RIP Stan the Man Musial

sucks to be a Hall of Famer today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/sports/baseball/baseball-great-stan-musial-dies-at-92.html

Sad news, but 92's a good run.

Wow. That's like when Bergman and Antonioni died on the same day.

(But, as they say in Nashville, the two people today were all wrong for Bergman and Antonioni.)

How about the day that Manti Te'o's grandmother and girlfriend died then? kidding. I'm not sure if I posted on either of their respective threads, but I'll never forget the Bergman/Antonioni thing. Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago was approaching the end of a career retrospective, most of which I'd seen in a similar event about a decade earlier (but this run had some thrilling treats like the rare "Chung Kuo China".) Finished "Beyond The Clouds", went home, turned on NPR, heard a news story re Bergman. Saddened, went to sleep, woke up 6 hours later and heard the news re Mike. So weird. Back to Siskel center that night for the last of his shorts, plus the love trilogy thing with WKW and Soderbergh. so strange

'Eros'. Forgot the title for a minute even tho Antonioni is more or less my all-fave. His segment is much maligned, but I still dug it, so I'm surely a fanboy. The Soderbergh bit is truly not to be missed tho, Robert Downey Jr is fantastic

(sorry Cards fans, as you were)

haven't been a SRS baseball fan for like, 15 years but man I read a lot of legends about stan. RIP big stan.

I've never really understood why he became so underrated after he retired. They always say that he was overshadowed by his contemporaries (Mays, Williams, Mantle) but he practically owned St. Louis, won three World Series titles there, won three MVP's and is second to Bonds' all time in MVP award shares (so you can't say that the baseball media underrated him during his career). Is it all because he was quiet and uncontroversial?

I'm guessing geography had something to do with it: Mays, Mantle, and DiMaggio in New York (along with every other Yankee/Dodger/Giant who played during a decade, the '50s, where the mythic stature of New York baseball got a big boost in '72 with The Boys of Summer), Williams in Boston, Musial in what was the end of the earth until '58, St. Louis. Maybe his career being split between two eras played a part: he's in the shadow of DiMaggio/Williams for the first half, then Mays/Mantle/Aaron come along. But MVP/Cy Young share does do a great job of measuring how a player is perceived in his day, so yeah, the sportswriters obviously didn't underrate him at the time.

he had a 'bland' personality and played in the Midwest. Hank Aaron would've fared similarly if he hadn't set the HR record.

I don't know, I've never really been satisfied by those reasons. There were only sixteen franchises in those days and two of them were in St. Louis. It was and is a baseball hub, the Gashouse Gang of the 30's were the most famous team of their time and Musial's Cards continued that success by winning another three titles in the 40's. Mays and DiMaggio might have played in NY but Mays wasn't exactly a colourful character and of course DiMaggio was a total recluse. And yet they only grew more legendary over time and Musial didn't.

to clarify re: Mays -- he was outgoing, friendly, made countless TV and public appearances but he wasn't complex or controversial like DiMaggio, Williams, and Bonds were. It's the JoeD/Bonds type of people who usually get book after book written about them and fuel debates long after their careers are over.

I'd also put Frank Robinson in with Musial. He hasn't gotten nearly as much post-career attention as Mays, Aaron, Mantle, or even Clemente (the nature and timing of whose death obviously factors in heavily). I realize the first three were inarguably better players, but Robinson was pretty great for a long time, with at least three legendary seasons (rookie year, '62, '66) mixed in. Maybe if he hadn't just fallen short of 3,000 hits and 600 home runs that gap would have been closed.

my impression is that Musial got plenty of attention during his career! just didn't have the style of a media star.

Posnanski addressed the question a little in a column over the weekend:

You could argue that Stan Musial should be better remembered as a ballplayer. You would be right. Only two men -- Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds -- created more runs than he did. Only Hank Aaron totaled more bases. Only Tris Speaker and Pete Rose hit more doubles. When the fans were picking the All-Century Team and left off Musial's name -- this despite getting to select TEN outfielders -- it did make you think that Musial's greatness was too subtle for some. He didn't play in New York. He didn't hit in 56 consecutive games. He didn't hit .400, and he didn't hit tape-measure home runs, and he didn't make impossible catches in center field. He wasn't a drunk, and he wasn't a jerk, and he wasn't especially quotable.

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/41045162/

(I don't remember him being left off the All-Century Team--that really is perplexing if there were ten spots.)

Posnanski's half-wrong. Musial did make the team, but he was one of five players added by a panel after the fan vote. I think Joe meant to say that Musial didn't finish among the top nine, which is how many outfielders the fans voted in; Musial did in fact finish 10th (behind Rose!). I know Griffey sticks out too, as does Bonds' omission, but this was 1999, before Griffey left Seattle and before Bonds went science-fiction.

Babe Ruth 1,158,044
Hank Aaron 1,156,782
Ted Williams 1,125,583
Willie Mays 1,115,896
Joe DiMaggio 1,054,423
Mickey Mantle 988,168
Ty Cobb 777,056
Ken Griffey, Jr. 645,389
Pete Rose 629,742
Stan Musial 571,279

"Once (Stan) Musial timed your fastball, your infielders were in jeopardy." - Warren Spahn

beyond being in New York, I would guess that Willie Mays was the most famous black athlete in America in the '60s?

