Stan Musial: Pitcher

Notwithstanding his ultimate status as one of the greatest hitters in major-league history, Stan Musial’s early visions of a big-league career rested on his strong left arm. As he tried to persuade his father to allow him to sign with the St. Louis Cardinals, the young southpaw dreamed of translating the success he had enjoyed on the Donora, Pennsylvania, diamonds into a spot in a big-league rotation.

Like so many boys of that era, Musial played a full array of sports. In addition to baseball, he was a star on the Donora High School basketball team that won the sectional championship for the first time in school history.1 Meanwhile, as a result of his father’s prodding he was an active member of the Donora branch of the Polish Falcons, a club that offered training and competition in gymnastics and track and field. Musial would later look back with appreciation on the impactful “three body-building years [he] spent with the Falcons.”2 But his undeniable passion was baseball.

His early days in baseball were like that of countless kids scattered across the country. First introduced to the game when he was around 7 years old, he played in pickup games on makeshift fields with neighbors who in the beginning were usually older. For young Stan it did not matter, young or old, he just wanted to play, and he would wander from field to field looking for a game. But games were easier to find than quality equipment, and legend has it that Musial’s mother would make baseballs for him by binding up a bunch of rags that were wetted down and then covered with tape. Similarly, real balls were kept in service by applying electrical tape after the stitches and cover had begun to split. And for the most part they originally came into play when one of the fleet-footed neighborhood kids snagged one that was hit over the fence at the local ballpark.3

While pickup games were his start, Musial’s first real experience with organized baseball came with the Donora Zincs, a semipro entry in the local industrial league. One of Musial’s neighbors, Joe Barbao Sr., was a semipro player and coach and after Stan waited for him to come home from work the older Barbao would play catch with the young Musial, while also teaching him about the game, from the basics to the fine points.4 Eventually Barbao, who coached and pitched for the Zincs, made Stan the team’s batboy. And it was there, in the words of one author, that the “legend of Musial [began] on August 4, 1936, when Barbao asked the slender boy, in a scene that could have been lifted from a modern sports movie, if he wanted to work mop-up duty after his team was trailing badly.”5

An episode intended to offer some fun to the dutiful batboy instead became a revelation as the “man among boys” left an indelible impression.6 While there are conflicting reports of exactly how well he did – one says he went six innings and struck out 13, while another says he recorded 12 outs, five of which were strikeouts – there was no denying that he opened a lot of eyes.7 Indeed, observers quickly realized that, although he weighed only 140 pounds, the 5-foot-4-inch Musial could “throw BBs through a brick wall.”8 Ironically, his Zincs debut cost Barbao his job as manager at least briefly, for as impressive as Musial had been, the use of a nondues-paying member of the Donora Zinc Works A.A. angered some team members.9 Ultimately however, the team was won over by the youngster’s performance and he would pitch again, before the season was over, losing his first outing 7-5 when the Zincs made four errors but defeating the league-leading Fairhope team 2-1 with 11 strikeouts in a game not long before he joined the Cardinals farm team.10

Musial had only a single year of high-school baseball, playing on a team that in 1938 brought the game back to Donora High School after a 15-year hiatus.11 Though the team was essentially created around Musial and as a way to showcase his skill, his career was cut short when he headed off to the Cardinals’ farm system, thus becoming ineligible to return and play as a senior. But the one year he had was memorable, offering a preview of what was to be. Musial pitched, played the outfield, and batted cleanup. While he later recalled, “I didn’t like to pitch, because I could always hit, but in high school if you have the best arm, they always make you the pitcher,” he was the undisputed ace for a strong arm he did have.12 As his coach, likely with a bit of hyperbole, observed, “The trouble with [Musial] as a schoolboy pitcher was that we couldn’t find anyone who could catch him. He might strike out 18 men, but half of them would get to first on dropped first [sic] strikes.”13 On a Donora squad that went 9-3, Musial finished 4-2 with both losses coming as a result of major defensive lapses. Indeed, in one loss he struck out 14 batters, but three defensive misplays cost the team the game.14

