Stan Musial: A St. Louis Baseball Icon

Stan Musial held several business interests, including a popular restaurant in St. Louis. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

 

Stan Musial arrived rather anonymously at Sportsman’s Park on the afternoon of September 17, 1941, the day he slipped into the St. Louis Cardinals lineup for the first time as the starting right fielder during the second game of a doubleheader against the Boston Braves. The clean-shaven, skinny rookie, weighing just shy of 160 pounds and a few months short of his 21st birthday, made his major-league debut that afternoon on the north side of St. Louis in front of roughly 8,000 fans, most of whom had likely never heard of him and could only guess at the pronunciation of his unusual last name. Musial himself seemed surprised by his own ascendance to the majors, following his call-up from Double-A Rochester, along with teammate Erv Dusak. “Both of us started out in small leagues this year with no idea of moving up to the majors so soon,” Musial said. “You can imagine how thrilled we are.”1

The native of Donora, Pennsylvania, a faraway industrial town located 600 miles to the east, quickly introduced himself to the people of St. Louis. After collecting two hits in his first game, Musial batted .426 through the rest of September 1941 with a brilliant performance that demanded the attention of baseball fans across the city. He was anonymous no more. “Stanley Frank Musial, who won’t be 21 until Nov. 21,” W.J. McGoogan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote, “is the name.”2

From that point forward, Musial proceeded to build a Hall of Fame legacy over the course of 22 seasons with the Cardinals and, in the process, forged an unbreakable bond with his adopted hometown that would last the rest of his life. After surfacing in this unfamiliar city three months before Pearl Harbor, Musial spent the next seven decades until his death in 2013 as one of St. Louis’s most beloved and commanding presences, known as much for his accessibility to the public and easygoing nature as he was for his 3,360 hits in a Cardinals uniform. “He loved St. Louis,” said Brian Schwarze, Musial’s grandson and longtime caretaker, “and St. Louis always loved him back.”3

Although he would always be from Donora, there was no better career or personality fit for Musial than St. Louis, an unwaveringly loyal and humble Mississippi River town where folks embraced him unconditionally as one of their own. “I have never seen anyone in all my life who was revered the way Stan was in St. Louis. He was an icon’s icon,” St. Louis native Ken Makovsky wrote for Forbes. “He was also my boyhood hero, as I grew up a Cardinal fan in my hometown city; he could do no wrong, and he was the personification of glamour and decency.”4

As a devout Catholic who regularly attended Mass, Musial particularly appealed to the city’s large and vibrant Catholic community, which still makes up a quarter of the region’s population.5 In January 1999 Musial played a prominent role in hosting Pope John Paul II during his visit to St. Louis (the pope, a longtime friend and contemporary who was born just six months before Musial, referred to him as “America’s great athlete”).6

Musial was also held in high regard by the Jewish community, where St. Louis Jewish Light editor-in-chief emeritus Robert A. Cohn described him as having “transcended all religious, ethnic, national, racial and other barriers as a unifying force.”7 Meanwhile, one of the city’s leading Black newspapers, the Argus, wrote during Musial’s playing days that he “will always be remembered for his fine sportsmanship and cooperativeness on and off the field and also as a gentleman.”8

The beauty of Musial’s relationship with St. Louis stemmed in part from his longevity, given that his playing career with the Cardinals spanned portions of three different decades and endeared him to multiple generations of St. Louisans. He won three World Series titles and three Most Valuable Player Awards during the 1940s, notched four of his seven National League batting championships during the 1950s, and appeared in four All-Star Games in the early 1960s.9 He played his first game during the Roosevelt administration and played his last game a few months before the Kennedy assassination. “Stanley Frank Musial was part of that magnificent class of post-World War II baseball geniuses every child of the late 1940s, ’50s and ’60s fell hard for,” Post-Dispatch columnist Bryan Burwell once wrote. “He smiled at us from the cover of those color portraits in old Sport and Sports Illustrated magazines, and he marveled us as he uncoiled from his distinctive lefty batting stance in so many of those black and white action shots on the daily sports pages.”10

Through the everyday rhythms of baseball, Musial developed into an omnipresent figure in St. Louis each spring until autumn, fueled in part by the 50,000-watt strength of KMOX Radio. “Growing up in a suburb of St. Louis some of my best childhood memories were listening to Cardinals games on KMOX and sometimes actually getting to go to a ballgame [at Sportsman’s Park/Busch Stadium],” Sherry Graehling wrote in a fan tribute to Musial. “I still remember watching Stan play and my father telling me that I was watching history in the making as Stan was probably the greatest player I would ever see.”11

