[Missouri-l] Stan the Man Musial

Sun Jul 26 12:50:46 CDT 2009

An article about Stan Musial written by 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.

Denny Huff

President

Missouri Council of the Blind

5453 Chippewa

St. Louis, MO  63109

Phone: (636) 262-1383

Toll Free: (888) 362-1383

Phonecast: (816) 298-8969

FAX: (636) 629-1710

DHuff at MoBlind.Org

www.moblind.org

MCB - A GREAT PLACE TO BE!

Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MissouriCouncil

The purpose of Missouri Council of the Blind shall be to promote the general
well-being of our members and legally blind people in Missouri, and to
support or participate in other programs promoting the best interests of
legally blind people everywhere.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://moblind.org/pipermail/missouri-l_moblind.org/attachments/20090726/ddbc2676/attachment-0001.html>