Welcome to the Baseball History Podcast: Featuring This Week in Baseball History, baseball dictionary and a tour of baseball cities. I’m your game announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 11 of the 2009 baseball season
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 1 week of March.
March 6
1923 The Cardinals announce players will wear numbers on their uniforms. The digits will correspond to the player’s place in the batting order.
And now, continuing on with the anniversary game of Baseball History Podcast featuring
Stanley Frank Musial.
For Part one of this biography, check your ticket for BHP Game 0910
Back from the war, his skills undiminished, Musial approached spring training in St. Petersburg in 1946 in his usual fine shape. Devoted to keeping in condition during the off-season, he never had a problem maintaining his weight, having started his career at 175 and perhaps weighing in at 180 in his last seasons.
Not everything was rosy, though. Slipping on some sandy soil that spring, he strained the ligaments in his left knee, causing a problem that would bother him throughout his career. Moreover, as the season progressed, it was becoming evident that rookie Dick Sisler wasn’t developing at first base, prompting manager Eddie Dyer to ask Musial to move there temporarily from his left field position. The move wouldn’t be as temporary as originally thought, as Musial wound up playing more than a thousand games at first base, making him the first player to appear in at least a thousand games at two different positions. Warming to the position and being a first-rate athlete, he became a solid first baseman, almost as comfortable there as he was in the outfield.
Showing National League pitchers he’d lost nothing by being away, he led the league with a .365 average. In addition, he topped the hundred Runs Batted In plateau for the first of many times with 103. It all added up to his second Most Valuable Player award and another pennant for the Cardinals, their fourth in the four full years he’d been with the club, a run equaled only by the DiMaggio Yankees of 1936-1939. The Cards took the Series from the Red Sox in a seven-game thriller, but the anticipated head-to-head match-up between league Most Valuable Players Musial and Ted Williams didn’t materialize as the two stars hit .222 and .200, respectively.
Musial would refer to the 1947 season as “that lousy year.” Starting off the season slowly, he had a miserable April, hitting .146. Something was obviously wrong, the culprit turning out to be an inflamed appendix and tonsillitis. A physician “froze” Musial’s appendix, a procedure that allowed him to finish out the year before having his appendix and tonsil removed during the off-season.
Stan took five days off before returning to the field, but his recovery was slow. He was down to .140 on May 19 after a streak of 22 hitless at-bats. He didn’t reach .200 until mid-June and did not get to .300 until recording five hits in an August 10 doubleheader. Finally starting to hit, Musial finished up at .312 with 19 homers and 95 Runs Batted In. His on-base average of .398 and slugging percentage of .504 were good but certainly not up to the high standard he had set.
His “lousy” 1947 season was, however, better than most players’ good ones. For instance, Joe DiMaggio had won the American League Most Valuable Player Award with very similar numbers: .315 average, 20 home runs, and 97 Runs Batted In,
At the same time the Cardinals were beginning a slightly perceptible decline, finishing in second place five games behind the energized Dodgers and remaining in the bridesmaid’s position through 1948 and 1949 before falling all the way to fifth in 1950, although they did finish with a 78 win and 75 lose mark. Nobody would have guessed it at the time, but the Cardinals wouldn’t return to the World Series during Musial’s career.
With his appendix and tonsils removed and unquestionably stronger than he’d been in a long time, Musial held out, finally signing on March 4 for $31,000. As it turned out Musial was a bargain putting together not only his greatest season but one of the greatest seasons anyone ever had.
To begin with, he more than doubled his previous highest home run output, belting 39 while batting for a 376 average with 131 Runs Batted In. In addition, he led the league in hits, total bases, doubles, triples, runs, on-base percentage, and slugging–every significant batting category except home runs which he missed by one.
Nobody before or since has ever so thoroughly dominated a major league. His dominance included four games in which he picked up five hits tying Ty Cobb’s twentieth-century record for five-hit games in one season.
