For whatever reason, the elevator specifically earmarked for use for the media took forever to reach our floor. In a rush to get to the clubhouse level at Busch Stadium during the 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, patience was wearing thin.
After all, myself and a bunch of other media types had to get from the press box high above the ballpark to the basement level in order to hear what Roy Halladay had to say. Sure, Halladay had been the starting pitcher for the American League in the 2009 Midsummer Classic, but it was assumed his days of pitching for the Toronto Blue Jays were quickly coming to an end. Philadelphia, Boston or New York seemed like the logical places for him to land, but in order to hear his thoughts on his future we had to get downstairs.
Instead, we waited.
Finally, after the shifting from one foot to the other more than outlived its novelty, the elevator door opened and with it our collective impatience and frustration melted away as if it were a block of ice beneath a blow torch.
There on the elevator was The Man himself, Stan Musial, sitting quietly in a wheelchair in the corner. Guiding the contraption was Musial’s wife of 69 years, Lillian, who was chatting away with her fellow passengers as we boarded for the short trip down. Mrs. Musial was as noisy as her husband was tired and quiet, busily making sure everyone had received the card she was handing out.
“Hi. Hello. Did you get one of these? Make sure everyone gets one.”
It wasn’t until I got off the elevator that I realized that I had been handed a postcard with a color photo of Musial in his Cardinals uniform on the front with a biography and list of career highlights on the back. There was something else on the front, too. With blue marker, the autograph “Stan Musial” was written across the card.
Yeah, that’s right… Stan Musial, via his wife, gave me his autograph. Call it pre-emptive autographing. Climb aboard an elevator and be handed a postcard bearing the signature of not only one of the greatest hitters who ever lived, but also, as of today, a Presidential Medal of Freedom winner.
Musial, the 90-year-old, sweet-swinging lefty and the best player out of Donora, Pa. (Ken Griffey Jr. is second), received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, Tuesday. Also receiving the honor was Bill Russell, the famous Celtics center/humanitarian as well as Maya Angelou, Jasper Johns, congressman John Lewis, Warren Buffett, Yo-Yo Ma and former president George H.W. Bush.
Musial and Russell join Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Roberto Clemente, Frank Robinson, Henry Aaron and Buck O'Neil as the only athletes to receive the Medal of Freedom.
Regardless, even though Musial was as well regarded and revered in St. Louis, as a ballplayer he is underrated.
Yep, Stan Musial, the great Stan The Man, was the most underrated player in Major League Baseball history. That’s right.
Sure, it’s tough to slip under the radar with 3,630 hits, 475 homers and a .331 lifetime batting average, but that’s where we’re going with this. Until Pete Rose came along, Musial had the record for most hits in the National League. Better yet, he was deemed worthy of several pages in Roger Kahn’s quintessential baseball masterpiece, The Boys of Summer, as the most perfect hitter to step foot inside of Ebbets Field. To read Kahn’s prose on Musial is to view the ballplayer as an artist.
Still, these days Musial hardly gets the due as his contemporaries Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. The interesting comparison with Musial, of course, is Williams since both players batted left-handed. In fact, Williams is often regarded as the greatest hitter of all time, but that could have something to do with the literary Boston as opposed to Midwestern St. Louis, where Musial played. Plus, as a player, Williams was not regarded as a nice guy. He yelled and raged, boasted and blathered. He was an enigma and a loner, which was just the type of topic hirsute writers from Boston tried to rhapsodize about.
Williams’ personality was part of his legend and since he was often viewed as a creep, it was more compelling.
Musial was Williams’ opposite. Where Williams used a shot gun to plug pigeons from the light fixtures at Fenway Park, Musial carried around a harmonica and inexplicably broke into song as if he were living in one of those corny baseball news reels. Williams also battled with the press, sometimes spitting toward the press box from the field, and never tipped his cap to his fans in Boston. Meanwhile, Musial still hands out autographs. It means that he was so popular in some circles that it made sense to travel with signed postcards to drop like confetti.
Unsolicited autographing? Really? Cool.
But here’s where Musial really has it over Williams… Unlike Williams, Musial’s teams won championships, and frankly, winning matters. Of course Williams lost years of his prime to military service and there is no telling what could have happened in those seasons — reasonably, Williams could have hit 700 homers and got 4,000 hits.
However, the sense one gets from the scores of books and stories written about Williams indicates he was more concerned with his own stats instead of what was good for the Red Sox. Williams’ notable moments were when he hit a home run to win the All-Star Game and went 6-for-8 on the last day of the 1941 season in Philadelphia to bat .406 for the season. Contrarily, Musial’s best days were all the times he showed up at the ballpark.
To this day Musial is known by everyone in St. Louis and regarded as one of the nicest men ever to grace a uniform. Maybe it has something to do with playing in St. Louis instead of Boston, but the point remains… if I was putting together a team and had to choose between Williams and Musial, give me Stan the Man.
And how is that for a nickname… “The Man.” Succinct, simple. Perfect. Stan The Man.
They called Stan, “The Man,” and for good reason. One look at his career statistics and it’s tough not to wonder why he was given the nickname of a mere mortal. Man? No, that guy could hit like 20 Men, but “Stan The Men,” doesn’t have the same ring.
Three National League MVP awards. Seven batting titles. The owner of 29 NL records and 17 major league records when he retired after the 1963 season. And, of course, the 1,815 hits at home and 1,815 hits on the road.
And he is underrated.
Regardless, Musial didn’t get the Medal of Freedom because he was a good baseball player, just as Russell didn’t get it because he won 11 championships with the Celtics. No, Musial was awarded the honor because he mattered. Sure, they built a statue of him outside of Busch Stadium, but there also is a bust of Musial inside the capitol rotunda in Jefferson City, Mo. Ballplayers typically don’t get statues next to soldiers on horses or politicians pontificating.
“Listen, Stan Musial never had an enemy. I can truthfully say that,” said former Dodgers’ manager Tommy Lasorda. “I don't think there was anybody in this country that didn't like Stan Musial. I know I looked up to him with so much appreciation for what he was to baseball through the years. Worked hard. Never popped off.”
That’s coming from a guy who popped off a lot.
Sports Illustrated’s Joe Posnanski probably wrote it best, using words like “quiet dignity,” “baseball’s perfect knight,” and best, “kindness.”
“Stan Musial didn't hit in 56 straight games,” says Musial's friend Bob Costas, who began his broadcasting career with KMOX in St. Louis. “He didn't hit .400 for a season. He didn't get 4,000 hits. He didn't hit 500 home runs. He didn't hit a home run in his last at bat, just a single. He didn't marry Marilyn Monroe; he married his high school sweetheart. His excellence was a quiet excellence.”
Musial was supposed to be celebrated at the 2009 All-Star Game in St. Louis the way Williams was at the All-Star Game in Boston in 1999. The difference was Musial had to share the spotlight with the President of the United States of America, while Williams got the stage to himself. But maybe that tells you all there is to know about Musial… he is happy to share and it takes someone at the level of fame as the President to hog the attention.
Would DiMaggio share? Williams? Any of the modern superstars like Lebron or Kobe Bryant?
Yeah, well Musial did and more than that, he made sure everyone he saw got an autographed picture.
He’s just The Man and that’s for sure.