Stanley Frank Musial was born in Donora, Pennsylvania on November 21, 1920. Stan will be ninety years old later this year.
He is one of the greatest baseball players in history, while simultaneously being one of its most underrated stars.
ESPN's Jason Stark noted a few years back,
...I can't think of any all-time great in any sport who gets left out of more who's-the-greatest conversations than Stan Musial.
Let's don't overlook Stan again.
I am one of many people who are working to gather support for Stan to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award our nation bestows. Among the distinguished recipients of this honor are athletes like Henry Aaron, Muhammad Ali and Billie Jean King. Even if you're not a baseball or sports fan I hope you'll read this. You can help: http://mlb.mlb.com/...
More below the fold.
Stan Musial came up for a "cuppa coffee" to the major leagues in late 1941, converted to an outfielder because of an injury to his pitching shoulder. For the next 22 seasons he played the game as few who preceded him or came after.
The records and awards he amassed are considerable:
7-time National League batting champion, with a lifetime .331 average.
3-time National League Most Valuable Player.
3630 career hits, 1815 of them at home and 1815 on the road.
24 All Star game appearances, including a game-winning home run in the 12th inning of the 1955 game.
475 career home runs, 725 doubles, 1949 runs scored. 1951 runs batted in and a career .976 OPS (on-base + slugging percentage).
In 1962 at the age of 42 Stan nearly won his 8th batting title, finishing third with a .330 mark.
At the time of Stan's retirement he held or tied 17 major league records, 29 National League records and 8 All-Star game records.
Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969 with 93% of the vote.
Ponder that last one for a minute. 7% of the ink-stained wretches (and back then the scribes still dominated baseball reporting) couldn't bring themselves to name Stan Musial on a first-place ballot for the Hall of Fame. What it would have taken to get their vote beggars the imagination.
Of course, numbers and a great sports career don't necessarily make one deserving of a Presidential Medal of Freedom (see Pete Rose and many others). There is also the character of the man, or, in this case, The Man. (One of those beautiful Brooklyn fans who made Ebbets Field the distinctive venue it was allegedly hung the sobriquet "The Man" on Stan; after Musial had again beaten up Dodger pitching one day, he walked to the plate late in the game and the fan was heard to say, "Here comes the man again").
But back to character. Consider one more career number: 3026 major league games played over 22 seasons and never ejected by an umpire. Not once. Ever. He struck out 696 times in his career and never blamed the umpire. In a game where a .331 lifetime average means you've failed 669 times out of a thousand, he never once blamed an umpire for his failure.
Or consider this. In 1947 St. Louis was both the westernmost and southernmost city with a major league baseball team. Jackie Robinson was set to make his major league debut that April but there was allegedly talk of a strike by the players to protest Robinson's integrating the sport. For all of his positive attributes, Musial's teammate, Enos Slaughter, couldn't escape his North Carolina upbringing and was one of the supposed leaders behind the strike talk. Stan, of course, was one of if not the, biggest stars in baseball--certainly in the National League. His opinion carried considerable weight. Stan's response regarding a "strike" to his teammates was "I'm here to play baseball". And that was the end of any strike talk.
More on character. In the 1940s the Pasqual brothers in Mexico raided major league rosters and signed players as part of their effort to establish a professional league in Mexico. Stan Musial was offered a contract to play in the Mexican league for a sum of money that in that day was a small fortune. But Stan already had a contract with the St. Louis Cardinals and he chose to honor it, unlike a number of his major league brethren.
Stan did not put up Musial-like numbers in the 1959 season and after the season he asked management to cut his salary from $100k (Stan was the first player in the majors to make a six-figure salary) to $75K. Can you imagine a professional player doing that today? This speaks volumes to the integrity of Stan Musial.
For crying out loud, when they held Stan Musial Day in St. Louis following his announced retirement, Stan showed up in his Scoutmaster's shirt, kerchief and slide (OK, given their policy denying admission to gays as members or leaders, this probably wasn't a ringing endorsement for character, but I doubt Stan had much to do with it).
Finally, once more on character. The Commissioner of Baseball at the time Jackie Robinson integrated the sport, the late Ford Frick, wrote the inscription that appears on the base of Stan's statue. It is probably the best example of an aesthetically bad sculpture paired with a sublime inscription: Here stands baseball's perfect warrior. Here stands baseball's perfect knight.
No man has ever been a perfect ballplayer. Stan Musial, however, is the closest to being perfect in the game today....He plays as hard when his club is away out in front of a game as he does when they're just a run or two behind.
Ty Cobb writes about Musial in a 1952 Life magazine article
Last May 25th Stan and Lil Musial, his high school sweetheart, celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary.
Broadcaster Bob Costas comments about Musial:
"He didn’t hit a homer in his last at-bat; he hit a single. He didn’t hit in 56 straight games. He married his high school sweetheart and stayed married to her... All Musial represents is more than two decades of sustained excellence and complete decency as a human being."
The first Costas reference in the above quote is to Ted Williams, the second to Joe Dimaggio. Major League Baseball and the St. Louis Cardinals didn't do a very good job of telling The Stan Musial Story last year when St. Louis hosted the All-Star game. The Presidential Medal of Freedom may be our last chance to tell the story of this wonderful man.
There are a number of ways you can help make this happen if you go to the link: http://mlb.mlb.com/...
Current St. Louis Cardinal Albert Pujols, whom the local media tried to nickname "El Hombre", the Spanish version of "The Man", refuses the honor and says there's only one "Man". Pujols, in his tenth big league season is already a three-time league MVP like Stan, and may well rewrite many of Stan's Cardinal records before he hangs up his spikes. Just this week he tied Stan's club record with the 37th multi-home run game of his career. Pujols says,
"You guys know what I think about Stan Musial and to mention your name in the same category as Stan, it’s pretty special. I’m blessed to be compared sometimes with him with the things I have done in this game.
"To be able to see what he has done, not just on the field but off the field, and the example that he set for so many players, past players and future players, right now I just want to be able to represent just like he did and some of the other Hall of Famers in this organization did."
Will you help me STAND FOR THE MAN? Maybe at the ceremony for the PMF we can talk Stan into playing a little Wabash Cannonball for us. Thanks for your support of "The Man".
P.S. I apologize for the length of this diary, but I'm pretty emotional about Stan and what he's meant to the city of St. Louis and the diary just kept growing. This is my first one and I'd appreciate any constructive feedback from you seasoned veterans.