An essay about the Man
.jpg)
theczar
Posts: 1,590 ✭✭
I got this email today.
Living in St. Louis we all know about him, but sometimes nationally he gets lost in the shuffle. Gibson, Brock and Ozzie were great. Pujols puts up big numbers but Musial has more class in a hang nail that Pujols will ever have. I MEAN EVER EVER HAVE!
For those who live in the midwest or when St. Louis was the western spot in the National League, no one will ever doubt who was and still is the MAN.
Enjoy:
Musial
Joe Posnanski of the KC Star
Stan Musial never got thrown out of a game. Never.
Think about this for a moment. Musial played in 3,026 games in his career,
or about as many as his contemporaries Joe DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky played
combined. He played across different American eras - he played in the big
leagues before bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, and he retired a few weeks before
Kennedy was shot. He played when Jimmy Dorsey and Glenn Miller ruled the Top
40 charts, and he played when Elvis was thin, and he played when Chubby
Checker twisted. He played before television, and after John Glenn orbited
the earth. And he never once got thrown out of a baseball game.
There was this game, in '52, that year the Today Show
came to television and the Diary of Anne Frank was published, and the
Musial's Cardinals trailed the Brooklyn Dodgers by two runs in the ninth. The
bases were loaded. There were two outs. Musial faced pitcher Ben Wade. The
two battled briefly, and then Musial connected - a long home run to right
field. Grand slam. Everyone in the stadium stood and cheered wildly what
could be bigger, a grand slam in the ninth to beat the hated Dodgers - and
Musial started to run around the bases in his own inimitable way, not too
fast, not too slow, all class. And it wasn't until he rounded first and was
closing in on second when everyone seemed to notice at once that the third
base umpire was holding up his arms. A ball had rolled on the field just
before the pitch. The umpire had called timeout.
Home plate umpire Tom Gorman realized he had no
choice. He disallowed the home run. The stadium went black. The fans went
mad. St. Louis manager Solly Hemus raced out the dugout, got into Gorman's
face and called him every name he could think of - finally Gorman had no
choice and threw him out of the game. Peanuts Lowrey came in like a tag-team
wrestler and picked up where Solly left off - Gorman tossed him too. Before
it was done, Gorman threw out six Cardinals. He felt like a cowboy in one of
those old Westerns clearing out the saloon, throwing out people through plate
glass windows.
And then Musial, who in the confusion had not been
told anything, walked over to Gorman. He calmly asked, "What happened Tom? It
didn't count, huh?" Gorman nodded sadly and said the third base umpire had
called timeout. "Well, Tom," Musial said, "there's nothing you can do about
it."
Stan Musial stepped back in the box while fists shook
and boos and threats echoed around him. He promptly tripled off the top of
the center field wall to score three runs and give the Cardinals the victory
anyway.
"Stan," Tom Gorman said after the game ended, "is in
a class by himself."
* * *
Stan Musial grew up in Donora, Pa., during the
Depression. They were a family of eight in a five-room house. In Donora, the
smoke and fumes from the zinc factory mushroomed so thick and poisonous that
no vegetation could grow on the hill. That barren, brown hillside was a
constant reminder that the air was killing them. Stan's father, a Polish
immigrant, worked in that factory and, not too many years after Stan started
playing ball, died from the fumes.
Not that a tough childhood explains everything.
Still, there was something about Stan Musial that did not let him forget
Donora, did not allow him to change - "I'm so lucky," he used to say every
day, more than once every day, so many times that people would roll their
eyes.
But that seems to be how he felt, every day, lucky.
Harry Caray, who of course first gained his fame calling Cardinals games on
KMOX, would tell the story of a beaten down Musial going hitless in a Sunday
doubleheader. The heat was unbearable that day - hell could not be much
hotter than a St. Louis summer day - and after the game Musial walked
gingerly to his car. He looked beaten down. He looked beat up. Musial never
seemed to think of baseball as a job, but a daytime doubleheader in St. Louis
might be the closest thing.