Musial kicked off the revival of the school’s baseball program with an impressive performance, giving up just three hits while striking out 17 in seven innings in a 3-1 Opening Day victory.15 Just days later he followed that up with another stellar effort, striking out 14 and giving up just two hits in a 22-3 victory.16 Reflective of Musial’s status was his performance in the team’s first loss of the season, one in which Musial appeared in relief with no outs in the third inning after the opposing Charleroi Cougars had already scored three runs in the frame. While he gave up only a single hit the rest of the way, the Dragons could not get their offense on track, falling 5-1.17 For all of his pitching prowess, his hitting did not go unnoticed. Indeed, a grand slam that salvaged a late April win as well as a 3-for-3 performance that saved a subpar pitching effort were no less a part of his highlight reel than the pitching efforts that were capped by his season-ending win over Monongahela in which he gave up only two hits while striking out 12. And he walked only two.18

At season’s end, Musial was selected to the All-Star Section VI baseball team with the local paper reporting, “Stan Musial, all-around player and general utility man for a Dragon crew that amazed the valley with theoretical five game winning streak, won honors hands down as the league’s outstanding player. His play in the pasture and on the mound were highlights of the season.”19 The article added that he was “easily the league’s ace player, better termed a ‘minor leaguer.’”20 In the end, Musial’s one season pitching for Donora High offered significant evidence of why professional organizations saw him as a pitching prospect.

Despite all this, years later, when he wrote his autobiography, Musial wrote that he did not recall “much of his one season high school career.”21 While he did remember the team’s first game, and his school-record 17 strikeouts in the win over Monessen, his bigger memory involved a later game and a “tremendous home run [he] hit.”22 Playing against Monongahela City, coming to the plate with the bases loaded and Donora trailing in the late innings, Musial stroked a low ball that hit the fence 450 feet away on one bounce.23 In a comment that said much about the circuitous route Musial took to big-league stardom, he later wrote, “In spite of that famous clout, I was signed to a professional contract not as a hitter, but as a pitcher.”24

Given the nature of baseball at the time, it was the combination of his efforts with Donora High, the Zincs, and in American Legion ball that put him on the radar of the local scouts beginning in 1937. The early scouting reports touted his strong arm but noted that like many left-handers Musial had trouble harnessing that strength and struggled with his control. The earliest Cardinals scouting report, submitted in June 1937 by scout A.J. French, said he had a “good” arm, “good” fielding skills, and was “fast” with a “good curve ball.” He was termed a “green kid,” and a future prospect. It was a positive enough report that after a few visits and watching him play during the summer, the team offered him a contract.25 For Musial it was a dream come true and while he was contacted by other teams, including the Indians and Yankees, the direct and early contact by the Cardinals won him over.26

The bigger challenge was persuading his father to allow the 17-year-old pitcher-outfielder to sign. Ultimately, after an internal family battle in which his mother’s advocacy won out over his father’s hope that he would go to college or get a “real job,” permission was granted for the 17-year-old Musial to sign with the Cardinals which, as was the practice of the time, did not file the contract with the commissioner’s office until the following spring, allowing Musial to play a season for the revived Donora High program.27 Ironically, it was an approach that almost backfired, for when the local high-school athletic association learned of the contract there was debate over whether Musial could still play, the June effective date notwithstanding. Musial’s absence from the early days of practice while the matter was being settled led to some resentment among some of his teammates who felt he was “letting the school down.”28 However, his performance on the diamond, as well as his popularity among his peers, quickly rendered the issue moot.

Despite having a professional contract in hand, Musial spent a very active spring appearing in Zinc games in between the contests that comprised his only season of high-school baseball. But regardless of the venue, the young southpaw cemented his reputation as one of the area’s star players, both on the mound and at the plate, and once school was done, the Cardinals sent Musial to one of their Class-D minor-league teams for the 1938 summer season.29

With his contract going into effect in time for the 1938 season, the organization initially wanted to send Musial to their farm club in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, only about an hour from Donora. But for reasons that are not clear – there is speculation that he did not want to be so close to home – the young pitcher successfully lobbied for a different assignment and was instead sent to the Cardinals’ Williamson (West Virginia) team in the Class-D Mountain State League.30 He did not wow anyone, finishing with a 6-6 record and an earned-run average of 4.66 in 110 innings, but it was a start. The wild left-hander walked 80 while striking out 66.31 He did better with his bat, and looking back, he recalled not having any confidence in his pitching, but that his hitting was another story.32

