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Stan Musial

Baseball is an outdoor sport in which a pitcher pitches a hard, fist sized ball to the hitting area of a batter. The batter hits the hard ball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat made up of wood or metal. The batsman scores by running counter-clockwise within the four markers called the bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. Baseball is sometimes called hardball to differentiate it from similar games such as softball.

Stan Musial was born on Sunday, November 21, 1920, in Donora, Pennsylvania. Musial was 20 years old when he broke into the big leagues on September 17, 1941, with the Saint Louis Cardinals. Few players in the history of baseball have matched the accomplishments and consistency of Stan Musial. Even fewer so engendered the admiration and affection of fans, not only at home but also in every ballpark on the circuit, as did this Polish-American from a steel-mill town in Pennsylvania.

He has signed as a pitcher when he was seventeen and he was 15-8 in two seasons with Williamson, West Virginia, but the scouting report filed on the young southpaw recommended his release because he was wild and inconsistent. Despite the report, he was sent to Daytona Beach as a pitcher for the 1940 season and, under the tutelage of former White Sox great Dickie Kerr, he compiled an 18-5 record. He was convinced by Kerr to remain in baseball as an outfielder. The next year he ripped through Class C and the International League before hitting 0.426 in a September call-up with the Cardinals.

Immediately following his retirement as an active player in 1964, President Johnson named him director of the National Council on Physical Fitness. For a single season, 1967, Musial was Saint Louis's general manager. With his longtime roommate and close friend Red Schoendienst as field manager, the Cardinals romped to a pennant and beat the Red Sox in the World Series.

Although Stan Musial obviously did not always agree with umpires or managers, he did not argue calls or tactical moves. He made time for his family, fans, church, and civic organizations.

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