"Watch this," Caray said to a friend as they watched
the scene, and sure enough when Musial got to the car, there were a hundred
kids waiting for him and an autograph. Stan leaned against his hot car and
signed every one. Musial. People like to say that people have changed. I
don't see that exactly. The world has changed. Technology has changed. Movie
and ticket prices have changed. Gas prices have changed, Many of the rules
have changed - the reserve clause is gone, Title IX is in place, they let
people swear on cable TV, airplanes and restaurants won't let you smoke and
you can no longer hold your infant in your lap in the front seat of your car.
But people? I don't know. I get a little queasy when
I hear old time ballplayers talk about how none of them would have used
performance enhancing drugs, and a little queasier when I hear old-time
politicians talk about how they always reached across the aisle. You will
still hear a lot of people romanticizing America in the 1950s. Those people
tend to look a lot alike.
Still, it's probably fair to say that there was
something unique about the time that produced Stan Musial. Maybe in those
days people treasured that thing they used to call class. Maybe they expected
their singers to be dressed in tuxedoes, maybe they admired strong and silent
types, maybe they liked football players who did not celebrate their own
touchdowns or boxers who spoke quietly, maybe they wanted their children to
believe in a world where baseball players drank milk and said "golly" and
married their high school sweetheart. It seems to me that the quintessential
hero today is Josh Hamilton, left-handed power, supremely gifted, fallen from
grace, back from the depths, crushing home runs and driving in runners while
covered in tattoos that represent a time he regrets. That's a story for our
time, a story about a lost soul redeemed, and it touches our 21st Century
hearts.
Musial is from his time. He smoked under stairwells
to be certain that no kid saw him doing it. Friends say he drank privately,
and very little, Stan the Man could not allow anyone to see him at less than
his best. He often said his biggest regret was that he did not go to college.
And, yes, he married Lil, his high school sweetheart, on his 19th birthday,
almost 70 years ago. He wanted to be a role model. He seemed to need to feel
like he was giving kids someone to respect. That, as much as anything, drove
him.
Teammates had a standing wager on how many times he
would use the word "Wonderful" in any given day. They usually guessed low. He
was terrified of making speeches (this, friends say, is why he started
playing the harmonica in public) and yet he almost never turned down a
speaking engagement. He played in great pain, but nobody ever caught him
running half-speed. When he felt like his skills had diminished, he asked for
and received a pay cut.
Joe Black used to tell a story - he was pitching
against the Cardinals, and as usual the taunts were racial. "Don't worry
Stan," someone in the Cardinals dugout shouted, "with that dark background on
the mound you shouldn't have any problem hitting the ball." Musial kicked at
the dirt, spat, and faced Black like he had not heard anything. But after the
game, Black was in the clubhouse, and suddenly he looked up and there was
Stan Musial. "I'm sorry that happened," Musial whispered. "But don't you
worry about it. You're a great pitcher. You will win a lot of games."
Chuck Connors, the Rifleman, used to tell a story -
he was a struggling hitter for the Chicago Cubs in 1951. He asked teammates
what he should do. They all told him the same thing: The only guy who can
save you is Musial. So Connors went to Musial and asked for his help. Musial
spent 30 minutes at the cage with an opposing player. "I was a bum of a
hitter just not cut out for the majors," Connors said. "But I will never
forget Stan's kindness. When he was finished watching me cut away at the
ball, Stan slapped me on the back and told me to keep swinging."
Ed Mickelson only got 37 at-bats in the Big Leagues,
but he has a story too. Musial invited him to dinner - he was always doing
that stuff - and there Mickelson explained that he felt so nervous playing
ball, that he could hardly perform. Musial leaned over and said quietly, "Me
too, kid. Me too. When you stop feeling nervous, it's time to quit."
Well, there are countless stories like that, stories
about Musial's common decency and the way he could make anyone around him
feel like he was worth a million bucks. "Musial treated me like I was the
Pope," Mickelson said, and he was still in awe more than 50 years later.
* * *
Those were the emotions Musial inspired in his time.
He was so beloved in New York, that the Mets held a "Stan Musial Day." In
Chicago, he once finished first in a "favorite player" poll among Cubs fans,
edging out Ernie Banks. Bill Clinton and Brooks Robinson, growing up about an
hour apart in Arkansas, were inspired by him.