For the havoc he raised in Ebbets Field that year, Dodger fans on the receiving end of four Musial hits and a 13-4 Cardinal beating on May 20 christened him “Stan the Man,” the name by which he’ll always be known. That day was no fluke, as he hit .522 with on-base and slugging percentages of .560 and 1.022 in Brooklyn that year and improved to marks of.523 batting average, 632 on base percentage, and 1.114 slugging percentage in 1949.
To the surprise of no one, he picked up his third Most Valuable Player award. But his magnificent season wasn’t enough to push the Cardinals over the hump, as they came in second once again, a decisive 6.5 games behind the Braves.
Not every moment of the season was wonderful for Musial, however. The September 7 game in Pittsburgh was one such exception. In the top of the first, with Fritz Ostermueller on the mound, Red Schoendienst and Marty Marion reached base for the Cardinals. With the runners moving, Musial lined a 3-2 pitch to Pirate shortstop Stan Rojek for the first out. Rojek stepped on second to double up Schoendienst, then threw to first baseman Johnny Hopp, who nabbed Marion to complete the triple play. It was St. Louis’ first and last gasp, as the Pirates won, 6-2.
For the next ten years, 1949 to 1958, Musial was extraordinarily consistent, putting together seasons that were essentially interchangeable. His average season would consist of a .335 average, .428 on-base percentage, .583 slugging percentage, 194 hits, 39 doubles, 7 triples, 30 home runs, 107 runs, and 108 Runs Batted In. Not surprisingly, he led the league in all these categories except homers at least once.
During these years there were, of course, some remarkable days, and at least one humorous one. On September 29, 1952, he took the mound for the only time in his major-league career. He’d already sewn up the batting title and faced off against Frank Baumholtz of the Cubs, who was comfortably second in the batting race. Baumholtz, a lefty hitter, switched to the right side and reached base on an error. A gracious Musial maintained that it was as clean a hit as he ever saw. Baumholtz was the only batter Musial faced that day, or any other day in the major leagues.
Musial’s greatest single day on the baseball field came on May 2, 1954, in a doubleheader in St. Louis against the eventual pennant and World Series winners, the New York Giants. He went 4-for-4 in the first game with three homers, including the game-winner, a three-run shot off Jim Hearn, and 2-for-4 in the second game (a Cardinals loss) with two more homers. Coincidentally, witnessing the five homers was an eight-year-old named Nate Colbert, who as a San Diego Padre would equal Stan’s record of five home runs in a doubleheader, in Atlanta on August 1, 1972.
Not only was Musial stellar, he was durable, playing in his 823rd consecutive game on June 12, 1957, breaking the National League consecutive-game record. The streak would end at 895 on August 27, as he tore a muscle and chipped a bone swinging at a pitch in the fourth inning of a 2-1 loss in Pittsburgh.
On May 13, 1958, he pinch-hit a double off Moe Drabowsky in Wrigley Field to become the eighth player to reach the 3000-hit mark. The milestone hit helped the Cardinals to a 5-3 win. It seemed appropriate, too, that Number 3000 would be a double, since in the eyes of more than a few fans the image of Musial is a hard-hit double off the wall.
Preacher Roe claimed to have the best way to pitch Musial: “I throw him four wide ones and then I try to pick him off first base.”
Although not initially expected to be a long-ball hitter, Musial developed his power without increasing strikeouts, and averaged 31 home runs per season from 1948 to 1957. Musial once told Roger Kahn that he hit so well because he always knew what the pitch was by seeing the rotation of the ball as it approached the plate.
After seventeen years dominating National League pitchers, the decline came quickly for Musial. His batting average fell all the way to .255 in 1959, and he bettered it to .275 and .288 in 1960 and 1961. He had a brief resurgence in 1962 with a mark of .330 but fell back to .255 as he finished his brilliant career in 1963.
Despite the low numbers, he had some good moments in that last season. On September 10, after waiting up all night for the birth of his first grandchild, he homered in his first at-bat to become the first grandfather ever to homer in the majors.
