Meeting Stan Musial

The inscription on this statue outside Busch Stadium in St. Louis reads “Baseball’s Perfect Warrior. Baseball’s Perfect Knight.” Absolutely correct.

My grandfather told me about Babe Ruth. He considered the Babe the best baseball player in history and a man who truly cared for kids. Right on both counts.

Beyond Ruth, I knew little about baseball in 1948 as he lay dying of cancer in New York City’s Memorial Hospital. I remember praying for him every night, and when he died on August 16, I cried myself to sleep.

The next month, I listened to my first baseball game while sitting in a third grade classroom sweating in the early autumn heat. Our teacher, a grizzled veteran in the ways of children,  showed a twinkle in her eye as she allowed us to stray from our educational endeavors and listen to the first game of the 1948 World Series on a small radio. I’ve been a baseball addict ever since.

In 1949, I began listening to games every time I had the chance. The St. Louis Cardinals soon became my favorite team and the great Stan Musial my favorite player. 

I could hear best in my father’s car, a black Ford coupe, its chrome dazzling in the sunlight. But when the sun went to sleep, and the great thunder boomers rolled across the heartland, I had to put my ear right up against the radio to hear over the crackle and static.

As I grew up, I followed the normal progression – Little League, Pony League, American Legion baseball. Before my second year in Pony League, my father said to me, “If you hit .300 this year I’ll  take you to a game in St. Louis and to Musial’s restaurant after the game.  I could run well, and because of beating out quite a few infield rollers, I managed to hit .376 for the season.  Off we went to St. Louis.

I remember the game at old Sportsman’s Park. The Cardinals beat Cincinnati 5-2 behind a big rightharnder named Brooks Lawrence. Musial ripped a single and a double.

As we drove through to St. Louis to the restaurant, I could hardly contain my excitement. I remember sitting at a table ordering my usual hamburger and fries. But then my father pointed to another table and my day turned into a stroll through the clouds because Stan Musial and his family sat right next to us eating dinner.

I just stared. Stan noticed me and said, “C’mon over here son. I stumbled over in an absolute daze and stood there as Stan asked the waitress to go to his office and get a photograph. When she returned with the photo and a pen, Stan asked me my name so he could autograph the picture to me.  But I stood speechless, too scared to even tell him my name. For some reason my father stayed quiet, and Stan started going through names – Bill, John, Bob, Dave … and for some reason, when he said Dave, I nodded yes. So I went home with a picture autographed “To Dave. Best Wishes, Stan Musial.”

Several years later, before a game at Wrigley Field in Chicago, I met Musial again. This time I asked if I could shoot with my movie camera. He said yes of course. But having never used the camera before, I began shooting in wide sweeping arcs. Musial said, “Wait a minute,” and came over and showed me how to hold the camera steady while shooting so I would get good results. He then moved back and posed for me in his famous batting stance. Can you imagine the greatest star in the game doing something like that today?

Stan the Man retired in 1963 and went into the Hall of Fame five years later because of three National League Most Valuable Player Awards, seven  National League batting championships, well over 3,000 hits, and 24 All-Star game appearances in which he hit a record 6 home runs.

Today, at 88, Stan Musial remains Baseball’s Perfect Warrior, Baseball’s Perfect Knight … perhaps the most noble human being in the history of American sports.