Earl Weaver was a great baseball man and he will be missed. I only know what I have read about him, but he seemed a driven, humorous, abrasive and intelligent man. He meant a lot to many players (including one of my favorites, Eddie Murray) and his franchise. I don't want to take anything away from him.
Stan Musial was the complete package.
He was voted the player of the decade of the 40's.
He had 3630 hits, 4th most all time.
He had the respect of the African American players of his time, while they were going through the extremely tough integration process. Willie Mays said yesterday, "He used to take care of me at All-Star games, 24 of them. He was a true gentleman who understood the race thing and did all he could. Again, a true gentleman on and off the field -- I never heard anybody say a bad word about him, ever."
Everyone who met him and got to know him seemed to have similar things to say about him.
And he is the undisputed face of the Cardinals franchise. I took my son to a Cardinals game a few years ago and he got a look at the Cardinals history. They have a great stadium and really focus on their whole history, not just the current team. This was a unique chance for my son, because we live in Washington state and he won't likely get to St. Louis anytime soon. He was a huge Albert Pujols fan at the time. Nobody compared to Pujols for him. But by the time we left, after all that he saw and several conversations with St. Louis natives, he understood that even if Pujols had stayed, he'd have had a hard, hard time ever replacing Musial as 'The Man".
R.I.P. Stan.
Here are a few of my most treasured Stan Musial items.
No comments:
Post a Comment