As a beat writer, he covered the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals of Major League Baseball, and also served as the editor-in-chief for The Sporting News.
[2] After graduating from college, Kaegel was hired as a sportswriter for the Columbia Daily Tribune.
He worked for the Granite City Press Record in 1964 as their sports editor, covering the 1964 World Series.
[4] Kaegel also served as a voting member of the Veterans Committee in the 2012 and 2015 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting.
[5][6] Kaegel was named the 2021 recipient of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award,[7] subsequently renamed as the BBWAA Career Excellence Award, which is bestowed annually by the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) with recipients honored during ceremonies at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.