Musial was again assigned to Williamson in 1939 but the familiarity of the venue did not result in any significantly greater success. Indeed, not only did he miss his high-school graduation (his longtime girlfriend and soon to be wife, Lil Labash, stood in for him and collected his diploma) but despite compiling a record of 9-2 while striking out 86, he also walked 85 in 92 innings, with an ERA of 4.30.33 At the end of the season, the team’s manager, Harrison Wickel, recommended that the Cardinals release him, noting “almost as an afterthought … that he was a nice young man who could hit – .352 with a home run.”34

As the 1939 season came to a close, Lil, knowing that her boyfriend was not only struggling at his craft, but was far from home and making little money, wanted him to quit and get a full-time job.35 Fortunately for Musial, Lil’s father, Sam Labash, was in his future son-in-law’s corner and with war on the horizon, urged Musial to give it one more shot and so, in the spring of 1940, Musial headed to Daytona Beach, Florida, a slight upgrade from his forays to Williamson.36 There, accompanied by a noticeably pregnant Lil – the couple had secretly married on Musial’s birthday, November 21, 1939 – he came under the tutelage of manager and former major-league pitcher Richard “Dickey” Kerr.37 Kerr was something of a baseball legend for his role on the 1919 Chicago White Sox. A rookie and the number-three starter on the infamous Black Sox, Kerr won both the third and the sixth games while the core of the team was throwing the World Series.38

For Musial and his young pregnant wife, Dickie Kerr was a lifesaver. Not only did the manager offer the kind of support that the young player needed but Kerr and his wife took the young couple into their home, a kindness that was rewarded in August when the young couple named their first child Richard Stanley Musial in honor of their benefactor.39 Kerr was no less a factor on the field.

Indeed, under Kerr’s watchful and practiced eye, Musial made some major gains and finished the season with an 18-5 record and a sterling ERA of 2.62, although his control was little better as he walked 145 batters in 223 innings.40

Indeed, a close inspection made clear that it was a season of ups and downs, one that offered reasons for hope while also raising doubts about his long-term future on the mound. Perhaps no game better illustrated the roller coaster that was Musial’s season than the team’s 7-5 win over Orlando on June 3. Musial carried a no-hitter into the seventh when suddenly the team’s defense, as well as his command, disappeared and while the team still secured the win, Musial’s effort showed him at his best and worst.41 Similarly, two weeks later he gave up eight walks, highlighted by a fifth-inning stretch in which he walked the bases loaded before giving up a two-run single, cementing a loss to the St. Augustine Saints.42 And yet, at the end of July he boasted a 12-4 record that had propelled the team to the top of the standings.43 And by the end of August, a preview of the league’s all-star game tabbed him as the expected starter.44

At the same time that Musial was seeking to make his mark as a pitcher, the team’s limited roster left manager Kerr little choice but to also use him in the outfield.45 The split duty worked well for the young ballplayer until August 11, when in a game against Orlando, Musial, playing center field, “went after a low, sinking line drive to left center, and attempted a somersault catch, something he’d been able to do from an early age.”46 But unlike countless previous times, “his spikes caught, sending him shoulder-first to the ground.”47 The pain and swelling in his shoulder were almost immediate, and it was soon determined that Musial was finished as a pitcher. While he pitched through the pain, finishing what was, on paper, his best year ever, he had serious doubts about his baseball future.

As the season came to an end and he pondered his future after three seasons of minor-league ball, Musial saw a three-season record of 33-13 with an ERA of 3.52 in D-level ball. He had pitched 425 innings and had walked 310 batters.48 Meanwhile, as just another body in the major leagues’ largest minor-league system, he was unable to get any of the medical care that his shoulder needed or which might have helped. With Lil and the baby having headed back to Donora ahead of him, Musial began to talk of returning home to work in the mills.49 But at the same time, Lil’s father was telling him to stay with it, that he would take care of Lil and young Richard.50 And Dickie Kerr was no less supportive or emphatic in his belief in Musial, telling the young ballplayer, “You won’t make it to the top as a pitcher, but you’ll get there some way because you are a damn fine ballplayer and a big-league hitter.”51 Little could Kerr, or anyone, have envisioned just how right he would be.

