I have been a fan of Stan Musial's for over 50 years. Of course, it has been some 40 years since he last swung a bat for the St. Louis Cardinals, but the story of his splendid character on and off the field is well worth telling.

Through the help of a close friend I finally realized an important personal goal by actually meeting and interviewing Stan Musial near St Louis. He was as personable and likeable as I imagined him to be. Of course, not everyone is interested in spectator sports, or baseball in particular, but his essential life story is not about professional sports, but a man's sterling character.

Overcoming adversity

Back in 1940 he was a fine pitching prospect in the Cardinal farm system, but being a good hitter as well, Stan occasionally played the outfield on "nonpitching" days. In one game, while diving to catch a sharply hit line drive, he injured his throwing arm very severely. So serious was the injury that he was "washed up" as a pitcher. The career of a budding baseball prospect was apparently over.

But it was manager Dickie Kerr who encouraged a discouraged Musial and pointed out that he could still hit and his arm would gradually improve enough so that he could play the outfield. In fact in 1941 his work with the bat was so impressive that he went all the way from a class D classification in the lower minor leagues in the St. Louis farm system to the major leagues in one year, leading three different leagues (D, AAA and the majors) in batting average that year, but without enough at bats to qualify for any one league hitting title.

Dealing with financial temptation

Salaries in the 1940s were not what they are today. In his rookie year with the Cardinals in 1942 Stan Musial hit .315 (many major leaguers never reach the .300 figure during their entire career) and played on a National League Pennant-winning team that also won the World Series by beating the famed New York Yankees in five games. Yet he and his wife Lillian had $5 in the bank at the end of the year. They laugh about it now, but they didn't laugh then.

By the mid-1940s Stan Musial was the generally acknowledged leading hitter and ballplayer in the National League. Only Ted Williams of Boston and Joe DiMaggio of New York (both in the American League) could be said to be better ballplayers and both had been playing longer in the majors. Yet Musial's annual salary was only $13,500, low even for midcentury America. Along came an offer for a gargantuan raise in salary if Stan would only jump leagues and play elsewhere in another country. By now he had a growing family, but he resisted the temptation and stayed with the Cardinals. If Stan needed any encouragement to turn down the offer, manager Eddie Dyer told him, "You have to look your kids in the eye." That decision was well rewarded in later years.

Then after he became the first player in the National League to earn $100,000 a year, the same temptation came in another form. This time the owner of the Cardinals presented him with a signed salary check with the amount blank. Musial was told to fill in the figures. He penned in the same salary he made the year before.

Wearing his success well

Star professional players (then and now) fly ahead of the rest of the team and sometimes separate themselves from their teammates by similar actions. But Stan rarely did that unless it was some emergency of some sort and nearly always handled his personal success with humility.

Musial also respected the baseball public--those who bought the tickets and supported the team. Even in the dog days of St Louis heat in August he would often stand around for an hour after playing a grueling doubleheader and sign autographs for children.

At the beginning of the 1946 season Stan had returned from World War II service in the Navy and the Cardinals started the year with a new first baseman who didn't perform up to expectations. So manager Eddie Dyer soon asked Stan, a star outfielder, to try his hand at first base. This could have adversely affected his hitting because a batter can sometimes relax in the outfield, but playing the infield requires constant vigilance. But since Stan was a team man, he agreed and the decision did not seem to adversely affect his hitting. His year-end average was a major league leading .365. That year St. Louis did win the National League Pennant and afterwards the World Series against the Boston Red Sox and Ted Williams.

MUSIAL, STANLEY FRANK "1920- , American baseball player, b. Donora, Pa. At 17 he signed with the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League and after three years in the minor leagues he joined (1941) the Cardinals. One of the great hitters of all time, Stan the Man, as Musial is known, won the National League batting championship seven times (1943, 1946, 1948, 1950-52, and 1957) and the league's most valuable player award three times (1943. 1946, and 1948). He retired with a lifetime batting average of .331. He hit 475 homeruns... He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969" (The New Columbia Encyclopedia, p. 1864, 4th edition).