For his entire adult life, Larry Dorsey reminisced about listening with his father to Musial’s five-homer performance against the New York Giants in a 1954 doubleheader. “Those front porch days and the miracle of becoming a Cardinal fan for life at my dad’s knee,” Dorsey wrote in his own tribute, “are simply the best memories of all.”12

The attachment to Musial only grew stronger after his retirement in 1963. Even as he transitioned out of the spotlight, Musial planted roots in St. Louis and stitched himself into the fabric of the city in a way that no modern athlete ever could, by mingling with adoring supporters during lunches at the Missouri Athletic Club or by engaging with autograph seekers of any age at any time. “He was able to have a normal life here,” Schwarze, his grandson, said. “I used to take him to dinner all the time, and yes, people would come up every once in a while, but at least he got to go out to dinner and go out in public and be a normal person. So, I think that says something for the city, to let a celebrity be.”13

At the same time, Musial remained highly visible with the Cardinals and eventually established an organization known as Stan the Man, Inc. to help him keep up with the dozens of publicity requests and fan letters he received each day. Musial intimately understood the connection he enjoyed with the fan base in St. Louis. “It’s a special game because the season lasts so long. People grow up with it the way they don’t in other sports,” he said in 1994 during a 50th-anniversary commemoration of the Cardinals’ 1944 World Series victory over the St. Louis Browns. “Like, people remember that 1944 season. They have lived with it all these years, even people who weren’t born then. … Baseball, it’s part of our life.”14

As he got older, Musial’s frequent appearances at Busch Memorial Stadium exposed him to a younger generation of Cardinals fans, whether he was playing the harmonica during Opening Day festivities or throwing the ceremonial first pitch to Bob Gibson prior to Game Three of the 2004 World Series against the Boston Red Sox. Decades removed from his playing days, Musial was untouchable in St. Louis, so revered that even Albert Pujols rejected using the nickname El Hombre (The Man in Spanish). “I don’t want to be called that. There is one man that gets that respect, and that’s Stan Musial. He’s the Man,” Pujols said. “He’s the Man in St. Louis.”15

Despite his unquestioned status in St. Louis, there is still a lingering perception in the city that Musial’s accomplishments have been overlooked on a national level, a sentiment driven by some infamous events such as his initial omission from the All-Century Team in 1999 by way of a fan vote. “Did he deserve to be there? Are you kidding me? That to me was the biggest shock of the whole thing,” Commissioner Bud Selig told the author George Vecsey. “I felt an incredible sadness. I said, ‘this is impossible.’”16 Under Selig’s direction, a special panel moved quickly to correct the error and added Musial to the All-Century list, but the damage had been done. “He probably doesn’t get the recognition that he might have gotten had he played for a major-market team,” former Cardinals vice president of communications Ron Watermon said, “but he truly is one of the greatest players to have ever worn a uniform.”17

Starting in the mid-to-late 2000s, Watermon and other team officials vowed to give Musial the credit he deserved. Toward the end of the George W. Bush administration, they began a lobbying effort to have Musial receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor an American civilian can receive. It did not happen overnight. After an unsuccessful attempt at the end of the Bush years, the team tried again when President Obama took office and even hired a writer to craft a 10-page essay laying out the arguments for Musial as a Medal of Freedom recipient. Players, coaches, and federal lawmakers in Missouri all sent letters to the president.

In 2009 the stars seemed to align when Obama visited St. Louis for the All-Star Game at Busch Stadium III. “I remember at the time thinking that the president is coming because he’s going to make this big announcement,” Watermon said. “When that didn’t happen, I remember being really disappointed the day after the All-Star Game, feeling like we had failed Stan.”18

That feeling of failure kept Watermon persistent. One year later, in 2010, he devised a campaign dubbed Stand for Stan that made creative use of technology and the nascent social media platform Twitter. Inspired by the Canadian educational figure known as Flat Stanley, Watermon decided to produce a Stan Musial-themed Flat Stanley paper doll that fans could download and print directly from their computers. The Cardinals encouraged fans to post pictures of their Flat Stanleys and sign a petition asking President Obama to give Musial the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Thousands obliged, and each individual post told a story. Some fans uploaded pictures with their dogs and Flat Stanley,19 while others tweeted heartfelt messages about Musial with the hashtag #StandForStan.20 The movement arguably reached its peak on October 2, 2010, during the Cardinals’ final home series of the season, against the Colorado Rockies, when more than 39,000 fans sent a clear message to the White House by waving their Flat Stanleys from every corner of Busch Stadium – all while Musial paraded around the field in a cart driven by a team staffer. “That was a special moment,” manager Tony La Russa said. “I looked around and there were a lot of guys choking up.”21

