Former Cardinals player and manager Solly Hemus, the last big-league manager alive who had managed in the 1950s and the last Cardinals player-manager in 1959, died at age 94 on Monday in Houston. He had been in ill health.

Solomon Joseph Hemus, a 5-foot-9, hard-nosed infielder, had a lifetime batting mark of .273 in an 11-season career with the Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies from 1949-59.

Cardinals Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst, who played second next to Hemus at shortstop for several seasons in here in the early 1950s, recalled Hemus as a “tough player, a winning-type player. If he needed to get hit by a pitch, he’d stick right in there. He’d try to get on base for the guys behind him.

“He wasn’t a great shortstop but he got the job done,” said Schoendienst, born two months ahead of Hemus in 1923. “Maybe it wasn’t the best, but he always was trying to help the club, I’ll say that.”

After he was traded to the Phillies in 1956, Hemus wrote a letter to Cardinals owner Gussie Busch saying how proud he had been to be a Cardinal. After the 1958 season, Busch re-acquired Hemus and named him player/manager.