Of course, it was mostly the playing. Stan Musial
banged out 3,630 hits even though he missed a year for the war. He hit .331
for his career, cracked 1,377 extra base hits (only Hank Aaron and Barry
Bonds have hit more), stretched out more than 900 doubles and triples (only
Tris Speaker has more) and played in 24 All-Star Games. He had that quirky
and unforgettable swing, that peek-a-boo stance, and he probably inspired
more famous quotes by pitchers than any other hitter.
Preacher Roe (on how to pitch Musial): "I throw him
four wide ones and try to pick him off first base."
Carl Erskine (on how to pitch Musial): "I've had
pretty good success with Stan by throwing him my best pitch and backing up
third."
Warren Spahn: "Once he timed your fastball, your
infielders were in jeopardy."
Don Newcombe: "I could have rolled the ball up there
to Musial, and he would have pulled out a golf club and hit it out."
And so on. Maybe pitchers felt helpless because there
seemed no way to pitch him, no weaknesses in swing - fastballs up, curveballs
away, forkballs in the dirt, he hit them all. In 1948, he had his most famous
season, his season for the ages, .376 average, 46 doubles, 18 triples, 39
home runs, 135 runs, 131 RBIs. And yet, the thing about Musial, is that for
more than 20 years he was pretty much always like that. Four other times he
hit better than .350. Four other times he hit more than 46 doubles. He hit
double digit triples eight times in all, he hit 30-plus homers five times, he
walked more than twice as often as he struck out.
I suspect Musial can never be reflected in numbers
because his resume is so diverse and elaborate - it's like Bob Costas said,
he never did just one awesome thing, he never hit in 56 straight games, and
he did not hit 500 home runs (never hit 40 in a season), and he did not get
4,000 hits, and he did not hit .400 in any year. He was, instead, present,
always, seventeen times in the Top 5 in batting average, sixteen times in the
Top 5 in on-base percentage, thirteen times in the Top 5 in slugging
percentage, nine times the league leader in runs created. To me, the best
description of Musial through his stats is to say that 16 times in his career
Musial hit 30 or more doubles. It might not make for a great movie. But it
tells you that all his baseball life, Stan Musial hit baseballs into gaps and
he ran hard out of the box.
* * *
Here's the thing: A lot of baseball fans have
forgotten Stan Musial. Anyway, it seems like that. His name is rarely
mentioned when people talk about the greatest living players. He's never had
a best selling book written about him. A few years ago, when baseball was
picking its All Century team, Stan Musial did not even received enough votes
to be listed among the Top 10 outfielders. The Top 10. True, he did not play
in New York like the baseball icons, like Ruth and DiMaggio and Mantle and
Koufax and Mays. True, he did not break the home run record like Aaron, he
did not get banished from the game like Rose, he did not break barriers like
Jackie, he did not swear colorfully like Ted, he did not hit three homers in
a World Series game like Reggie, he did not glare like Gibson, he did not
throw like Clemente and he did not say funny and wise things like Yogi.
No, Musial just played hard and lived decently. He
hit five home runs in a doubleheader, and had five hits on five swings in a
game. He hit line drives right back at pitchers and then would go to the
dugout after the game to make sure those pitchers were all right. He wasn't
perfect, of course, but he didn't see the harm in letting people believe in
something.
And maybe that sort of understated greatness isn't
meant to be shouted from the rooftops. Maybe Musial is just meant to be
quietly appreciated. Every so often, even now, you can read an obituary
somewhere in American's heartland, and you will read about someone who "loved
Stan Musial." Everyone so often you will meet someone about 55 years old
named Stan, and you will know why.
Living in St. Louis we all know about him, but sometimes nationally he gets lost in the shuffle. Gibson, Brock and Ozzie were great. Pujols puts up big numbers but Musial has more class in a hang nail that Pujols will ever have. I MEAN EVER EVER HAVE!
For those who live in the midwest or when St. Louis was the western spot in the National League, no one will ever doubt who was and still is the MAN.
Enjoy:
Musial
Joe Posnanski of the KC Star
Stan Musial never got thrown out of a game. Never.
Think about this for a moment. Musial played in 3,026 games in his career,
or about as many as his contemporaries Joe DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky played
combined. He played across different American eras - he played in the big
leagues before bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, and he retired a few weeks before
Kennedy was shot. He played when Jimmy Dorsey and Glenn Miller ruled the Top
40 charts, and he played when Elvis was thin, and he played when Chubby
Checker twisted. He played before television, and after John Glenn orbited
the earth. And he never once got thrown out of a baseball game.