Musial embraced the campaign and even posed for a photograph with his own Flat Stanley outside Stan the Man, Inc.’s headquarters, surrounded by his grandchildren. “I remember welling up with tears as I looked at that picture and thinking to myself, ‘Oh my gosh, this campaign is not really about the Medal of Freedom,’” Watermon said. “What was so beautiful about that campaign was that it really did sort of link generations. There were older folks that said, ‘How do I log on to get this thing?’ And they’re having to ask their grandkids to help them. It was just a cool experience.”22

The Stand for Stan idea worked. Weeks after the season, the White House announced Musial as one of 15 Medal of Freedom recipients, and on February 15, 2011, President Obama officially awarded Musial his Presidential Medal of Freedom. “Stan remains, to this day, an icon,” Obama said, “untarnished, a beloved pillar of the community, a gentleman you’d want your kids to emulate.”23 Brian Schwarze said his grandfather cherished the Medal of Freedom more than his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. “When he came back with the Medal of Freedom, he didn’t take it off for 30 days,” Schwarze said. “He always said that the Hall of Fame ring, that was about baseball. The Medal of Freedom, that was about his life.”24

By then Musial’s health had started to deteriorate. In 2012 he mustered the energy to wave to fans from a cart before Game Four of the National League Championship series, which was his final appearance at Busch Stadium.25

Musial’s death on January 19, 2013, at the age of 92, prompted a citywide period of mourning. One week later, during the doldrums of winter, television stations across St. Louis carried his funeral service live from the packed Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis as broadcaster Bob Costas delivered the eulogy. “No one in St. Louis ever had to wonder where Stan Musial had gone. He was right here, right here at home,” Costas said. “Our greatest ballplayer, sure, but also our friend, our neighbor. And that is why the bond and attachment between this player and this city is unique and lasting.”26

At the conclusion of the service, the funeral procession traveled four miles to the western entrance of Busch Stadium, where hundreds of fans in bright red sweatshirts and winter jackets jammed the sidewalks to catch a glimpse of the hearse. As a color guard consisting of local law enforcement and first responders greeted the procession, members of the Musial family emerged to bring flowers to the base of Musial’s statue outside the ballpark, a moment so powerful that it led the crowd to begin singing, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”27 The older fans felt as though they had lost a member of their own family. “I was finishing college when Stan retired and I cried then,” Sam Richards said earlier that week. “I am now 67 and when I heard the news last night, I sat down and cried again.”28

The younger fans, like 7-year-old Bryce Beyers, mourned the loss of a figure they never watched but knew from stories passed through generations. “Dear Stan, you are the best Cardinal ever,” Bryce hand wrote in a letter to Musial. “Every Cardinal misses you. Love, Bryce Beyers.”29

More than a decade after his death, the Musial name remains a part of daily life in St. Louis. The road outside Busch Stadium is named Stan Musial Drive; Urban Chestnut Brewing Company introduced the #6 Classic American Lager in honor of Musial’s uniform number; and the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge connects Missouri and Illinois over the Mississippi River. “I miss him every day, so to see reminders of him, and just what he was able to accomplish, I love seeing that all the time,” grandson Brian Schwarze said. “Especially the bridge. I always thought he was a bridge. He was able to bring people together. It kind of encompasses who he was as a person.”30

In St. Louis, though, there is perhaps no more recognizable Musial landmark than his statue near the front gate of Busch Stadium – the one that, despite looking nothing like his trademark crouched batting stance, hovers 18 feet above the sidewalk and has long served as the universal gathering point for fans attending a Cardinals home game. “Meet me at the Musial statue,” the phrase goes. The Musial name, so new and mysterious when he played his first game at Sportsman’s Park in September 1941, has transformed over time to become practically inseparable from the city itself. “They’re synonymous with each other,” Schwarze said. “Stan and St. Louis.”31

DANNY SPEWAK is a journalist and author who has written two nonfiction books on sports history. A native of the St. Louis area and a lifelong fan of the Cardinals, Spewak graduated from the University of Missouri with dual degrees in journalism and political science. He joined SABR in 2022 while working on his second book, Cardinal Dreams: The Legacy of Charlie Peete and a Life Cut Short, which tells the story of a top St. Louis Cardinals prospect whose promising career was cut short in a 1956 commercial plane crash. Spewak’s first book, From the Gridiron to the Battlefield, was a finalist for the Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction.

