Although Stan Musial played his last baseball game nearly a
decade before I was born, I have long been fond of him. Because
when I think of Stan the Man, I think of my Dad who back in 1955
had a chance meeting with Musial and several other members of the
St. Louis Cardinals at the Polo Grounds after a Sunday doubleheader
between the Redbirds and the New York Giants had been called on
account of rain. My father got the
opportunity to ask Musial about his unique batting stance on
Bill Stern’s radio show.
So needless to say I was very much looking forward to
reading George Vecsey’s biography of Musial titled,
Stan Musial: An American Life. I began reading the book
during a day trip to Portland, Maine on Memorial Day. But I would
soon become overwhelmed with disappointment by the time the bus had
left Boston city limits.
To start with, I was dismayed with Vecsey’s premise that
Musial had been relegated to obscurity while his contemporaries,
Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams are still remembered:
Almost as if by will, DiMaggio and Williams became distant
towering legends, the stormy Himalayas, whereas Stan the Man
endured as the weathered old Appalachians, like the coal-laden
hills behind his boyhood home in Donora, Pennsylvania.
DiMaggio would be remembered for the rose on Marilyn
Monroe’s grave.
Williams would be remembered for crash-landing his burning
jet on an airfield in South Korea.
But Musial, a diligent businessman with a successful
marriage, would be the nice old guy who mimicked his own batting
stance in public. Was this a flaw on Musial’s part – or
ours?
To the extent Stan the Man is overshadowed by Joltin’ Joe and
Teddy Ballgame isn’t because the Yankee Clipper was married to
Marilyn Monroe or because The Kid was a fighter pilot. DiMaggio is
best remembered for his 56-game hitting streak while Williams is
best remembered for being the last player to hit .400 in a season.
The fact that both these feats occurred in 1941 and remain
untouched seventy years later is what cemented their legacy. These
achievements have attained a mythical status.
When Musial finished his career in 1963, his 3,630 hits
were the most in National League history and second only to Ty Cobb
on the all-time list. Before Pete Rose passed Cobb, Charlie Hustle
would eclipse Musial for the NL record in 1981. Musial didn’t do
anything so spectacular during his 22 seasons with the Cardinals.
Certainly nothing that would warrant an essay by John Updike or
inspire a song by Paul Simon. He was simply Stanley the
Steady.
The other flaw with Vecsey’s biography is that he feels
the need to inject his politics into the proceedings as if his
subject weren’t interesting enough on his own merits. Vecsey likens
Musial to President Eisenhower, although it becomes clear this
comparison is nothing more than an exercise in taking a cheap shot
at another Republican President:
He also met every President from Truman through Obama,
except, for no particular reason, Dwight D. Eisenhower, for whom he
apparently voted twice. Over time, Musial has come to be seen as
the epitome of the Eisenhower years, from 1953 to 1960, a time now
ridiculed for its – what? Complacency? Stability? Normalcy? In this
age when yappers spout nuttiness over the airwaves and nihilists
fly airplanes into buildings, normalcy is looking good.
Musial is not the first or last public figure to suffer
from the short attention span of the vox populi. Even presidents
come and go in the power ratings.
With his deceptively transparent smile, Eisenhower –as in
“I Like Ike” – won two elections handily, but after he was out of
office Ike was often depicted as a mediocre fuddy-duddy.
Early in the 21st century, Ike began
making a comeback. To demonstrate the contrast to a certain
inarticulate president of more recent vintage, David Letterman
displayed videos of Ike’s clearheaded warning about the
“military-industrial complex.” Ike was looking better all the time.
Maybe Stan the Man’s time would come around again.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by this passage. After
all, Vecsey works for the New York Times and
it would seem its employees are contractually obliged to take digs
at President Bush even when the subject matter has little or
nothing to do with politics. If Vecsey dislikes Bush, then fine. If
Vecsey genuinely believes there’s no difference between Rush
Limbaugh and Mohammed Atta, then so be it. There is nothing
stopping him from writing books on those subjects. I just wish he
hadn’t expressed those views in a book that supposed to be about
the life of Stan Musial. They are completely out of place. Musial
deserved better.
I am also unaware of the 21st century comeback of Dwight
Eisenhower of which Vecsey writes. It is a figment of Vecsey’s
imagination. So is the idea that Stan Musial’s time will come
around again. Let us remember that during this past off-season,
Albert Pujols was looking to extend his contract with the
Cardinals. It is believed that he wishes to supplant Alex Rodriguez
as MLB’s highest paid player. The deadline to renegotiate the
contract was set for February 15, 2011. However, at the last
minute, both parties agreed to extend the deadline by 24 hours
because that was the day Musial was set to be
bestowed with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President
Obama. Curiously, Vecsey does not see fit to mention this
tidbit.
Albert Pujols might very well end up being the greatest
player ever to don a baseball uniform. When it’s all said and done,
Pujols might finish his career eclipsing Pete Rose in hits, Barry
Bonds in homeruns and Hank Aaron in RBIs. Pujols might be King
Albert, but Musial is still The Man. Vecsey might be content to
wait for Musial’s time to come around again. I say that he has
never left us.
