August A. Busch Jr., the baronial-style brewer of Budweiser beer and sportsman who admitted it was easier staying No. 1 in beer than in baseball, died Friday at his Grant's Farm home, a company spokesman said. He was 90.
Busch had been in ill health for the past few months and spent several weeks in a St. Louis County hospital in the late summer. He was discharged to his estate on Sept. 14 after doctors said there was nothing else that could be done for him. Company spokesman Jim Maurice would not disclose the nature of Busch's illness.Busch, who headed Anheuser-Busch brewery for 28 years and the St. Louis Cardinals since 1953, was not only a successful businessman. Like the well-rounded millionaires of an earlier epoch, Busch was a sportsman, hard-boiled owner of the Cardinals, a lover of horses, an active community leader and a bon vivant who lived in a 281-acre estate known as Grant's Farm.
Shortly before his 82nd birthday in 1981, Busch announced he was secretly married early in March to Margaret Snyder, who had worked for the brewery for 39 years and had been his secretary for the past 16 years. Margaret Snyder Busch died earlier this year.
Busch and his family lived at the estate in a 34-room French Renaissance mansion. The estate and grounds were open to the public and a miniature train took visitors on tours of grazing exotic animals and a renovated cabin where Ulysses S. Grant lived before the Civil War. Free beer was served.
Busch's grandfather, Adolphus Busch, migrated to St. Louis from Germany and operated a business which supplied small breweries. He married the daughter of Eberhard Anheuser, a soapmaker with real estate interests who had foreclosed on a small brewery and was attempting to keep it running.
Such were the meager beginnings of what became a billion-dollar business.
Known as "Gussie" and "the Big Eagle" in the city where his gravelly voice and salty language were his trademarks, Busch was slowed only by an arthritic hip,which forced him to walk with a cane in his later years.
Busch turned over most of his brewery duties to his son, August A. Busch III, in 1975, and devoted his later years to the baseball club and to traveling throughout the world to horse shows. He often said his final wish was for "one more pennant," which he achieved in 1982.
His achievements were not limited to baseball and beer. When St. Louis University needed a leader for an $18 million fund drive, Busch volunteered to be the chairman and raised $1.5 million personally, including $500,000 from the brewery.