Stan Musial: 1948 Season Worth Another Look

No other player in major league history has dominated a season offensively as thoroughly as Stan Musial did when he topped the National League in nine categories in 1948. “Stan the Man” paced the National League in hits (230), doubles (46), triples (18), runs (135), RBIs (131), batting average (.376), total bases (429), on-base percentage (.450), and slugging percentage (.702). He also tagged a career high 39 homers, just one behind the 40 of co-leaders Ralph Kiner and Johnny Mize. His 429 total bases were only 21 behind the NL record of Rogers Hornsby in 1922. Stan was truly “The Man” in the summer of 1948.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Musial was the National League’s rival to Ted Williams. While Ted led the American League in batting seven times and slugging nine times, Stan was atop the NL in batting seven times and slugging six times. The most impressive stat in Stan’s career is his total bases mark of 6,134, second all-time to home run king Henry Aaron’s 6,856. Stan is also fourth all time in hits (3,630), third in doubles (725), tied for nineteenth in triples (177-the most since Paul Waner retired in 1945 with 191), fifth in RBIs (1,951) and seventh in runs scored (1,949). He walloped 475 homers and retired after twenty-two years in 1963 with a batting average of .331. Only Tony Gwynn has retired with a higher batting average since.

Stan rang up this amazing collection of stats with one of the oddest looking batting stances of all time. A lefty, he dug in with his left foot on the back line of the batter’s box, and assumed a closed stance with his right foot about twelve inches in front of his left. He took three or four practice swings and followed up with a silly-looking hula wiggle to help him relax. He crouched, stirring his bat like a weapon in a low, slow moving arc away from his body. As the pitcher let loose with his fling, “The Man” would quickly cock his bat into a steady position, dip his right knee and twist his body away from the pitcher so that he was concentrating at his adversary’s delivery out of the corner of his deadly keen eyes. He would then uncoil with an explosion of power. His line drives were bullets.

The package

Musial wasn’t just a great hitter; he was the complete package, a hustling ballplayer who came up through the tough St. Louis Cardinals farm system. But for all his accomplishments, Musial has become an overlooked man among baseball’s post World War ll greats, and his astonishing 1948 season is seldom mentioned among the great campaigns.

Like Babe Ruth, Musial started out his pro career as a pitcher, with Williamson of the Class D Mountain States League. In 1938 and 1939 his record was a combined 15-8 with an ERA around 4.50. In 1940 the Cardinals sent him to their Daytona Beach team in the Class D Florida State League. The team was managed by former Chicago White Sox pitching star Dickie Kerr. Under Kerr’s tutelage, Stan posted an 18- 5 record with a 2.62 ERA.

Kerr also used Musial in the outfield, and Stan responded by hitting .311 with 70 RBIs in 405 at bats. In late August of 1940 he injured the shoulder of his pitching arm attempting to make a diving catch in the outfield. He was never an effective pitcher again.

In 1941 the Cardinals sent him to their Springfield Class C team as an outfielder. Stan pounded the ball for a .379 average with 26 homers and 94 RBIs in 87 games. He was promoted to the Cards’ top minor league team, Rochester, in late July. In 54 games, Stan hit .326. When the Red Wings season ended, he received a wire telling him to report to the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cards were in the midst of a fierce pennant race with Leo Durocher’s Dodgers. Musial rapped 20 hits in 12 games and batted .426, but Brooklyn edged the Redbirds out for the flag by 2-1/2 games.

In 1942, Stan proved that he was no fluke. He batted .315 as manager Billy Southworth’s Cards won 43 of their final 51 games to post 106 victories and overtake the Dodgers by two lengths. There was no stopping the Redbirds as they rolled over the heavily favored Yankees in the World Series in five games. Musial became a superstar in 1943, leading the league in hits (220), doubles (48), triples (20), batting average (.357), and slugging (.562) as the Cards won 105 games and another pennant. In 1944 the Cards won 105 games again for their third straight pennant and then topped the crosstown Browns in the World Series. Stan led the NL in hits (197), runs (112), doubles (51), and slugging (.549). He also hit .347.

