind, he still was one of the best hitters in the game.

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When his consecutive games streak ended in 1957, at the time it was the longest such streak in National League history. Musial held the NL record until 1969 when it was broken by the Chicago Cubs Billy Williams. Musial would play another 6 seasons after his "Iron Man Streak " ended and continued to be as consistent as ever. He played in at least 115 games every year and was voted as an All-Star in every season including his final season in 1963 at the ripe age of 42. This run of dominance further solidified himself as the face of the St. Louis Cardinals franchise.

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