There was this game, in '52, that year the Today Show
came to television and the Diary of Anne Frank was published, and the
Musial's Cardinals trailed the Brooklyn Dodgers by two runs in the ninth. The
bases were loaded. There were two outs. Musial faced pitcher Ben Wade. The
two battled briefly, and then Musial connected - a long home run to right
field. Grand slam. Everyone in the stadium stood and cheered wildly what
could be bigger, a grand slam in the ninth to beat the hated Dodgers - and
Musial started to run around the bases in his own inimitable way, not too
fast, not too slow, all class. And it wasn't until he rounded first and was
closing in on second when everyone seemed to notice at once that the third
base umpire was holding up his arms. A ball had rolled on the field just
before the pitch. The umpire had called timeout.
Home plate umpire Tom Gorman realized he had no
choice. He disallowed the home run. The stadium went black. The fans went
mad. St. Louis manager Solly Hemus raced out the dugout, got into Gorman's
face and called him every name he could think of - finally Gorman had no
choice and threw him out of the game. Peanuts Lowrey came in like a tag-team
wrestler and picked up where Solly left off - Gorman tossed him too. Before
it was done, Gorman threw out six Cardinals. He felt like a cowboy in one of
those old Westerns clearing out the saloon, throwing out people through plate
glass windows.
And then Musial, who in the confusion had not been
told anything, walked over to Gorman. He calmly asked, "What happened Tom? It
didn't count, huh?" Gorman nodded sadly and said the third base umpire had
called timeout. "Well, Tom," Musial said, "there's nothing you can do about
it."
Stan Musial stepped back in the box while fists shook
and boos and threats echoed around him. He promptly tripled off the top of
the center field wall to score three runs and give the Cardinals the victory
anyway.
"Stan," Tom Gorman said after the game ended, "is in
a class by himself."
* * *
Stan Musial grew up in Donora, Pa., during the
Depression. They were a family of eight in a five-room house. In Donora, the
smoke and fumes from the zinc factory mushroomed so thick and poisonous that
no vegetation could grow on the hill. That barren, brown hillside was a
constant reminder that the air was killing them. Stan's father, a Polish
immigrant, worked in that factory and, not too many years after Stan started
playing ball, died from the fumes.
Not that a tough childhood explains everything.
Still, there was something about Stan Musial that did not let him forget
Donora, did not allow him to change - "I'm so lucky," he used to say every
day, more than once every day, so many times that people would roll their
eyes.
But that seems to be how he felt, every day, lucky.
Harry Caray, who of course first gained his fame calling Cardinals games on
KMOX, would tell the story of a beaten down Musial going hitless in a Sunday
doubleheader. The heat was unbearable that day - hell could not be much
hotter than a St. Louis summer day - and after the game Musial walked
gingerly to his car. He looked beaten down. He looked beat up. Musial never
seemed to think of baseball as a job, but a daytime doubleheader in St. Louis
might be the closest thing.
"Watch this," Caray said to a friend as they watched
the scene, and sure enough when Musial got to the car, there were a hundred
kids waiting for him and an autograph. Stan leaned against his hot car and
signed every one. Musial. People like to say that people have changed. I
don't see that exactly. The world has changed. Technology has changed. Movie
and ticket prices have changed. Gas prices have changed, Many of the rules
have changed - the reserve clause is gone, Title IX is in place, they let
people swear on cable TV, airplanes and restaurants won't let you smoke and
you can no longer hold your infant in your lap in the front seat of your car.
But people? I don't know. I get a little queasy when
I hear old time ballplayers talk about how none of them would have used
performance enhancing drugs, and a little queasier when I hear old-time
politicians talk about how they always reached across the aisle. You will
still hear a lot of people romanticizing America in the 1950s. Those people
tend to look a lot alike.