Musial spent 1945 in the Navy, where he was assigned to ship repair duty at Pearl Harbor. He returned triumphant in 1946 to lead the Cards to their fourth pennant and third world championship in five years. He paced the NL in hits (228), runs (124), doubles (50), triples (20), batting (.365), and slugging (.587). Musial began the 194 7 season in a horrendous slump, and in early May was diagnosed with acute appendicitis. The attending physician in New York recommended immediate surgery. Stan was flown back to St. Louis, where he was examined by team doctor Robert Hyland. Hyland suggested that it might be possible to put off surgery until season’s end by freezing the diseased appendix. Stan agreed and was back in the lineup five days later. He came back too fast, however, and on May 19 was hitting a feeble .140. By June 15, he had lifted his average to .203, then turned it all around over the last 104 games.

‘The Man” smacked the ball at a .469 clip in 315 at bats. He finished the season at .312 with 183 hits, 95 RBIs and 113 runs scored in 149 games. At season’s end he underwent surgery on his appendix-and his tonsils.

Stan had played first base for most of 1946 and all of 1947. In spring training 1948, St. Louis manager Eddie Dyer moved him back to the outfield to make room for highly touted prospect Nippy Jones at first base. (In his career he played 1,016 games at first base and 1,890 games in the outfield.)

Sensing the big year

Stan recalled in his autobiography (Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story as told to Bob Broeg), “From the moment I picked up a bat in 1948, healthy and strong after off-season surgery, I knew this would be it, my big year …. I was 27 now, at my athletic peak and healthier than I had been for as long as those low-grade infections had been gnawing at my system. Stronger too, when I picked up a bat and swung it. The bat felt so light that instead of gripping it about an inch up the handle, as I had in the past, I went down to the knob.”

On April 20, opening day in St. Louis, the Cards’ Murry Dickson scattered ten hits in shutting out Cincinnati, 4-0. ln the third inning the Reds’ Hank Sauer let a fly ball by Stan fall for a gift RBI double, his only hit on the day. Two days later, Stan stung a single, double and triple against Cincinnati, but the Reds won in the ninth inning, 4-3, when catcher Del Wilber juggled Stan’s perfect throw to the plate.

On April 24, Stan slashed an RBI triple in Chicago for his 1,000th career hit. St. Louis Post-Dispatch sportswriter Bob Broeg teased Stan afterwards, “Look, Banji [short for the ironic nickname Banjo, meaning a weak hitter], if you’re going to talk about hits, what about trying for 3,000.”

Stan had not even considered getting 3,000 hits back then but told Broeg, “That’s a long way off. Too many things could happen. Keep reminding me. This is a team game and I play to win, but a fella has to have little incentives. They keep him going when he’s tired. They keep him from getting careless when the club is way ahead or far behind. It’ll help my concentration.”

On April 30, in Cincinnati, Stan had the first of his four five-hit games of 1948. He ripped an RBI single in the first inning. He cranked a two-run homer in the fifth frame. He torched a seven-run rally in the seventh with a double, then capped the uprising with a two-run single. In the ninth inning he doubled again, bringing his average at the end of April up to an even .400. The Cards won, 13-7.

“The Man”

Brooklyn arrived in town on May 4, and home runs by Musial and Enos Slaughter helped top the defending league champion Dodgers, 5-4. Stan ended the game with a sensational tumbling catch with two runners on base.

Musial was always double trouble against the Dodgers. In fact, he received his lasting nickname of “The Man” from Dodger fans during a three-game series at Ebbets Field in 1946. Stan ripped eight hits in 12 at bats in the series. In the final game, writer Broeg had heard Brooklyn fans chanting something whenever Stan came to the plate, but couldn’t quite decipher the words. That evening he asked traveling secretary Leo Ward if he knew what the Flatbush fans were saying. Ward told Broeg, “Every time Stan came up they chanted, ‘Here comes the man!”‘ Broeg informed his readers of the chant in his column the next day and one of the most famous nicknames in baseball history was born.

