Long hair wasn’t an option. Faces had to be shaved. Jackets and ties on the road. No blue jeans.

Tension entered the clubhouse. An argument with star catcher Ted Simmons went public, among other incidents. Rapp was fired after the Cardinals went 6-11 to begin the 1978 season.

The strict baseball man had a softer side, though. He is survived by his wife, Audrey, four daughters, a brother, 15 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

“He was a very devoted husband and father,” said Beth Ackerson, a daughter. “Family, that was his No. 1 game. We would go to spring training, and we would all travel to wherever he was in the summer. We would make a home there. That was really important to him.”

Rapp’s second stint as a major-league manager came with Cincinnati in 1984. The Reds started 51-70 before he was replaced by player-manager Pete Rose. Rapp then retired to Colorado, where he found a new hobby — fly-fishing.

Rapp’s most memorable moment, at least in the eyes of Cardinal Nation, came when he clashed with Hrabosky, nicknamed the “The Mad Hungarian”, over the relief pitcher’s beloved Fu Manchu. Hrabosky parted with the mustache, but later said he felt like a soldier without his rifle. Time has since healed the shaving wounds.

“He’s part of the baseball family,” said Hrabosky, now a commentator for Fox Sports Midwest. “How rare to be a manager at the major-league level and he was a successful coach, a teacher and everything else. He just had a way about himself that kind of rubbed some people wrong. Our personalities, they clashed. But I had no ill will against the man, and there have been many times I’ve thought about him, and wondered how he was doing.”

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