Stan Musial Arranged a Masterpiece in 1948

Baseball Magazine put Stan Musial on its cover in September 1948. The Cardinals superstar was putting the finishing touches on his greatest season in the big leagues. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

 

Every renowned artist has his or her most famous creation, their pièce de résistance, that singularly most remarkable composition that stands out in an already impressive body of work.

For the baseball virtuoso known as Stan Musial, that was the season of 1948.

One of the most accomplished batsmen in big-league history, during a 22-season career that saw him set dozens of records, Musial composed no other 154-game schedule better than that of the Summer of ’48. It marked the closest he ever ever came to winning a Triple Crown:

• He led the National League with a .376 batting average, his highest single-season mark and the third of his seven batting titles.
• He led the NL with 131 runs batted in, the most he ever drove in during one season – this from the player who had the league record for career RBIs until 1971.
• He finished third in the league with 39 home runs; Pittsburgh’s Ralph Kiner and New York’s Johnny Mize tied for the NL top honor with 40 homers apiece. Musial hit 475 home runs in his career, but his 1948 total marked his single-season best and was 20 more than his previous season high.

One more home run would have made Musial the first NL Triple Crown winner since Joe Medwick turned the feat with the Cardinals in 1937.

“Why be greedy?” Musial said of missing that achievement. “I had a pretty good year, so why wish for more than I had coming to me? My only regret is the Cardinals didn’t win the pennant.”1

Musial’s 1948 display still holds up as one of the game’s greatest seasons. His 11.3 WAR is tied with Ty Cobb’s 1917 season and Mickey Mantle’s 1957 season for number 14 all-time. With that, Musial picked up his third NL Most Valuable Player honor.

“I think he’s the best hitter in baseball,” said Cardinals President Bob Hannegan after signing Musial to a new two-year contract at the end of the season.2

Wrote Jimmy Cannon of the New York Post: “Musial was the greatest player in Organized Ball this year, and there is no way this claim can be challenged. Stan is younger than Joe DiMaggio and sounder. He can do more than Ted Williams on a ball field and is faster than Lou Boudreau. … Musial is the only great ball player in this period who is not changed by circumstances.”3

Quite a contrast to the ballplayer described just a year earlier as “smug” with a “swelled noggin” who could do little more than flail at pitches. Indeed, Musial sported a stunningly paltry .196 batting mark 44 games into the 1947 season. He didn’t get that average above .300 for good until September 3.4

Even though Musial dealt with an inflamed appendix all season, that subnormal hitting display had baseball fans around the country questioning whether Musial really was as good as Ted Williams – or any of the game’s other top hitters, for that matter.

St. Louis writer Bob Broeg called out the most vocal national critic in a September 1947 article in The Sporting News, in which he referenced a recent Collier’s magazine article that had writer Kyle Crichton blaming the Cardinals’ slow start on what he described as Musial’s “smugness and contentedness.”5

Broeg went on to quote the magazine piece:

“Chief among the deflated personages was Mr. Stanley Musial of Donora, Pa., who led the league in hitting [in 1946], but was now making motions at the plate like a spinster repulsing a wasp with a towel. There were rumors that Stanley was suffering from expanso largesso cerebello, meaning a swelled noggin. After a spring holdout that had brought him a reputed salary of $27,000 – entirely merited by his record – he had taken on the airs of a lesser lama and not available for press interviews.”6

Crichton then opined that Musial’s early-season slump and appendicitis turned him into “a very chastened young man” and “gave him a new mental state that was an improvement.”7

Cardinals manager Eddie Dyer took great exception to any criticism of his star player and told Broeg: “In my 25 years in baseball, Stan is as fine a boy as I’ve ever seen or managed. He’s never been swell-headed. This season that poisonous appendix deprived him of his strength and timing. He pleaded to stay in the lineup, and I never saw a fellow try harder. Eventually he became more his old self, but day in and day out he still won’t be the old Musial until his system is rid of that chronic trouble.”8

Team captain Terry Moore noted that Musial remained as level-headed as ever as a player. Writers who covered the team, both in St. Louis and on the road, took exception to the report of Musial’s poor availability for interviews. And Musial acknowledged that he never had talked with Crichton; he said he was too ill when the writer called his hotel room one day asking for an interview but said he could talk the following day. Apparently, Crichton never took Musial up on that offer.9

Musial responded to the criticism by going 14-for-32 during the final nine games in September 1947, pushing his average to .312 and finishing fifth in the NL batting race.

