St. Louis ? For Rolland Stiles, the people he crossed paths with more than seven decades ago are as memorable as the path he took to the major leagues.

He was the St. Louis Browns’ starting pitcher the day Rogers Hornsby switched jerseys but not cities, leaving behind second base with the Cardinals to manage the town’s other ballclub.

He believes he caught a scout’s eye in Oklahoma, playing in the shadow of brothers and baseball sensations Paul and Lloyd Waner, who were on the brink of Hall of Fame careers. In the early 1930s, he often pitched opposite Lefty Grove, and he shared a hotel room with Cardinals Hall of Famer Jim Bottomley.

His name shares box scores with some of the game’s greats.

Even Babe Ruth.

“I had a great game against him,” Stiles said this week, pausing with the refined timing of a joke told many times through the decades.

“I held him to three hits.”

Rolland “Lena” Stiles turns 100 today. An Arkansas native who first came to St. Louis to play for the Browns in the early 1930s, Stiles still calls St. Louis home. It is where he met his wife, raised a family, shared Brach’s candies with his grandkids and retired after 35 years with Procter & Gamble.

Baseball researchers confirmed this past summer he’s now the oldest living former major leaguer. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., certified it with a letter and, in January, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig will present an award to Stiles at the annual baseball writers dinner.

Born the same year as Satchel Paige, Stiles wears bifocals but not a hearing aid. He has a walker but insists on leaving it behind for his morning and evening walks. When he straightens his back, it’s clear he’s lost little of his 6-foot-3 height.

Sitting in his room at an assisted-living center in south St. Louis County earlier this week, Stiles unwrapped a Milk Maid candy, and it was impossible to miss the movement of his hands. Sepia-toned but robust, his fingers are long and lithe, like a piano player’s . . . or a pitcher’s.

“Sometimes the records make you feel better, and sometimes you’ll be ashamed of them,” Stiles said when asked about his one major league shutout and his 22-11 record in the minors in 1929. “Sometimes I wake up at night thinking about something I haven’t thought of in years. The memory just comes to me. Sometimes good. Sometimes not. I wonder why does this happen? You can’t remember everything. You can’t do it.

“Some of it is too long ago. There are so many memories.”