Former Cardinals manager Mike Shildt Still ‘Heartbroken’ Over Surprise Ousting

Despite a successful run in St. Louis, the Cardinals announced the firing of longtime manager Mike Shildt at the end of last season.

In 2021, Shildt’s Red Birds carried a meteoric rise up the standings in the second half of the season to propel them to a playoff berth. They would wind up losing to the Dodgers in the Wild Card Game on a Chris Taylor walk-off home run in extra innings.

Despite the fact that he’s had a whole offseason to vent about gettin the axe from the Cardinals, Mike Shildt still isn’t happy. In fact, he’s still “heartbroken” about how things went down in St. Louis.

“I have a broken heart,’’ Shildt tells USA TODAY Sports. “It still hurts. It hurts bad. When it first happened, I broke down. I was inconsolable. I got better as time went on. Then I got down here, put on the Padres uniform, and it hit me.

“Now, it just hit me again.’’

Mike Shildt interviewed for the vacant Padres job over the offseason. But when the gig was given to Bob Melvin, Shildt landed as a team consultant. During Spring Training, he’s been the team’s interim third base coach.

On Wednesday, Shildt had to face the emotional task of seeing his old team up close and personal.

“I love that organization, gave it everything I had for 18 years,’’ Shildt said. “We make the playoffs after they hadn’t been there for three years. We get back to the standards of the Cardinals. We’re set up to really go. The clean style of play, the culture, everything is in place.

“And you get removed from it. It feels like it was stolen away from me.’’

To this day, Mike Shildt sounds like a man who is shellshocked that he was fired by the Cardinals. After all, he just led the team to a miraculous September push in order to make his third straight postseason.

When general manager John Mozeliak called at the end of the season, he figured it was time to talk about a contract extension.

“I was getting on the phone with the thought it was going to be about a contract extension,’’ Shildt said. “I had one more year on my contract. So I was looking at some of the numbers of the last three years, feeling good about them, and then Mo started talking.’’

Now, Mike Shildt sulks, sounding like a broken man with an unimportant job.

He’ll hope next season he can make his return to the bench, where he’ll try to prove the Cardinals made a big, big mistake letting him leave the organization he loved so dearly.

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