Still, it's probably fair to say that there was
something unique about the time that produced Stan Musial. Maybe in those
days people treasured that thing they used to call class. Maybe they expected
their singers to be dressed in tuxedoes, maybe they admired strong and silent
types, maybe they liked football players who did not celebrate their own
touchdowns or boxers who spoke quietly, maybe they wanted their children to
believe in a world where baseball players drank milk and said "golly" and
married their high school sweetheart. It seems to me that the quintessential
hero today is Josh Hamilton, left-handed power, supremely gifted, fallen from
grace, back from the depths, crushing home runs and driving in runners while
covered in tattoos that represent a time he regrets. That's a story for our
time, a story about a lost soul redeemed, and it touches our 21st Century
hearts.
Musial is from his time. He smoked under stairwells
to be certain that no kid saw him doing it. Friends say he drank privately,
and very little, Stan the Man could not allow anyone to see him at less than
his best. He often said his biggest regret was that he did not go to college.
And, yes, he married Lil, his high school sweetheart, on his 19th birthday,
almost 70 years ago. He wanted to be a role model. He seemed to need to feel
like he was giving kids someone to respect. That, as much as anything, drove
him.
Teammates had a standing wager on how many times he
would use the word "Wonderful" in any given day. They usually guessed low. He
was terrified of making speeches (this, friends say, is why he started
playing the harmonica in public) and yet he almost never turned down a
speaking engagement. He played in great pain, but nobody ever caught him
running half-speed. When he felt like his skills had diminished, he asked for
and received a pay cut.
Joe Black used to tell a story - he was pitching
against the Cardinals, and as usual the taunts were racial. "Don't worry
Stan," someone in the Cardinals dugout shouted, "with that dark background on
the mound you shouldn't have any problem hitting the ball." Musial kicked at
the dirt, spat, and faced Black like he had not heard anything. But after the
game, Black was in the clubhouse, and suddenly he looked up and there was
Stan Musial. "I'm sorry that happened," Musial whispered. "But don't you
worry about it. You're a great pitcher. You will win a lot of games."
Chuck Connors, the Rifleman, used to tell a story -
he was a struggling hitter for the Chicago Cubs in 1951. He asked teammates
what he should do. They all told him the same thing: The only guy who can
save you is Musial. So Connors went to Musial and asked for his help. Musial
spent 30 minutes at the cage with an opposing player. "I was a bum of a
hitter just not cut out for the majors," Connors said. "But I will never
forget Stan's kindness. When he was finished watching me cut away at the
ball, Stan slapped me on the back and told me to keep swinging."
Ed Mickelson only got 37 at-bats in the Big Leagues,
but he has a story too. Musial invited him to dinner - he was always doing
that stuff - and there Mickelson explained that he felt so nervous playing
ball, that he could hardly perform. Musial leaned over and said quietly, "Me
too, kid. Me too. When you stop feeling nervous, it's time to quit."
Well, there are countless stories like that, stories
about Musial's common decency and the way he could make anyone around him
feel like he was worth a million bucks. "Musial treated me like I was the
Pope," Mickelson said, and he was still in awe more than 50 years later.
* * *
Those were the emotions Musial inspired in his time.
He was so beloved in New York, that the Mets held a "Stan Musial Day." In
Chicago, he once finished first in a "favorite player" poll among Cubs fans,
edging out Ernie Banks. Bill Clinton and Brooks Robinson, growing up about an
hour apart in Arkansas, were inspired by him.
Of course, it was mostly the playing. Stan Musial
banged out 3,630 hits even though he missed a year for the war. He hit .331
for his career, cracked 1,377 extra base hits (only Hank Aaron and Barry
Bonds have hit more), stretched out more than 900 doubles and triples (only
Tris Speaker has more) and played in 24 All-Star Games. He had that quirky
and unforgettable swing, that peek-a-boo stance, and he probably inspired
more famous quotes by pitchers than any other hitter.
Preacher Roe (on how to pitch Musial): "I throw him
four wide ones and try to pick him off first base."
Carl Erskine (on how to pitch Musial): "I've had
pretty good success with Stan by throwing him my best pitch and backing up
third."
Warren Spahn: "Once he timed your fastball, your
infielders were in jeopardy."
Don Newcombe: "I could have rolled the ball up there
to Musial, and he would have pulled out a golf club and hit it out."