At Ebbets Field in 1948, Stan smashed 25 hits in 48 at bats for a .521 average. The 25 hits consisted of 10 singles, ten doubles, a triple and four home runs. Stan said, “If I could have hit all season at Ebbets Field or the Polo Grounds or, for that matter, if I could have played the 1948 season on the road, I might have hit .400 and ripped the record book apart.” In fact, he hit .415 on the road, .334 at home.

The Cards arrived at Ebbets Field for the first time on May 18. Musial singled and doubled off Ralph Branca as St. Louis took the opener, 4-3. The next night before 32,883 fans, they tagged five Brooklyn pitchers for 18 hits in a 13-5 laugher. The Dodgers couldn’t get Musial out. “The Man” singled three times, doubled, tripled, and walked, scoring five runs and knocking in two. In the final game, the Cards routed four Dodger twirlers, 13-4. Musial singled once, doubled twice, and hammered a seventh-inning homer off Hugh Casey. In the series he went 11 for 15.

During the series Durocher’s pitchers sent Slaughter to the dirt to avoid a head high pitch, drilled Whitey Kurowski in the back and beaned Del Rice, forcing him out of action. Such incidents were commonplace during Brooklyn-St. Louis battles in the 1940s. Scan did his share of ducking too. In his book, Nice Guys Finish Last, Durocher recalled a game in 1948 when his star, Jackie Robinson, was sent sprawling by a Cardinal pitch. Leo’s pitcher retaliated by knocking down Musial with two successive pitches, the second one of which hit Stan’s bat. He was thrown out while still flat on his back. According to Leo, Stan stopped him on the field a couple of innings later and said, “Hey, Leo, I haven’t got the ball out there. I didn’t throw at your man.” Leo recalled telling Stan, “You’re the best player I know on the Cardinals. For every time my men get one, it looks like you’re gonna get two.” Durocher ended the story by saying, “We never had any more trouble with the Cardinals as far as Mr. Robinson.was concerned.”

In 1948, however, St. Louis had to be worried about the Boston Braves as well as the Dodgers. Billy Southworth had moved from St. Louis to manage the Braves and he had them playing good ball. On May 21, Warren Spahn beat Harry Brecheen and the Cards, 3-1, despite Musial’s eighth-inning homer. The next night the Cards turned the tables and sent Johnny Sain to the showers on the way to a 6-4 win. St. Louis was in first place by 2-1/2 games. Spahn, Sain and the Braves would not go away, however. They would win their first pennant since 1914 despite Stan’s gargantuan year.

Before a Wednesday night crowd of 44,128 at the Polo Grounds on May 26, Stan slugged his eighth and ninth homers, but the Giants exploded for eight runs in the eighth to triumph, 10-7. The Cards lost eight of nine before beating Brooklyn, 4-1, on June 3. Stan bashed a two-run homer in the first inning off Preacher Roe, and Brecheen made it stand up by hurling a four-hitter. From June 15 to June 18, Musial was on fire, lacing ten hits in 11 at bats, including two doubles, a triple and a homer as the Cards beat the Phils twice at Shibe Park, 2-1 and 4-1, then won, 12-8, over the Giants at the Polo Grounds.

On June 22 at Braves Field, Stan tied a National League record with his third five-hit game of the season in a 5-2 win. All five hits were singles, including a bunt. Before he went up to the plate in the ninth with the bases loaded, manager Eddie Dyer jokingly hollered out to him, “Hey boy, we’re going to have to send a hitter up for you.” Stan did a double take and the Cardinal bench laughed. He then socked Clyde Shaun’s first pitch up the middle to drive in two runs and decide the game.

Three days later Musial again tore apart the Dodgers at Ebbets Field, with two singles, a double and his sixteenth homer. The Cards beat Joe Hatten, 6-3. The next night Brooklyn hurler Preacher Roe interrupted a St. Louis clubhouse meeting to tell the Cards that he had finally figured out how to get Musial out. The lefthander born in Ash Flat, Arkansas, revealed his formula. “Walk ‘im on foah pitches an pick ‘im off first,” he drawled before ducking out the door amidst chuckles. The Dodgers did manage to get Musial out three times, but in the seventh inning he homered off Paul Minner as the Cards triumphed, 6-4.