While Musial arrived at spring training in 1941, still listed as a pitcher, the effects of the previous season’s injury remained along with the almost casual previous reports of his hitting prowess. When those reports were confirmed in the early going of spring training, the transition from Stan Musial the pitcher to Stan Musial the hitter was quickly completed. When camp broke, and after much discussion, Musial was sent to the Cardinals’ Class-C club in Springfield, Missouri, to start what proved to be his final year in the minors. So well did the hitting “experiment” go – in 87 games he hit .379 – that in late July he was promoted to the Rochester Red Wings of the Double-A International League.52 There he hit .326 in 54 games, leading the team into the playoffs.53 Then, to his utter amazement, Musial was called up to the majors in September, walking into Sportsman’s Park for the first time on September 17, 1941.54 With his minor-league and pitching days behind him, his 12-game audition with the big-league St. Louis Cardinals, during which he hit .426, represented the start of a 22-season career that would ultimately see him recognized as one of the greatest hitters the game has ever known, while rendering his minor-league pitching exploits little more than soon-to-be-forgotten memories.55

But in fact, they were not forgotten by everybody, and no discussion of Musial’s pitching career would be complete without at least a mention of the only time he took the mound in a major-league game. The historic moment took place on September 28, 1952, the last day of the season. While Musial was in hot pursuit of a sixth batting title, the Cardinals were stuck in third place, playing out the string of a disappointing season. In an effort to drum up a crowd for the finale of a disappointing season, the team decided to have Musial relive the early days of his professional career, turning the clock back to a time when it was thought that his left arm was the key to his making the big leagues.56

Hoping to further enhance the entertainment value of the event, the front office decided that Musial would pitch to the Cubs’ Frank Baumholtz, who, when the plan was announced, was trailing Musial by only a point in the race for the batting crown. By the time game day arrived, Musial had widened the gap to 11 points. The lack of drama notwithstanding, the show went on.57

After the Cardinals starter, rookie left-hander Harvey Haddix, walked the Cubs’ leadoff batter, shortstop Tommy Brown, Cardinals manager Eddie Stanky emerged from the dugout, walked toward Haddix, and called for Musial to take his place on the mound. Haddix took over in right, while right fielder Hal Rice shifted to center. As Musial took his warm-up pitches, an irritated Cubs manager Phil Cavarretta told Baumholtz that the Cardinals were trying to make a fool of him, but an unruffled Baumholtz told his manager, “I don’t think so. I think it’s just a gimmick to get a lot of people in the stands to watch two also-rans on the last day of the season.”58

Meanwhile, on the mound, the 31-year old Musial, clearly anxious to complete the distasteful task, took fewer warm-up pitches than he was allowed as he prepared to face Baumholtz.

Indeed, years later he made clear that he had not been happy about the plan, thinking not only that it was nothing more than “contrived show,” but no less importantly the ever-professional Musial did not want to be seen as showing up Baumholtz.59 Much to his chagrin, those concerns had fallen on deaf ears.

But as he looked toward home plate, Musial found that the tables had been turned when the left-handed-hitting Baumholtz stepped into the right-handed batter’s box to face his Cardinals nemesis. Later reports said that Baumholtz had decided to bat right-handed as a gesture of sportsmanship. He did not want “to try for a cheap hit” against the pseudo-pitcher; nor did he want “to get something for nothing.”60 Regardless of how either player felt, the whole spectacle was over in no time.

On the mound for the first time in over a decade, Musial threw a single pitch. He later said he “flipped the ball,” while the St. Louis Post Dispatch called it a “fast ball.”61 Either way, Baumholtz hit “the ball squarely,” but the potential double-play ball “bounced on a big hop” to third baseman Solly Hemus, who was unable to handle it and was charged with an error.62

And with that, Musial returned to center field, Rice to right, and Haddix to the mound, and the game continued. The Cubs ultimately won 3-0 while Musial won his sixth batting title.

The whole episode was an incongruous reminder that one of the greatest hitters of all time began his professional journey as a pitcher before he suffered one of the most fortuitous injuries in baseball history.

BILL PRUDEN has been a teacher of American history and government for over 40 years. A SABR member for over two decades, he has contributed to SABR’s BioProject and Games project as well as a number of book projects. He has also written on a range of American history subjects, an interest undoubtedly fueled by the fact that as a seven-year-old he was at Yankee Stadium to witness Roger Maris’s historic 61st home run.