And so on. Maybe pitchers felt helpless because there
seemed no way to pitch him, no weaknesses in swing - fastballs up, curveballs
away, forkballs in the dirt, he hit them all. In 1948, he had his most famous
season, his season for the ages, .376 average, 46 doubles, 18 triples, 39
home runs, 135 runs, 131 RBIs. And yet, the thing about Musial, is that for
more than 20 years he was pretty much always like that. Four other times he
hit better than .350. Four other times he hit more than 46 doubles. He hit
double digit triples eight times in all, he hit 30-plus homers five times, he
walked more than twice as often as he struck out.
I suspect Musial can never be reflected in numbers
because his resume is so diverse and elaborate - it's like Bob Costas said,
he never did just one awesome thing, he never hit in 56 straight games, and
he did not hit 500 home runs (never hit 40 in a season), and he did not get
4,000 hits, and he did not hit .400 in any year. He was, instead, present,
always, seventeen times in the Top 5 in batting average, sixteen times in the
Top 5 in on-base percentage, thirteen times in the Top 5 in slugging
percentage, nine times the league leader in runs created. To me, the best
description of Musial through his stats is to say that 16 times in his career
Musial hit 30 or more doubles. It might not make for a great movie. But it
tells you that all his baseball life, Stan Musial hit baseballs into gaps and
he ran hard out of the box.
* * *
Here's the thing: A lot of baseball fans have
forgotten Stan Musial. Anyway, it seems like that. His name is rarely
mentioned when people talk about the greatest living players. He's never had
a best selling book written about him. A few years ago, when baseball was
picking its All Century team, Stan Musial did not even received enough votes
to be listed among the Top 10 outfielders. The Top 10. True, he did not play
in New York like the baseball icons, like Ruth and DiMaggio and Mantle and
Koufax and Mays. True, he did not break the home run record like Aaron, he
did not get banished from the game like Rose, he did not break barriers like
Jackie, he did not swear colorfully like Ted, he did not hit three homers in
a World Series game like Reggie, he did not glare like Gibson, he did not
throw like Clemente and he did not say funny and wise things like Yogi.
No, Musial just played hard and lived decently. He
hit five home runs in a doubleheader, and had five hits on five swings in a
game. He hit line drives right back at pitchers and then would go to the
dugout after the game to make sure those pitchers were all right. He wasn't
perfect, of course, but he didn't see the harm in letting people believe in
something.
And maybe that sort of understated greatness isn't
meant to be shouted from the rooftops. Maybe Musial is just meant to be
quietly appreciated. Every so often, even now, you can read an obituary
somewhere in American's heartland, and you will read about someone who "loved
Stan Musial." Everyone so often you will meet someone about 55 years old
named Stan, and you will know why.
0
Comments
a true gentleman, the game deserves more like him. and i'm a Cub fan.
Former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Carl Erskine once described his strategy of pitching to Musial: "I've had pretty good success with Stan by throwing him my best pitch and backing up third."
My Registry Sets
As someone who was born almost 15 yrs after Musial retired, I really don't know much about him. It's rare in sports, especially in my lifetime, to hear and read stories about professional athletes who are not only elite performers in their respective sport, but also classy and respectable citizens.
The Man and Peers--Cardinal spring training--St. Pete--1964
I don't know if it actually happened, but my favorite baseball story is about Musial (true or not). A young Willie Mays was being told by Leo Durocher how to field against the Cardinals hitters.
"In another story, Willie Mays, then playing for the New York Giants, was receiving instruction from his manager Leo Durocher about how he should prepare defensively in center field for each of the hitters in the Cardinals' lineup. He described the weaknesses and tendencies of the first two hitters, then moved on to the cleanup (fourth) hitter. Mays interrupted to ask about the man in the third slot. Durocher replied, "The third hitter is Stan Musial. There is no advice I can give you about him."
Definitely the greatest living ball player in my opinion.
It's funny - I read Musial's autobiography when I was in the third grade. This was when I was just starting to get in to baseball, and my dad just happened to have it stashed away somewhere with other old sports books. I remember being the only elementary school kid whose favorite player had been retired for over 25 years. That was also why I picked the Cardinals as "my team."
Ripken, Brooks & Frank Robinson, Old Orioles, Sweet Spot Autos, older Redskins - Riggins, Sonny, Baugh etc and anything that catches my eye.
My ghetto sportscard webpage...All Scans - No Lists!!! Stinky Linky
thanks for posting that