I think so...not sure how close Russell, Chamberlain, and Jim Brown would have been.

Oops--and that Ali guy.

in the '50s, maybe, after he emerged as a superstar in '54

The Treniers recorded the song "Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)" in 1955.

Wasn't the NBA small potatoes till Magic/Bird?

I know the league as a whole took a huge leap in visibility because of those two guys, but I thought Russell and Chamberlain themselves were pretty famous. (As a kid growing up in the '60s, I'm pretty sure I was familiar with the name Wilt Chamberlain, even if I couldn't put a face to it. Russell, no.) I'm not sure, though.

NBA boomed in the '60s with Celtic dynasty, but not on scale of the '80s.

What I mean is, did Wilt and Russell have name recognition at the time like your typical American, "Oh, I know who Dwayne Gretzky is" kinda deal.

Or were the as omnipresent as Willie Mays?

I think they must have; I knew who they (and Kareem, and Jerry West, and that guy with the falling-down socks) were before Bird/Magic in the '79 NCAA, and I've never been a basketball fan.

but baseball WAS the National Pastime at least until the Super Bowl got started (Jan '67). NBA did not have anywhere near the media coverage baseball did in the '60s, I'm quite sure.

Yeah, I wouldn't disagree there. It didn't have anywhere near the media coverage of baseball, but it had enough that I wouldn't call it small potatoes.

It's probably fairly well known by now that Musial was born in the same town as Griffey, Jr. (Donora, Pennsylvania) and shares a birthday with him (Nov. 21). More amazement that I didn't know until today: Musial played high school baseball with Junior's grandfather:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/multimedia/stan-musial-and-the-donora-high-school-baseball-team/image_41785f7f-b29d-5036-b385-5f466ee32e18.html

Stan & Tony Gwynn in '97, on hitting:

SN: Tell us what you saw when the pitcher let go of the ball.
�
Musial: I couldn't see the spin, if that's what you're asking. A lot of guys said they could, but the ball comes up there so fast, I couldn't see the spin. Could you?
�
Gwynn: Nope.
�
SN: In a story we did a couple of years ago, particularly about hitting the curveball, and Wade Boggs, among others, said he could see a dot, a red dot, and that's how he knew a curveball was coming. Did you ever see that?
�
Musial: No.
�
Gwynn: Me neither.
�
Musial: I looked for the speed of the ball coming out of his hand. If the ball jumped up when it left his hand, you know it's a fastball and just by concentrating, that little split-second difference tells you it was something else. But the bat was always back. A lot of young hitters today commit themselves and the bat goes forward and the umpires at third and first call more strikes than the guy behind the plate. I can't figure that.
�
Gwynn: I think they anticipate, they look for stuff, they guess, that's the only thing I can figure. I think they guess a lot more now than even when I came up. These guys guess, looking for a pitch, looking for a zone, looking in a zone, and they commit to that pitch or that zone, and when they don't get it, that's when they get fooled. For me, I try to keep it simple. Why go up there and just start guessing? Just go up there and see the baseball.
�
Musial: I was surprised when I talked to Ted Williams. He told me he guessed quite a bit.
�
Gwynn: He said he guessed all the time.
�
Musial: And I couldn't imagine that he would do that because you come to the plate so many times every day, every game. You see so many pitches, maybe five, six, seven, eight pitches each time you're up. Now, how can you be guessing? That was a shocker.

http://aol.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2009-07-10/talking-hitting-stan-musial-and-tony-gwynn

Reminds me of this Sports Illustrated piece from '77 (Williams on Carew, then making a serious run at .400):

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1092606/index.htm

http://www.icethetics.info/storage/blog13/0128-stl-musial.png

aww

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnYTfEG5bCk

lol for a second I thought he had a grandson playing in the NHL... waitaminute, A LOT of grandsons playing hockey, on the same team.

great sulogy

"[Joe] Garagiola, who used to distract batters by telling them German and Irish dialect stories, treasures a time he tried to distract Stan Musial, famed slugger and proprietor of a leading St. Louis restaurant. As Musial stepped into the batter's box in a tight game, Garagiola said, 'Hey Stan, about ten of us fellows are coming over to your restaurant with our wives for dinner. Do we have to make a reservation?' Stan the Man did not answer. The pitch came in for a strike. "Should we take taxis, or do you have enough parking space?' Musial took a second strike. Garagiola was sure he had the Man's goat. Then came the next pitch, which Musial socked onto the pavilion roof. As he rounded the bases and passed home plate, Stan turned to Garagiola and inquired, 'How do you people like your steaks?'"

--Leslie Lieber, Milwaukee Journal (August 1, 1965)

Awesome! Thanks, mook.

Neyer on the Donora Smog Museum, etc.

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/8/9/4606648/donora-pennsylvania-stan-musial-hometown-smog