Most of Shildt’s current players had already been born when their major league manager was coaching high school baseball in his native North Carolina. He spent a few years working for baseball’s scouting bureau before he came into the St. Louis fold in 2004. His first managerial assignment came in 2009, at the Cardinals’ rookie affiliate in Johnson City, Tenn., and he joined the major league staff as a quality control coach in 2017.

It was during that first year around Busch Stadium, over dinner at an old-school steakhouse just west of St. Louis, that Shildt’s potential crystallized for Mozeliak. He went home and told his wife that Shildt would someday be a major league manager. “I assumed it would be for the Cardinals,” he added.

St. Louis picked Shildt as its interim manager during the next season, with the temporary tag stripped away about six weeks later — a vote of confidence for one of the few men to take charge of a major league team without having played a pitch of professional baseball.

His players were, and remain, unbothered by his lack of big league credentials. Second baseman Kolten Wong went as far as to argue that Shildt’s lack of playing time ultimately benefited players.

“Sometimes when you play the game for so long, you tend to forget how hard the game is, and when you haven’t played the game, you can really be on the guys’ level,” he said.

That can translate into more confidence for Shildt’s players.

“He’s not going to beat you down when you don’t play a good game or make an error or whatnot,” Wong said after a game in which he had recorded an error and, in the ninth inning, a two-run double. “At this level, we’re all hard enough on ourselves, so to have him be that guy to support us and knowing that he’s the manager and the head honcho, it gives you a lot more confidence going into the next ground ball or at-bat.”