April 24, 1948: Stan Musial finds motivation in reaching milestone with 1,000 career hits

Battling appendicitis and tonsillitis, Stan Musial got off to a slow start at the plate for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1947. The reigning National League Most Valuable Player was able to avoid missing significant playing time, however, by deciding to undergo a stopgap treatment that involved freezing his appendix.1 The controversial medical procedure eventually seemed to work as intended with Musial going on a tear to lift a sub-.200 batting average in June to a robust .312 at season’s end. “Pretty good, yes, but not good enough,” Musial opined when considering that he had hit between .347 and .365 in his three previous years.2 And with his hit total precipitously declining by 45 from the prior season – leaving him just five short of 1,000 in his career to that point – Musial dubbed his sixth campaign in the big leagues a “lousy year.”3

“From the moment I picked up a bat in 1948, healthy and strong after offseason surgery [to remove his troublesome appendix and tonsils], I knew this would be it, my big year,” Musial wrote in his 1964 autobiography.4 Now being at his “athletic peak” with more strength than ever, the bat felt lighter to the future Hall of Famer.5 As such, he stopped choking up on the handle and instead adjusted his hands down to the knob of the bat to generate more leverage and power. “Gripping the bat at the end, I could still control my swing,” Musial explained.6 The slender lefty with the unique crouch at the plate thus evolved from a hitter to a slugger and began his journey to posting one of the most dominant offensive seasons in major-league history.7 And an important step along the way occurred when Musial collected his 1,000th career hit early in the campaign during a road game against the Chicago Cubs.

After prevailing in the first of three contests in the Windy City, St. Louis under manager Eddie Dyer started veteran lefty moundsman Al Brazle in the second game of the set on April 24. Musial was assigned to right field, his “favorite” position; the 27-year-old had spent his past two years primarily at first base.8 The Cardinals, winners of four pennants and three World Series since 1942, featured a lineup comprising largely the same core players who carried them to a second-place finish in the previous campaign.

Coming off a sixth-place finish and finding themselves in the midst of a rapid decline after winning the pennant in 1945, the Cubs under manager Charlie Grimm sent left-hander Cliff Chambers to the hill in his major-league debut. The 28,862 spectators enjoyed an abnormally warm spring afternoon at Wrigley Field.

Despite fielding an inexperienced and “allegedly light-hitting” lineup, the Cubs opened the scoring in the bottom of the first inning on All-Star Andy Pafko’s “terrific 400-foot smash.”9 The three-run home run fell into the street “behind the left-field catwalk” and scored rookie Hank Schenz and Eddie Waitkus, who had led things off with back-to-back singles.10 The score remained 3-0 through the next two frames.

Ralph LaPointe, who had earlier been “dazed” when accidentally beaned in pregame batting practice, reached base on a bunt single to lead off the top of the fourth for the Cardinals.11 Entering the game with 999 career hits but failing in his bid to reach 1,000 after fanning in the first inning, Musial this time was successful when he “jarred the brick wall in center” with a triple that scored the “fast Frenchman” (LaPointe).12 All-Star Whitey Kurowski followed with a groundout to second that brought Musial home with St. Louis’s second and final run of the game.

All the remaining scoring came on a continued “home run cannonade” by the Cubs to the delight of the “giddy gallery.”13 Veteran slugger Bill Nicholson belted a solo homer “into Sheffield [Avenue]” that ultimately resulted in Brazle getting sent to the showers after only four innings of work.14 Three frames later in the bottom of the seventh, Cliff Aberson homered on a “shotput delivery” from St. Louis reliever Ken Burkhart with the bases empty to increase the lead to three runs.15 Finally, rookie Hal Jeffcoat capped the home run “barrage” with yet another solo shot in the bottom of the eighth – the first round-tripper of his major-league career – off “Texas League terror” Al Papai, who was making his big-league debut.16 Upon the conclusion of the offensive “laughing stock” improbably “belting souvenirs over one wall or another,” Chicago came away with a 6-2 victory.17

Though he narrowly avoided trouble on two “tremendous drives” by Kurowski caught for outs at the center-field fence, Chambers did a “neat batch of southpawing” in his first big-league appearance after leading the Triple-A Pacific Coast League with 24 wins a year earlier for the Los Angeles Angels.18 The rookie went the distance for the Cubs while striking out four, walking one, and scattering eight hits. Two of the hits belonged to Musial, who also picked up career hit number 1,001 with a single in the sixth after reaching his historic milestone earlier in the tilt.

