Easily the #1 complaint we have heard about the All Star game, well after the whole booing thing, was the fact that after spending weeks telling everyone that they would finally honor the man that is the invisible baseball great, Stan Musial, all the Cardinals did was wheel his old ass on there on a cart and let him hand a ball to the President.
Thats the same job we give little kids in weddings people.
Our favorite sports writer Bernie Miklasz (@miklasz) had this to say:
LA Dodgers manager Joe Torre — an NL coach and popular former Cardinal — pointed to Musial and clapped. Excellent. So where were the other National Leaguers? Hello? Anybody want to chip in? Say hello to Stan? Maybe a little pat on the back, fellas?
The Man was sitting there, all alone. No players approached him, and then the classy Torre came over and chatted with Stan for a minute or so. One baseball guy in the entire ballpark — Torre — seemed to understand what was required here.
And that’s all.
Thanks, Stan.
Play ball
The Man was sitting there, all alone. No players approached him, and then the classy Torre came over and chatted with Stan for a minute or so. One baseball guy in the entire ballpark — Torre — seemed to understand what was required here.
Maybe the Cardinals hoped that Stan simply being out there a magical moment would just form. Sure the President was in there, and that would overshadow anyone, but couldn’t the Cardinals at least put together a nice 5 minute video piece of the greatest of Stan Musial on the big screen? Maybe interviewed a few baseball historians? Wouldn’t have taken long and it would have done a world of good towards getting the rest of the planet to understand how good this guy was.
To make up for the Cardinals and Major League Baseball’s fail, we pulled his stats and a few good quotes and facts about The Man:
Musial once had five home runs in a doubleheader.
“I’ve had pretty good success with Stan by throwing him my best pitch and backing up third.” – Carl Eskine, former Dodgers pitcher
He played in 24 All Star games. 24!
At the time of his retirement, he held 55 major league records.
“Stan is one of the elite Hall of Famers, that’s the way I put it. He towers over just about everyone.” – Brooks Robinson, Hall of Famer
He hit .300 for a record 16 straight years.
Here is Jack Buck on Stan Musial (via YouTube)
“…I can’t think of any all-time great in any sport who gets left out of more who’s-the-greatest conversations than Stan Musial.” – ESPN Baseball writer Jayson Stark
His career splits show his consistency: His batting average for day games: .310 night games: .310
Bob Costas: “All Musial represents is more than two decades of sustained excellence and complete decency as a human being.”