Stan Musial

Stan "The Man" Musial

The news has just broken  that former St Louis Cardinals slugger Stan Musial has died at 92.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-400_162-57564875/cardinals-hall-of-famer-stan-musial-dies-at-age-92/

I won't dwell on his records as one of the greatest hitters of all time, just to share a couple of recollections I have of him.

I actually saw Musial play in August 1957 in County Stadium Milwaukee against the Milwaukee Braves. I was 12 years old and had become a Braves fan at the end of the previous season when they blew the pennant to the Brooklyn Dodgers. On this occasion, we were visiting my aunt and uncle in Chicago, and since I was a big Braves fan, they took my mother and me up to Milwaukee to see a double-header against the Cardinals, who, along with the Dodgers, were fighting the Braves for the pennant. To make a long story short, Musial homered, the Cardinals swept both games in a rain-delayed afternoon, and I was heartbroken all the way back to Chicago. Due to the rain delays, we didn't stay for the second game. Nevertheless, the Braves went on to win the pennant and the World Series against the Yankees. By 1963, I had switched my loyalties to the Cubs.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=195708181MLN

In the same year, my father was in St Louis on a business trip and had gone to the steak house Musial ran with a partner called Stan and Biggie's. While having drinks and chatting with the bartender, my father mentioned that I was a (little league) baseball player. The bartender reached behind the bar and handed my father a baseball telling him that it was the first hit off a Cardinal phenom rookie pitcher named Von McDaniel, who was the younger brother of Lindy McDaniel, a successful relief pitcher for the Cards and other teams as well. He asked my father to give me the ball. I had vaguely  recalled being told the hit was by Gil Hodges of the Brooklyn Dodgers, but the box score of McDaniel's first game (a two-hit shutout of the Dodgers) reveals it was either Duke Snider or Jim Gilliam.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=195706210SLN

As it turned out, Von was a flash in the pan and didn't last long. Unfortunately, the ball has long disappeared as well. McDaniel died at the age of 56.

This past September, I was in Missouri attending my annual Army reunion at Ft Leonard Wood and Branson. My first night was spent in St Louis, and I took the opportunity to attend a Cardinals game and see the new stadium. By chance, I took along a recently-published book I was reading about the life of Stan Musial, written by George Vecsey (Stan Musial-An American Life).

Musial, who was a native of Donora, Pennsylvania, made St Louis his home both during his career and after his retirement. He remained a St Louis icon, much beloved not only because of his great career with the Cardinals, which spanned over two decades, but because he was such a gentleman as well. He was old, in declining health, and his death cannot be a shock. I am sure there is sadness in St Louis tonight, but also a sense of celebration of his life, much as Pittsburgh accepted the news of the passing of Steeler owner Art Rooney back in the late-1980s.

As a Cubs fan, I have long been jealous of the success of the Cardinals' franchise over the years, but I have always respected the St Louis fans as the classiest in baseball because they respect not only the abilities of the Cardinals players , but the opposing players as well. My thoughts are with them tonight.

*Update: Checking old box scores, I find that Jim Gilliam got the first hit off McDaniel in that game, but McDaniel's first pitching appearance was actually at Brooklyn on June 16 when he pitched 4 innings, gave up one hit (to Elmer Valo) and got his first win. I have to discount that game because it doesn't figure that the ball would have ended up in St Louis.