On October 15, 1947, the Cardinals’ team surgeon, Dr. Robert F. Hyland, removed Musial’s appendix at St. John’s Hospital in St. Louis.10

The Cardinals opened the campaign on April 20 with a three-game series against the Reds at Sportsman’s Park. Musial, playing right field and batting third in the order, had an RBI double in five plate appearances in a 4-0 victory, then went hitless with two walks and a run scored in a 5-2 triumph the next day.

His first multihit game of the season came in a 4-3 loss on April 22, when he stroked a single, double, and triple with a pair of RBIs.

The Cardinals embarked on a three-game trip to Chicago – Musial was held hitless in two of those contests – then finished the road trip with a couple of games in Cincinnati. That’s where his season began to take on a sparkling luster.

The Cardinals fell to the Reds 4-3 in 14 innings on April 29, but Musial went 3-for-5 with a walk, his first home run of the season and four RBIs. He closed out the road trip April 30 by going 5-for-6, including two doubles and a homer, with another four runs batted in to lead the assault in a 13-7 win.

“I’m supposed to help the club with my hitting, so I feel like I’m doing my duty this year,” Musial said. “It seems to come easy to me this year. I’ve picked up the 12 pounds I lost last spring. … Besides that, I’m more relaxed at my new position – in the outfield.”11

Still, the Cardinals lugged just a 4-4 record when they returned home for what would be a 12-game homestand against six of the NL’s seven other teams. The Cardinals won nine of them, and Musial had at least one hit in 10 of them. By the time they boarded an eastbound train after a 6-5, 10-inning win over the Pittsburgh Pirates on May 16, Musial was sporting a .350 batting mark and 18 RBIs through 20 games.

And, of course, it was destined to get even better immediately. The Cardinals were headed for Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field – The Man’s home away from home.

• May 18: 2-for-4, one double, two runs scored in a 4-3 Cardinals win.
• May 19: 5-for-5 with a walk in six plate appearances, a double and a triple with two RBIs in a 14-7 win.
• May 20: 4-for-6, with two doubles, a homer, three runs scored, and two more RBIs, as the Cardinals swept the series with a 13-4 victory

Sometimes numbers really do tell key parts of a story. Here are more from Musial’s 1948 season:

• He batted .411 with a 1.321 OPS in 237 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers – and Musial batted from the left side.
• He drew a total of 83 walks and struck out only 33 times.
• His longest hitting streak was 13 games, his longest on-base streak 21 games. Musial never went more than four straight games without a hit or more than five consecutive games without an RBI.
• Bolstered by a .412 batting average in June – during which he reached base in more than half his plate appearances – Musial wrapped up the season’s first half with a .403 batting mark.

On July 9, four days before he had a single and home run in the NL’s 5-2 All-Star Game loss, Musial lashed a single and a home run in a 6-4 Cardinals victory over the Reds at Sportsman’s Park. That lifted his season batting average to .412, along with 20 home runs and 64 runs batted in – through 74 games played.

Compare that to Ted Williams’s showing for the Red Sox in 1941, when his .406 average still stands as the last time anyone topped the .400 mark for a full season. Williams had a .405 average, 16 homers, and 61 RBIs after 74 games.

 

St. Louis proceeded to drop three consecutive games as Musial went hitless in 12 plate appearances, and he never sniffed the .400 level again. Nonetheless, he didn’t exactly slack off, as the Cardinals battled back into the pennant race in August, when much of the country was mired in a heat wave but Musial refused to wilt. He compiled a .348 average with 14 doubles, 4 triples, 10 homers, and 30 RBIs – 100 total bases – in 33 games that month.

On August 21, Musial started in center field against Pittsburgh starter Tiny Bonham at Sportsman’s Park. It was a sweltering Saturday evening in St. Louis, with a game-time temperature of almost 92 degrees. Batting third in the lineup, between Marty Marion and Enos Slaughter, Musial singled and scored in the first inning. He singled again in the third but was wiped out in a double play. In the fourth, Musial doubled Erv Dusak home and then scored on Ron Northey’s homer. The Cardinals moved into second place with their 9-2 win, tied with the Dodgers and one game behind the Braves.