 

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, The Sporting News, and the following:

Tomasik, Mark. “The Story of the Stan Musial Statue in St. Louis,” August 3, 2018, https://retrosimba.com/2018/08/03/the-story-of-the-stan-musial-statue-in-st-louis/ (accessed November 24, 2023).

 

NOTES

1 Associated Press, “Stan Musial Joins Cards in St. Louis,” Springfield (Massachusetts) Daily News, September 17, 1941: 7.

2 W.J. McGoogan, “Dodgers Win, Boost Lead Over Idle Cards to 1½ Games,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 22, 1941: 1B.

3 Author interview with Brian Musial Schwarze, August 16, 2023.

4 Ken Makovsky, “My ‘Thing’ for Stan Musial,” Forbes, January 28, 2013, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenmakovsky/2013/01/28/my-thing-for-stan-musial/?sh=158708d659e0 (accessed December 8, 2023).

5 “Adults in the St. Louis Metro Area,” Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/metro-area/st-louis-metro-area/ (accessed December 8, 2023).

6 Patricia Rice, “Add Another Cardinal to the Pope’s Greeters: Stan Musial,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 24, 1999: P10.

7 Robert A. Cohn, “Musial’s Lasting Legacy: Stan the Mensch,” St. Louis Jewish Light, January 23, 2013, https://stljewishlight.org/opinion/musials-lasting-legacy-stan-the-mensch/ (accessed December 8, 2023).

8 Photo caption, St. Louis Argus, August 16, 1963: 7.

9 Musial appeared in 24 All-Star Games.

10 Bryan Burwell, “Saying Goodbye,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 27, 2013: S11.

11 “Stan Musial – 1920-2013,” https://www.mlb.com/cardinals/fans/tribute/stan-musial/fan-tributes (accessed November 24, 2023).

12 “Stan Musial – 1920-2013,”

13 Author interview with Brian Schwarze.

14 Mike Eisenbath, “The Man: At 73, Musial Remains St. Louis’ Baseball Icon,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 10, 1994: 3F.

15 Bernie Miklasz, “Cards’ Pujols Is a Happy Man,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 27, 2010, https://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/bernie-miklasz/article_263620fc-1810-5d5c-9c29-bd5bd6757d19.html (accessed December 6, 2023).

16 George Vecsey, Stan Musial: An American Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 2011), 6.

17 Author interview with Ron Watermon, August 15, 2023.

18 Author interview with Ron Watermon.

19 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1420976937999&set=a.1491237894479 (accessed December 1, 2023).

20 https://twitter.com/JRadloff/status/26206335414 (accessed December 1, 2023).

21 Rick Hummel, “Win-Win with Musial Visit,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 3, 2010: E9.

22 Author interview with Ron Watermon.

23 Obama White House Archives, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/videos/2011/February/021511_MOF_StanMusial.mp4 (Accessed October 21, 2023).

24 Author interview with Brian Schwarze.

25 “Gallery: Stan Musial’s Surprise Appearance at Busch,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 19, 2013, https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/gallery-stan-musials-surprise-appearance-at-busch/collection_933c45e3-9b5e-5cd0-a761-9b790a47727c.html#2 (accessed November 20, 2023).

26 “Musial Celebrated During Funeral Service,” Fox Sports, January 26, 2013, https://www.foxsports.com/stories/other/musial-celebrated-during-funeral-service (accessed October 20, 2023).

27 Joe Millitzer, “Fans Serenade Musial Family With ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame,’” Fox 2 News, https://fox2now.com/news/fans-serenade-musial-family-with-take-me-out-to-the-ballgame/ (accessed December 6, 2023).

28 “Fans Pay Tribute to Stan Musial,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 20, 2013, https://www.stltoday.com/news/fans-pay-tribute-to-stan-musial/collection_7377a206-3b4a-5da0-8060-c7ae632107c3.html#4 (accessed November 24, 2023).

29 “Fans Pay Tribute to Stan Musial.”

30 Author interview with Brian Schwarze.

31 Author interview with Brian Schwarze.