The Perfect Knight
I cried today.
There are not one, but two statues of him outside the current Busch Stadium -- which is appropriate as he played his entire career two Busch Stadiums ago.
I met Stan Musial by accident -- our paths crossed in a hallway. My jaw dropped when I recognized him, and I stammered. He was friendly and gracious. I was 45 years old, yet he jokingly called me "Kid", and I felt privileged for it. My hero, now gone to Valhalla, baseball's Most Perfect Knight.
"He didn't hit a homer in his last at-bat; he hit a single. He didn't hit in 56 straight games. He married his high school sweetheart and stayed married to her, never married a Marilyn Monroe. He didn't play with the sheer joy and style that goes alongside Willie Mays' name. None of those easy things are there to associate with Stan Musial. All Musial represents is more than two decades of sustained excellence and complete decency as a human being. -- Bob Costas
The kids at the Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club never realized that they played on sacred ground, that they ran the same basepath that he and Babe Ruth ran.
"And, between the slugging and the greeting,
To the bank for a directors' meeting.
"Yet no one grudges success to Stan,
Good citizen and family man,
"Though I would love to have his job
One half tycoon, one half Ty Cobb.'' -- Ogden Nash
It's a truly wondrous thing when your childhood heroes turn out to be even better than you imagined they could be.
There are not one, but two statues of him outside the current Busch Stadium -- which is appropriate as he played his entire career two Busch Stadiums ago.
I met Stan Musial by accident -- our paths crossed in a hallway. My jaw dropped when I recognized him, and I stammered. He was friendly and gracious. I was 45 years old, yet he jokingly called me "Kid", and I felt privileged for it. My hero, now gone to Valhalla, baseball's Most Perfect Knight.
"He didn't hit a homer in his last at-bat; he hit a single. He didn't hit in 56 straight games. He married his high school sweetheart and stayed married to her, never married a Marilyn Monroe. He didn't play with the sheer joy and style that goes alongside Willie Mays' name. None of those easy things are there to associate with Stan Musial. All Musial represents is more than two decades of sustained excellence and complete decency as a human being. -- Bob Costas
The kids at the Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club never realized that they played on sacred ground, that they ran the same basepath that he and Babe Ruth ran.
"And, between the slugging and the greeting,
To the bank for a directors' meeting.
"Yet no one grudges success to Stan,
Good citizen and family man,
"Though I would love to have his job
One half tycoon, one half Ty Cobb.'' -- Ogden Nash
It's a truly wondrous thing when your childhood heroes turn out to be even better than you imagined they could be.