Musial produced a .415 batting average and 1.257 OPS on the road. He absolutely feasted on the Phillies, against whom he batted .407 and reached base in 52 percent of his plate appearances. He especially enjoyed hitting at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, where he posted a .500 batting average.

Musial managed a mere .313 batting average against New York Giants pitching, but he clubbed 11 home runs in 22 games against them. That included eight homers at New York’s Polo Grounds.

He saved his best for when he faced the Brooklyn Dodgers, who finished third that season. Musial slugged .851 with 74 total bases in his 22 games against a pitching staff that included Preacher Roe, Rex Barney, and Ralph Branca. Most impressively, he batted .522 in 11 games at Ebbets Field.

Frankly, no team discerned how to get Musial out. For instance, he drove in 27 runs in 22 games against the Cincinnati Reds. And he batted .443 and posted a .510 on-base percentage against the Boston Braves – whose pitching staff featured Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain en route to the NL pennant.

The Braves, guided by Musial’s old manager, Billy Southworth, finished 6½ games ahead of the second-place Cardinals. Boston went 21-7 after August 31; that enabled the Braves to pull away from the Cardinals, who went 17-12 in that final stretch of games.

Still, Musial finished strong. He batted .368 and drove in 22 runs during the Cardinals’ 29 games after August 31. Though he continued to amass hits and RBIs in bunches to easily best the NL field in those categories, the home-run race proved most interesting.

Musial hit only five homers in September, the same as Kiner but three fewer than Mize. Homer number 39 for Musial came in the first game of a September 30 doubleheader against the Pirates. That pulled him into a tie with Mize. Kiner had hit his 40th homer two days earlier.

Mize walloped his 40th on the season’s final day. Alas, Musial failed to find his power in any of his final 20 plate appearances.

Musial earned $36,000 in 1948. His new contract secured a $50,000 salary for each of the next two seasons, making him one of the highest-paid players in the game.12

“They say a player’s peak ranges between (ages) 28 to 32,” said 27-year-old Musial at season’s end. “That means my next five years should be my best, and I think I’m getting better as I go along.”13

“Let’s put it this way,” he said. “I’d say the only untouchable man on the Cardinal roster is Stan Musial. Why? Because I don’t think any club in the National League would give up its franchise to pay for him. That’s what he means to us.”14

MIKE EISENBATH grew up an obsessed baseball fan in St. Charles, Missouri, still lives only one block from where he played wiffle ball in his backyard, and has passed his passion on to his four children and (most of) his six grandchildren. He went on to work more than 25 years as a professional sportswriter, with more than 10 of his 18 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch dedicated to covering the Cardinals and MLB. He is the author of The Cardinals Encyclopedia and has been assisting as an editor for the SABR BioProject for several years. Mike also is an avid collector of baseball cards and memorabilia, and he’s a member of the SABR Baseball Cards Committee.

 

SOURCES

The author accessed Retrosheet.org and Baseball-Reference.com for pertinent information, including box scores, play-by-play, and other statistical data.

 

NOTES

1 Ray Gillespie, “Stan Decides He’s Bird Fixture, So He’ll Buy St. Louis Home,” The Sporting News, October 13, 1948: 13.

2 “Musial Signs Two-Year Contract With Cardinals,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 4, 1948.

3 Jimmy Cannon. “Stan the ’48 Standout – Including Temperament,” The Sporting News, December 8, 1948: 10.

4 Bob Broeg. “Cards Crack Back at Writer of Musial Blast in Magazine,” The Sporting News, September 17, 1947: 7.

5 Broeg.

6 Broeg.

7 Broeg.

8 Broeg.

9 Broeg.

10 Edgar Brands. “Ruel Thumbs Out One-Handed Catching for Brown Backstops,” The Sporting News, October 22, 1947: 9.

11 Ray Gillespie. “Stronger Stan Steps Up Hits, Cards Follow Him Upstairs,” The Sporting News, May 12, 1948: 2.

12 “Musial Signs Two-Year Contract With Cardinals.”

13 “Musial Signs Two-Year Contract With Cardinals.”

14 Ray Gillespie. “Highest St. Louis Brass to Be at Draft Meeting,” The Sporting News, November 10, 1948: 15.