NOTES

1 Wayne Stewart, Stan the Man: The Life and Times of Stan Musial (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2010), 26.

2 Stan Musial and Bob Broeg, Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story as Told to Bob Broeg (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1964), 11.

3 Stewart, 13-14.

4 Stewart, 27.

5 Stewart, 27.

6 Stewart, 27.

7 Musial and Broeg, 3; Stewart, 27; In his own autobiography Musial recalls his performance as six innings and 13 strikeouts.

8 Stewart, 28.

9 Musial and Broeg, 13.

10 Musial and Broeg 13; “Zincs Tumble Fairhope, 2-1,” Monongahela (Pennsylvania) Daily Republican, May 26, 1938.

11 Stewart, 30.

12 Stewart, 32.

13 Stewart, 30.

14 Stewart, 32.

15 “Donora Tops Monessen in Loop Opener,” Monongahela Daily Republican, April 14, 1938.

16 “Donora Routs Rostraver by 22-3 Decision,” Monongahela Daily Republican, April 20, 1938.

17 “Cougars Hand Donora First Loop Loss, 5-1,” Monongahela Daily Republican, April 23, 1938.

18 “Musial Halts Wildcats, 4-1 to Close Schoolboy Season,” Monongahela Daily Republican, May 14, 1938.

19 “McGinty, Paver Are Named to All-Star Section VI Squad,” Monongahela Daily Republican, May 16, 1938.

20 “McGinty, Paver Are Named to All-Star Section VI Squad.”

21 Musial and Broeg, 14.

22 Musial and Broeg, 14-15.

23 Musial and Broeg, 14-15.

24 Musial and Broeg, 15.

25 Musial and Broeg, 15-16.

26 Musial and Broeg, 15-16.

27 Musial and Broeg, 20.

28 Phil Fair, “Speaking of Sports,” Monongahela Daily Republican, March 24, 1938.

29 Musial and Broeg, 18; Stewart 29-30.

30 George Vecsey, Stan Musial: An American Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 2011), 70.

31 Vecsey, 71.

32 Vecsey, 71.

33 Vecsey, 71, says that Musial’s record was 9-1, but Baseball-Reference reports it as 9-2. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=musial001sta.

34 Vecsey, 71.

35 Vecsey, 71.

36 Vecsey, 71.

37 Vecsey, 72.

38 Adrian Marcewicz, “Dickey Kerr,” SABR BioProject; https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/dickey-kerr/.

39 Vecsey, 73.

40 “Stan Musial,” Baseball Reference; https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=musial001sta.

41 “Daytona Whips Orlando, 7-5, Nationals Getting But 3 Hits,” Orlando Sentinel, June 4, 1940.

42 “Saints Drop Islands,” Orlando Evening Star, June 16, 1940.

43 “Toenes to See Duty on Mound Part of Game,” Tampa Times, August 30, 1940.

44 Danny Bickford, “Speaking of Sports,” Monongahela Daily Republican, July 24, 1940.

45 Vecsey, 73.

46 Jan Finkel, “Stan Musial,” SABR BioProject; https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/stan-musial/.

47 Finkel.

48 Stan Musial, Baseball Reference; https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=musial001sta.

49 Vecsey, 73.

50 Vecsey, 73.

51 Vecsey, 73.

52 Vecsey, 81.

53 Vecsey, 82.

54 Musial and Broeg, 47.

55 Stan Musial, Baseball Reference; https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=musial001sta.

56 Musial and Broeg, 153.

57 Tom Larwin, “September 20, 1952: Musial, Baumholtz Compete for National League Batting Title.” SABR Games Project. https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/september-20-1952-musial-baumholtz-compete-for-national-league-batting-title/; “Attention, Now Pitching for the Cardinals – Stan Musial”; RetroSimba: Cardinals History Beyond the Box Score, September 20, 2022; https://retrosimba.com/2022/09/20/attention-now-pitching-for-the-cardinals-_-stan-musial/.

58 “Attention Now Pitching…”

59 “Attention Now Pitching…”; Musial and Broeg, 153.

60 “Attention Now Pitching…”

61 “Attention Now Pitching…”

62 “Attention Now Pitching…”