By July 1, Musial had rapped out 101 hits in 252 at bats for a .401 average. Taking into account his tremendous finish in 1947, he had hit safely 249 times in his last 567 at-bats, for a .439 average over 169 games.

The relatively new phenomenon of night games was not hurting Stan. He was hitting .462 at night, and .437 against lefthanders. Over in the American League, Ted Williams had bashed 92 hits in 229 at bats for a .402 average. On the Fourth of July, the Cards split a doubleheader at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Musial banged out five singles and a double in ten at bats to raise his average to .405. Nonetheless, St. Louis went into the All-Star break a full six games behind the Braves.

Top All-Star

The 6-foot-1, 175-pound Musial was flexing his muscles as never before. He slammed his twentieth homer (a career high, though he would average 31 per season for the next ten years) on July 9. Musial was the leading NL All-Star vote getter amassing 1,532,502 votes. At the break his average had shot up to .415. He was called into co-owner Robert Hannegan’s office and given a $5,000 raise to $36,000.

Stan delighted a home town All-Star Game crowd of 34,009 at Sportsman’s Park with a first-inning two-run homer into the right field pavilion, but the American League won, 5-2. Before he retired in 1963, Stan would hold All-Star records for most games played (22), hits (20), total bases (40), homers (6), and at-bats (60), sporting a cool .333 average. He decided the 1955 midsummer classic in Milwaukee with a twelfth-inning homer off Frank Sullivan.

In Brooklyn the Dodgers had fired Durocher and rehired Burt Shotton as manager. “Leo the Lip,” despised for years by the fans at the Polo Grounds, now was hired by Horace Stoneham to replace their idol, Mel Ott. Durocher’s Giants came into St. Louis in late July and the Cards took two of three from them. In the final game Musial capped a six-run Redbird outburst in the seventh inning with a two-run homer that gave his team a 6-5 lead. “Big ]awn” Mize tied the game for the Giants with a solo shot, but the Cards prevailed on Nippy Jones’ RBI single in the thirteenth, 7-6.

Southworth’s Braves arrived next, and the Cardinals slowed them down by winning three of four to get within five games of the top. Musial went seven for 16 in the series with a double and triple. Encouraged by their recent showing against the Braves, the Cards began a long road trip with a three game set in Brooklyn. Musial was his usual destructive self, with six hits in 12 at-bats, including four doubles, but the red-hot Dodgers won all three to drop the Cards back down to fourth place.

At Braves Field a crowd of 37,071 greeted the Cards on July 30. Musial ignited a five-run rally in the eighth inning with a double as Brecheen bested Sain, 6-2, on the way to a 20-win season. Stan tripled and homered the following afternoon against Spahn, but Sibby Sisti drilled a triple with the bases full in the ninth inning to power the Braves to a dramatic 7-6 victory.

The third stop on the road trip was back at the Polo Grounds. Durocher’s Giants had won seven straight and passed the Dodgers into second place. The Cards were not impressed. In the opener they pulverized Leo’s hurlers, 21-5. Musial doubled, homered and scored three times. Two days later the series resumed with the Cards sweeping a doubleheader, 7-2 and 3-0. Musial slammed a two-run homer off Sheldon Jones in the first game and Brecheen outpitched Larry Jansen with a two-hitter in the nightcap.

The Cardinals always seemed to play Durocher’s teams tough. Musial explained why in his autobiography: “Leo liked to play the game rough, liked to make it a game of intimidation. His tactics turned us from tabbies into tigers.” Stan was the most ferocious St. Louis tiger against the Giants in 1948, tagging their moundsmen for 11 homers. On May 2, 1954, he would belt five home runs and sock a single in a doubleheader against Durocher’s eventual world champion Giants.

Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field proved to be a chamber of horrors for the Cards in 1948, however. The Pirates came up with four runs in the ninth inning to upend the Redbirds there on August 13, 5-4, despite a triple, two doubles, and a single by Musial. Stan’s defense helped beat the Bucs back in St. Louis on August 20. In the first inning he made a sixty-yard sprint and circus catch of a Ralph Kiner blooper with a man on base. In the second inning he made a somersaulting grab of a drive by Danny Murtaugh, then came up throwing to double Ed Stevens off first base. The Cards won, 7-4, and climbed to within a game of first place the following day by drubbing the Bucs, 9-2. ”The Pounding Pole,” as The Sporting News called Stan, singled twice, doubled, knocked in another run and scored two. The win was the Cards’ seventeenth in twenty-three games.