The 1,000-hit milestone at first “meant little” to Musial, until he was urged by St. Louis sportswriter Bob Broeg to use it as motivation for an even higher goal.19 “Look, Banj [short for ‘Banjo,’ a nickname used to describe a light hitter], if you’re going to talk about hits, what about trying for 3,000?” Broeg playfully asked him after the game in the clubhouse.20 “To get 3,000, I’d have to average 200 a year for 10 more seasons,” Musial recalled thinking to himself. “To maintain that incredible pace, I’d have to be good and lucky – lucky to escape serious injury, lucky to last that long. I’d be 37 or 38 years old!”21 But once he learned that only seven major leaguers belonged to the exclusive 3,000-hit club at the time, Musial “couldn’t shrug off the challenge” – despite the daunting mathematics.22 “Keep reminding me [of the milestone],” he told Broeg. “This is a team game and I play to win, but a fella has to have little extra incentives. They keep him going when he’s tired. They keep him from getting careless when the club is way ahead or far ahead. It’ll help my concentration.”23

Whatever the motivation, Musial went on to lead all major leaguers in hits with 230 in 1948. He also produced not only the best season of his career but arguably one of the greatest offensive seasons of all time. The All-Star just missed winning the Triple Crown by one home run (he hit 39) while leading the league in numerous other categories including RBIs (131), runs, doubles, triples, and OPS en route to winning the 1948 NL MVP award. And Musial “virtually carried a ball club that might have otherwise finished near the bottom of the standings” to a second-place finish.24

Ten years later, Stan the Man did indeed reach the 3,000-hit plateau: on May 13, 1958, with an extra-base hit in Wrigley Field – just as he did for his 1,000th. He concluded his major-league career in 1963 with 3,630 hits. Undoubtedly, Musial would have greatly exceeded this mark and achieved his hit milestones much earlier had he not missed the entire 1945 season while serving in the US Navy during World War II.

Sources

The author accessed Baseball-Reference.com (https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN194804240.shtml) for box scores/play-by-play information and other data, as well as Retrosheet (https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1948/B04240CHN1948.htm).

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also accessed GenealogyBank.com, NewspaperArchive.com, Newspapers.com, Paper of Record, Stathead.com, and Weather Underground.

Photo credit: Stan Musial, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Notes

1 Some medical professionals of the day expressed skepticism regarding the efficacy of appendix freezing. In his 1946 book The New Science of Surgery, physician and novelist Frank Gill Slaughter wrote this of the procedure: “A customary remedy for appendicitis has long been the application of ice caps to the abdomen, in the mistaken assumption that the appendix could be ‘frozen.’ Surgeons in general deplore this treatment.” And in their 1947 book Surgical Treatment of the Abdomen, surgeons Frederic Wolcott Bancroft and Preston Allen Wade echoed a similar opinion, stating that the use of ice bags as a treatment “has done untold harm by masking symptoms through its anesthetic effect.” See David L. Farquhar’s 2011 article, “Stan Musial and His Frozen Appendix,” on the Silicon Underground website for more investigative research on this topic (https://dfarq.homeip.net/stan-musial-and-his-frozen-appendix, accessed April 2, 2024).

2 Stan Musial and Robert Broeg, Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, as Told to Bob Broeg (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1964), 108.

3 Derrick Goold, “Musial and His Frozen Appendix,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 4, 2011, https://www.stltoday.com/sports/professional/mlb/cardinals/musial-and-his-frozen-appendix/article_1198651c-5ebc-11e0-a399-0019bb30f31a.html, accessed November 20, 2023.

4 Musial and Broeg, 109.

5 Musial and Broeg, 110.

6 Musial and Broeg, 110.

7 George Vecsey, Stan Musial: An American Life (New York: Random House, 2011), 200.

8 James N. Giglio, Musial: From Stash to Stan the Man (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2001), 163.

9 Bob Broeg, “Cub Homers Beat Cards, 6-2; Brazle Lasts Only 4 Innings,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 25, 1948: 1D; Edgar Munzel, “Cub Homers Rip Cards 6-2,” Chicago Sun-Times, April 25, 1948: 70.

10 Irving Vaughan, “Sox Lose; 4 Cub Homers Beat Cards, 6-2,” Chicago Tribune, April 25, 1948: Part 2-1.

11 “National League,” The Sporting News, May 5, 1948: 16.

12 Vaughan; Broeg.

13 Munzel.

14 Vaughan.

15 Broeg.

16 Associated Press, “Cubs’ Homers Spill Cards, 6-2,” Springfield (Missouri) News and Leader, April 25, 1948: C-1; Broeg.

17 Broeg.

18 Broeg; Vaughan.

19 Musial and Broeg, 111.

20 Musial and Broeg, 111.

21 Musial and Broeg, 111–112.

22 Musial and Broeg, 112.

23 Musial and Broeg, 112.

24 Giglio, 164.