Actually during his career Stan was moved about on the field quite a bit. He played left, right and even center field as well as first base. To be frank, most great hitters would never allow themselves to be moved about from pillar to post like that. But Musial always was an unusually good team man and never allowed his personal success to get in the way of the team's fortunes.

Once in a scoreless tie game with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1957 (now the Los Angeles Dodgers), he came to the plate with runners on first and second and nobody out. Leading the National League in hitting, he was asked to lay down a sacrifice bunt in order to advance the runners to second and third base. Great hitters are not normally ever called upon to perform such a humble task. They would always expect to hit away in that situation. But Musial laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt and accordingly the next batter drove those two runners home.

Gratefulness to others

In the course of a lifetime many other people help us along the way. It is all too easy to forget their contribution to whatever we have been able to achieve. This Stan did not do. Dickie Kerr (Musial's former mentor) and his wife had fallen on very hard economic times. Kerr was soon presented with the keys to a brand-new house in Houston, Texas. Of course, Stan was not always able to accommodate friends in every circumstance. His family and that of Horace Stoneham, the owner of the New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants), were great pals and sometimes got together for dinner when the Cardinals played that New York team. One night in May of 1954 after a relaxing and affable dinner together, Stoneham asked Stan "to take it easy on us tomorrow." Stan had a reputation for being rough on Giant pitching.

Musial was accommodating as usual and said, "Don't worry, Horace, it'll be all right." But Stan hit five home runs during the next day's doubleheader in St Louis--a major league record equalled by only one other player, Nate Colbert, who when still a boy just happened to be in the stands watching that Sunday doubleheader in 1954.

A consistent role model

Never before in history have young people needed good examples and consistent role models more. They need ballplayers with outstanding character on and off the field--players who are good with their families. It was a very rare sight to ever see Stan Musial argue with an umpire over a decision. Maybe it happened once or twice in his 22-year major league career. But he was never thrown out of a game by an umpire--a rarity among baseball players who perform regularly, many of whom play 150 games a season and over.

Somehow even Stan's lifetime statistics are a testimony to his consistency. He scored 1,949 career runs and batted in 1,951. Of his 3,630 lifetime hits, 1,815 were at home in St. Louis and 1,815 were on the road-- an almost impossible career statistic.

If ballplayers were misbehaving and they saw Musial walk in the room, it soon stopped. Some have speculated that as long as he was active in the game, he actually held back some of the unfortunate trends we see in baseball today. One man's outstanding example counts for a lot.

The good deeds of Stan Musial are legendary in the baseball world. Today he continues with them being very active in charity work. His services are constantly in demand even though he is an octogenarian.

There have been more talented baseball players than Stan Musial, but it is highly doubtful that there has ever been one before or since with such splendid personal character.

Interview With Stan Musial

By John Ross Schroeder

JRS: You have a wonderful reputation for character, like your attitude toward salary, that sort of thing. There are a lot of stories I've read over the years and, of course, another league from another country offered you a lot of money to play and you turned it down.

SM: Back in those days, I think I was making $13,500 at the time and they did offer me a lot more money. But I didn't have any illusions about going down. My mind was made up, no matter how long or how often they called to talk to me.

JRS: I think it's a consensus that you set a wonderful example for all young people, and I was wondering if you thought that the players of the day were measuring up to that.

SM: In our day we took care of the fans after the ball games. We signed autographs and visited. And in the winter we had a hot stove league promoting baseball. We realized that fans were supporting our game and we took care of them.

JRS: What happens to kids if ballplayers that they look up to turn out to be drug users?

SM: Athletes and ballplayers have to be the role models, and these young fans look up to the athletes, not only in baseball, but football, golf... So I think their responsibility in that regard is not to be involved in drugs.