Nonetheless, the Braves arrived in St. Louis on August 24 with a 2-1/2-game lead. Musial slugged a two-run homer off Sain in the first inning and made another diving catch of Phil Masi’s liner to center in the sixth, but the Braves wore out Cardinal pitching, winning, 9-3. The next night Spahn applied a coat of whitewash, 2-0, and the Cards slid 4 1/2 games out. They weren’t ready to fold just yet. Musial rallied his team to a doubleheader sweep of the Giants on August 26, deciding the second game with a two-run ninth-inning homer, 7-5. The Cards then swept another twin bill from the Giants, 5-4 and 7-6, as Stan won the lidlifter with a home run in the thirteenth inning.

Fading pennant hopes

The beginning of the end came on August 29, as the Dodgers came into town and took over first place by sweeping a doubleheader. Musial singled, doubled, and homered in the opener, but the Bums kayoed Brecheen with four runs in the first inning on the way to a 12-7 win before 33,826 fans. In the second game Musial tripled in two runs in the ninth inning to knot the score at 4-4, but Brooklyn got key pinch hits from Pete Reiser and Arky Vaughan in the tenth to win, 6-4. Shotton’s Dodgers increased their lead to 1-1/2 games over Boston twenty-four hours later with another doubleheader sweep. Musial played with a wrenched knee, caused when he slipped on the dugout runway before the first game when he was besieged by a crowd of well-wishers and autograph seekers. He went hitless in six at-bats, dropping his average to .377.

Just when Shotton’s magic seemed to be working wonders, the Dodgers went into a tailspin, dropping four of five in Chicago and then losing three of four to the Giants back at Ebbets Field. Durocher knocked his old team out of first place on September 3. The fate of the Dodgers and Cards was then sealed on September 6. Pittsburgh swept two from the Cards in the Smoky City, 2-1 and 4-1, while the Braves took two from the Bums in Beantown, 2-1 and 4-0. The next day Stan lined a 3-2 pitch from Fritz Ostermueller into a first-inning triple play in still another loss at Forbes Field.

Boston took a four game bulge over the new second-place team, Pittsburgh. The Braves would never be seriously challenged again, but Musial enjoyed a big September, leading the Cards to a second-place finish. On September 9, he was four for four with a double and triple knocking in two runs and scoring on a double steal as Brecheen blanked the Reds, 4-0. The next day Stan beat the Reds once more, 6-5, with an RBI single in the ninth inning, his 200th hit of the year.

In the Cards’ last visit to Brooklyn, Stan didn’t manage a hit in four at-bats yet highlighted a 4-2 win by raking three hits away from Dodger batsmen with his glove. In the third inning he tumbled to the turf and rolled over to rob Jackie Robinson of a double. In the sixth frame he sprinted over to the exit gate in left center and flung his glove up to make a desperate grab of Pee Wee Reese’s drive, stuffing a probable leadoff triple by the Dodger captain in his mitt. Then with two on and two out in the ninth, Brooklyn’s Tommy Brown looped a short fly to center for an apparent two-run game-tying hit. But “The Man” raced in, dove hard and snatched the ball off the blades of the grass to preserve the victory.

Stan always took great pride in his fielding, and he played all three outfield positions in 1948. He told Bob Broeg, “Over the years, I’m proud to say, I had some of my best days defensively when I wasn’t hitting. I never said much, but I thought my share about players who would let their chins drag when not hitting so that their fielding was affected, too. If I couldn’t beat ’em with my bat, I certainly hoped to try with my glove.”

Stan had jammed his left hand making the circus catches but was in the lineup the next day. Dodger rookie Carl Erskine struck him on the right hand with a pitch early in the game, but Stan tied the score at 2-2 with his thirty-sixth homer in the eighth inning. Musial left Brooklyn with injuries to both hands. (Years later Erskine would answer the question of how he pitches to Musial by quipping, “I just throw him my best stuff, then run over to back up third base.”)