On September 25 Cardinals owner August Busch named Musial a vice-president of the team and announced that his number 6 would be retired. He bowed out on September 29 with two hits against Cincinnati, the first a single in the fourth inning past a rookie second baseman named Pete Rose and the second a ground ball single in the sixth off twenty-three-game-winner Jim Maloney to drive in his last run before leaving for a pinch runner.
Musial’s career numbers are stunning: .331 batting average, .417 on-base percentage, .559 slugging percentage, 3630 hits, 725 doubles, and 177 triples, to go along with 475 homers, 1949 runs, and 1951 Runs Batted In.
When he retired, Musial owned or shared 29 National League records, 17 Major League records, 9 All-Star records, and almost every Cardinals career offensive record.
He’s the only player to finish his career in the top 25 in all these categories and owns or did own a number of records.
For one who played so long, Musial was unbelievably consistent.
He smacked 1,815 hits at home and the same number on the road.
He hit .336 at home, .326 on the road, a barely significant difference.
Of his 475 home runs, 252 came at home with 223 away, in a total of 12 ballparks.
He scored 1,949 runs and drove in 1,951.
He batted .310 or better 16 straight seasons and added a .330 season just short of his 42nd birthday.
Over 21 full seasons he averaged a remarkable 172 hits, 92 runs scored, 92 Runs Batted In, 34 doubles, and 23 home runs per year.
He was also the first man to play more than 1,000 games each at two positions.
Musial rarely experienced long slumps; he put together strong starts, solid mid-seasons, and great finishes.
He hit .323 or better in every month of the season, with September-October his best stretches.
He hit 320 of his homers off righthanders, 155 off southpaws, a very high percentage that dispels any notion that he may have had problems with lefties. Indeed, his favorite victim was Warren Spahn, arguably the greatest lefthander over the long haul, 17 of whose pitches Musial helped to leave the ballpark.
It all gives the impression that Musial didn’t care who was pitching or where he was hitting: he just hit. Even though he never led the league in homers, he shares the record of 12 game-ending home runs with four pretty fair hitters–Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle, Frank Robinson, and Babe Ruth.
The triple, that rarest of all hits, was something of a sub-specialty for Musial. He holds several National League records for triples, including most with the bases loaded with 7, most seasons leading his league in triples, with a mark of 5; and is tied with many other National League players for twice unloading at least 20 triples in a season.
Musial received the ultimate reward for his magnificent career at the earliest possible date, on January 21, 1969, with election to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. Named on 92.3% of the ballots, he was the first player to receive 300 votes on a Hall of Fame ballot; one can only wonder what 23 presumably knowledgeable writers were thinking.
Musial remained in the Cardinals’ front office for a number of years. He was named general manager on January 23, 1967, but resigned the position in less than a year, on December 5. He’s the only general manager of a team that won the World Series in his only year on the job. One gets the impression, though, that he was never comfortable in management, once remarking, “I have a darn good job, but please don’t ask me what I do.”
He went to spring training to work with Cardinals hitters and promote good will talking to fans and signing autographs. He even joined the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), in which he must be the only member to list his expertise as “Hitting a Baseball”! That may seem arrogant to some, but anyone who’s ever seen Stan’s ever-present smile and laughing eyes knows it’s his private little joke. Besides, it happens to be true.
On or off the field he wore a smile and meant it. Although he obviously did not always agree with umpires or managers, he did not argue calls or tactical moves.
He still makes it to Cooperstown for most Hall of Fame inductions, serving for many years on the Veterans Committee, always smiling, and entertaining all with his harmonica. The statue of Stan outside Busch Stadium reminds all who go to Cardinals games that he was “the perfect warrior, the perfect knight”.
Most of this biography comes from the Baseball Biography Project on the SABR web site. The biography was written by Jan Finkel.
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Well, that’s it for today’s game of Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
