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The former Cardinals general manager, who later went to Cincinnati, used to revel in the days leading up to the July 31 trading deadline. He most often was in a buying, rather than a selling, mood and was not afraid to pull the trigger.

Speaking from Paradise Valley, Arizona, where he has “a pretty easy job” as senior advisor to CEO Bob Castellini of the Reds, Jocketty said he misses the action leading up to the deadline.

“I miss the competitiveness you have at the trade deadline — and the off-season — in putting your roster together,” he said. “And I miss the camaraderie with the people I worked with. We worked hard, but we had fun doing it. I miss seeing those people every day.

“It was our responsibility in the front office, especially in ��ѿ��ý, where (manager) Tony (La Russa) and the players were doing the best they can to help win — that if we needed to find that missing piece, we had to try to provide it for them.

“It was my way of competing,” he added.

In late July 1997, Jocketty made a trade with Oakland for Mark McGwire, who helped to change the game in the next year when he hit 70 home runs.

“That turned the franchise around,” Jocketty said. “Bringing the fans out to watch the show. I don’t think they missed drawing three million fans since until last year.”

(There was just one time, a non-playoff year in 2003 when attendance was 2.91 mullion.)

When McGwire was bothered by injury in 2000, Jocketty dealt for first baseman Will Clark from Baltimore and Clark, who was playing in his final season, went on a tear that led the Cardinals to a division title.

Just after the deadline in 2001, Jocketty acquired pitcher Woody Williams, who helped pitch the Cardinals into the playoffs.

In July 2002, Jocketty obtained third baseman Scott Rolen from Philadelphia and Rolen would help lead the Cardinals to a division title that year — and in successive years from 2004-06 and to two World Series in that time.

In early August of 2004, Jocketty landed from Colorado outfielder Larry Walker, a future Hall of Famer who was the missing piece to make the Cardinals’ lineup the most feared in the league.

The other side

When he was in a similar front office position later with the Reds, Jocketty built a couple of division winners but had to break up the club for financial reasons in 2015 when he traded pitcher Johnny Cueto and first baseman/outfielder Jay Bruce among others as he became a seller, for one of the rare times in his career.

“I like the other way (as buyer) a lot better, trying to find that missing piece because you know you’ve got a chance to win,” Jocketty said. “When you’re selling off your top players, it’s a little different mindset. You’re looking at prospects, rather than one key element to help your club win. When we made the trade with Kansas City for Cueto, we got three lefthanded pitchers which, at the time, we were very happy with. But none of them really turned out.

“When you’re looking for a known commodity to help your club win, that’s a little more certain.”

Memorable moves

Of all the July-August swaps, Jocketty, now 70, pulled off in his 13 years with the Cardinals (October, 1994, to October, 2007) he said one of his favorites was in acquiring Williams from San Diego for outfielder Ray Lankford. That’s because the waiver deal, done just after the deadline trade passed, was with Padres GM Kevin Towers — a good friend who later worked with Jocketty in Cincinnati. Williams went 7-1 in the final two months of the season and was a part of the Cardinals’ World Series rotation in 2004.

“We were kind of struggling,” Jocketty said of the 2001 club that was 9½ games back. “Woody’s leadership helped turn our club around. He came into the clubhouse, looked around the room and said, ‘We’re better than this.’ He kind of woke them up a little.’”

Another was the 2000 swap for Clark, a former San Francisco star who was unpopular here as had been many of the Giants. La Russa needed a fix for the ailing McGwire, and the 36-year-old Clark ripped off two months of .345 hitting with a career-best 1.081 OBP besides riding herd on such young Cardinals as J.D Drew.

“Clark toughened them up a little bit,” Jocketty said. “What a personality.”

And, one perhaps overlooked, was the acquisition from Cleveland of lefthander pitcher Chuck Finley in 2002. That came a month or so after fellow pitchier Darryl Kile, a previous Jocketty acquisition, had died suddenly. Finley went into the rotation that led the Cardinals to a division crown.

Missed opportunity

Under Jocketty’s direction the Cardinals played in two World Series (winning one), captured six division titles and made one wild-card playoff appearance from 1996-2006.

“You know the one that still haunts me is 1996,” said Jocketty, referring to the Cardinals taking a 3-1 lead over Atlanta in the National League Championship Series before losing the final three game as they were outscored 32-1, thus missing out on a World Series date with the New York Yankees.

“What a storybook series that could have been,” mused Jocketty.

The Yankees were guided by first-year manager Joe Torre, whom Jocketty uncomfortably had to fire as Cardinals manager the summer before in the final year of Anheuser-Busch ownership when club president Mark Lamping instructed Jocketty to make the change.

“That was the toughest thing I had to do,” Jocketty said. “Absolutely.”

But Jocketty, citing Torre as one of his good friends today, did Torre a favor. Torre won four World Series with the Yankees, propelling him into the Hall of Fame

“He’s given me quite a few cigars over the years,” Jocketty said.

That mid-June day had been a wild one which began with Jocketty trading popular third baseman Todd Zeile to the Chicago Cubs for much traveled righthander Mike Morgan a few hours after Zeile had popped off to the Post-Dispatch about Lamping and the brewery reneging on a promise that Zeile would be receiving a long-term offer and he should think about buying a house in ��ѿ��ý.

“That was a great deal,” said Jocketty, sarcastically, of that swap. “It’s a little different when you’re under pressure.”

Then, later that day, perhaps as a camouflage, the Cardinals decided to fire Torre, which was not nearly as unpopular a move because the Cardinals hadn’t won a division under him.

Jocketty said his best non-deadline trade was in acquiring center fielder Jim Edmonds during spring training of 2000.

All the deals Jocketty made weren’t good ones, of course. One that comes to mind was his sending first baseman Dmitri Young to Cincinnati after the 1997 season for righthanded reliever Jeff Brantley.

Brantley was hurt much of the 1998 season and Jocketty soon was convinced that Brantley was hurt before he even got there but that the Reds hadn’t provided all the pertinent necessary medical information.

“We didn’t have the same avenues of checking medical information as we do now,” Jocketty said. “You had to take the GM’s word.”

Occasionally, Jocketty said he checks in with Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak, who succeeded him.

Moving on

Jocketty left by the Cardinals after the 2007 season amid some friction with player development director Jeff Luhnow, a fast riser through the ranks. “It wasn’t something I would have cared to have done, to be honest with you,” he said of his departure, which technically was labeled a “firing.

“It was just something that happened and there wasn’t much we could do about it,” he said.

But Jocketty calls his stay here “really the high point of my career.

“With the success we had . . . there are some friends we still stay in touch with. It was a great time in our life,” he said.

Jocketty’s son, Joe, is a pro scout for the Reds and his daughter, Ashley, is a head chef. Both live in the Phoenix area, near Walt and Sue Jocketty.

Now that he basically is retired, he and his wife do the traveling that they couldn’t do while he was working.

“I’ve lived my whole life on a schedule,” Jocketty said. “Now I can work when I want to work, do what I want to do. I enjoy it a lot.”