September 22 at Braves Field was one of those rare days in which the wind was blowing out toward the small right field bleachers, nicknamed “the jury box” by Boston scribes. At the batting cage before the game, Broeg pointed to the flag at the right field foul pole and said to Stan, “A great day for the hitters, Banj.”

Musial then decided to rip the tape that had been protecting his injured wrists off and attempt to play without it. In the first inning he dumped a single to left off Spahn, punching the ball to the opposite field to lessen the strain on his wrists. In the third, Stan went to left again off Spahn, this time driving the ball over Mike McCormick’s head for a double. In the fourth, new Braves’ pitcher Charley Barrett tried to puzzle Musial with a changeup. Stan saw it coming and said to himself, “To hell with the wrists!” He pulled the ball into the jury box for a two-run homer. In the seventh, Stan grounded a single between third and short off Clyde Shoun for his fourth hit of the game.

Stan was well aware that he needed just one more hit to tie Ty Cobb’s major league record of four five-hit games in a season. Braves hurler Al Lyons missed badly with his first two pitches to Stan in the eighth. Lyons’ third offering was just a bit outside but Stan hooked it between first and second for a seeing-eye single. In protecting his wrists, Scan had taken the minimum five swings to get his five safeties. In an earlier five-hit day that season, he had knocked out all five hits with two-strike counts.

As October opened, Musial slashed three more hits in a 6-4 win over the Cubs, breaking his previous personal best total of 228 safeties in a season. The next day, Stan broke Rogers Hornsby’s single-season team record of 102 extra base hits by ripping his 46th double. The Cards clinched second place by drubbing the Cubs, 9-0.

Baseball’s Perfect Knight

In games in which Musial hit safely, the Cards posted a 73-48 record. With a hitless Stan, the Cards were 12-21-1. It was said back then, “As Musial goes, so go the Cardinals.” Musial led the NL in every hitting category except home runs. Red Schoendienst remembered, however, that Stan hit a ball at Shibe Park one day that struck the P.A. system above the fence and bounced back on the field. Umpire Frank Dascoli called it a double but Red was sure it should have been ruled a home run. With that homer Stan would have tied Kiner and Mize for the crown and led the league in everything. Scan also had a homer rained out in 1948.

In 1949 the Cardinals battled Brooklyn in another torrid pennant chase down to the last day of the sea, son before missing the flag by a single game. That was St. Louis’s last real pennant race for seven years. Musial, though, kept turning in great performances. He led the league in batting in 1950 (.346), 1951 (.355), 1952 (.336), and then again in 1957 (.351) at age 36. He was named The Sporting News Player of the Decade in 1956. Along the way he played in 896 consecutive games, establishing a new National League record, later broken by the Cubs’ Billy Williams in 1969. In 1962, at age forty-one, Stan challenged for his eighth batting crown, finishing at .330. He also tied a major league record by hitting four home runs in succession that year, including three in one game against Casey Stengel’s Mets.

Stan the Man was never thrown out of a major league game. He didn’t berate writers or sound off in the press. He didn’t second-guess his many managers and never got into fisticuffs on the field. Despite his calm demeanor Musial was a man of quiet toughness and stoic endurance. He did not scare easily. In 1953 Rogers Hornsby, then managing the Reds, ordered pitcher Clyde King to knock Musial down. King protested, “Rog, over the years I’ve gotten Musial out, I guess, as good as anybody, and there’s no point in knocking him down.”

But Hornsby was adamant. King then recalled, “Sure enough, l knocked him down. The ball went right up here (under the chin) and the bat went one way and his body went another way. And he hit the next pitch on the roof in right field. Home run! He killed it!”

In 1968, an eight-foot bronze statue of Musial was unveiled in front of the Cardinals’ Busch Stadium. The inscription on the statue reads simply, “Here stands baseball’s perfect warrior. Here stands baseball’s perfect knight.” That indeed was “Stan the Man.”