Remember the stance and the swing ...

They buried Stan Musial today.  Opening Day in St. Louis ( a civic holiday in every respect except legally) will never be the same.   No more Stan riding around the infield, ushering in the new baseball season.  That makes me profoundly sad.

Stan's last at-bat was in 1963.  I was three years old and I don't remember it.  But I have memories of Stan because Stan didn't leave.  He stayed with the organization and he stayed in St. Louis.  He was around.  You might see him at a restaurant.  Some people saw him at Mass.  In the 1980's when I first started working downtown I would occasionally catch glimpses of him on the street.  I saw him in the airport one time when I was returning from a business trip and he was on his way to Kansas City for the World Series, and I was struck by the fact that EVERYONE in the airport was walking past him as he rode the people-mover, telling him to "bring home a winner" just like they were talking to one of their friends. It wasn't at all like they were talking to a celebrity.

I have an autographed picture of Stan.  So does probably half of St. Louis.  He'd give out autographs to anyone who asked for them.  He was that kind of guy.

Stan was one of the greats of baseball but most of the country didn't seem to know it. From Wikipedia:

Nicknamed "Stan the Man", Musial was a record 24-time All-Star selection (tied with Willie Mays), and is widely considered to be one of the greatest hitters in baseball history.^[1] He compiled 3,630 hits (ranking fourth all-time and most in a career spent with only one team). With 1,815 hits at home and 1,815 on the road, he also is considered to be the most consistent hitter of his era.^[1] He also compiled 475 home runs during his career, was named the National League's (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) three times, and won three World Series championship titles. Musial was a first-ballot inductee to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969.

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Nearly two decades after Musial retired, baseball statistician Bill James and the sabermetrics movement began providing new ways of comparing players across baseball history.^[160] In 2001, James ranked Musial the tenth-greatest baseball player in history, and the second-best left fielder of all time.^[161] According to Baseball-Reference.com, he ranks fifth all-time among hitters on the Black Ink Test, and third all-time on the Gray Ink Test—measures designed to compare players of different eras.^[43][162] He ranks first on Baseball-Reference's Hall of Fame Monitor Test, and is tied for second in the Hall of Fame Career Standards Test.^[43] Despite his statistical accomplishments, he is sometimes referred to as the most underrated or overlooked athlete in modern American sports history.^[163][164] For instance, in his analysis of baseball's under- and overrated players in 2007, sportswriter Jayson Stark said, "I can't think of any all-time great in any sport who gets left out of more who's-the-greatest conversations than Stan Musial."^[163]

Well, we appreciated him.  Stan played 22 years, all with the St. Louis Cardinals.  That never happens anymore.  Players don't stay with one team anymore.  But almost as important as all those years was the fact that he stuck around after his retirement.  He was St. Louis.

The flags have been flying at half-mast this week.  Tributes have been left at the stadium next to his statue.  Today he was buried and his funeral was televised.  St. Louis will not be the same now that Stan is gone.

Goodbye Stan.  We'll miss you. 

Here's his last at-bat in 1963.  Harry Carey calls it:

The Man

On Tuesday, February 15, 2011 the President will give Stan Musial the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the country.

3,630 hits
1,949 runs scored
1,951 RBIs
Led National League in total bases for 6 years
7 National League Batting Titles
MVP 1943, 1946, 1948
Lifetime Batting Average: .331

Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969

But most important, he is just an all around good guy.

Opening Day!

Yes it's opening day here in St. Louis and snow is expected.

But that will not dim the festivities. Opening day in St. Louis is a city-wide celebration -the newspaper calls it our high athletic holiday. At my office we can wear jeans and cardinal red for the day even if we aren't going to the game. That's true at a lot of offices in the city. Lots of people will be taking off work to go to the game even with the bad weather anticipated. People who work downtown will mill around outside the stadium during their lunch hour.

I used to go to opening day every year. When I was a kid I used to get opening day tickets for Christmas. And sometimes it was cold, but the season started later in those days so usually it was no more than chilly.

Ever since they moved opening day earlier (expansion, grrrrrr) I haven't gone to a single one. The weather is just too unreliable. Last year it got rained out. This year they say they will get the game in despite any snow showers. That just doesn't sound like fun to me, so I'll listen from my office. Besides, the Cardinals are always a hot weather club. April is simply an extension of spring training as far as I'm concerned.

Last year I was just not into baseball, which is strange for a fan like me. Everyone knew it was going to be a "rebuilding" year and I just never got interested. I think it partly had to do with the year before when I got to go to the winning game of the World Series. What a high point. It's like I didn't want to watch "ordinary" baseball after that.

This year, though, I'm excited about the season. No one expects the Cardinals to finish first (my sister's Cubs are expected to do that - and then fall apart in the playoffs). But hopefully the Cards will play well enough that we'll all have some fun. Hopefully.

Of course, they have no closer. And the second baseman is a big question mark. And Baby Duncan is only worth what he's paid if he hits (nobody would want him for his fielding). And if Carpenter doesn't come back strong, it's all over.

But watching Rick Ankiel's reincarnation as "anything but a pitcher" is worth the price of admission. And whether they win or not, it's always exciting to watch Albert play.

So, go Cards!

And since it is still National Poetry Month - here is another baseball poem:

The Double Play

Robert Wallace

In his sea-lit
distance, the pitcher winding
like a clock about to chime comes down with
the ball, hit
sharply, under the artificial
bank of lights, bounds like a vanishing string
over the green
to the shortstop magically
scoops to his right whirling above his invisible
shadows
in the dust redirects
its flight to the running poised second baseman
pirouettes
leaping, above the slide, to throw
from mid-air, across the colored tightened interval,
to the leaning-
out first baseman ends the dance
drawing it disappearing into his long brown glove
stretches. What
is too swift for deception
is final, lost, among the loosened figures
jogging off the field
(the pitcher walks), casual
in the space where the poem has happened.

The National Poetry Month Pastime

In honor of National Poetry Month and next week's start of a new season of our National Pastime, I thought I'd post something appropriate to both.  

Baseball and Writing
by Marianne Moore

Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
You can never tell with either
how it will go
or what you will do;
generating excitement -
a fever in the victim -
pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter.
Victim in what category?
Owlman watching from the press box?
To whom does it apply?
Who is excited? Might it be I?

It's a pitcher's battle all the way - a duel -
a catcher's, as, with cruel
puma paw, Elston Howard lumbers lightly
back to plate. (His spring
de-winged a bat swing.)
They have that killer instinct;
yet Elston - whose catching
arm has hurt them all with the bat -
when questioned, says, unenviously,
"I'm very satisfied. We won."
Shorn of the batting crown, says, "We";
robbed by a technicality.

When three players on a side play three positions
and modify conditions,
the massive run need not be everything.
"Going, going . . . " Is
it? Roger Maris
has it, running fast. You will
never see a finer catch. Well . . .
"Mickey, leaping like the devil" - why
gild it, although deer sounds better -
snares what was speeding towards its treetop nest,
one-handing the souvenir-to-be
meant to be caught by you or me.

Assign Yogi Berra to Cape Canaveral;
he could handle any missile.
He is no feather. "Strike! . . . Strike two!"
Fouled back. A blur.
It's gone. You would infer
that the bat had eyes.
He put the wood to that one.
Praised, Skowron says, "Thanks, Mel.
I think I helped a little bit."
All business, each, and modesty.
Blanchard, Richardson, Kubek, Boyer.
In that galaxy of nine, say which
won the pennant? Each. It was he.

Those two magnificent saves from the knee-throws
by Boyer, finesses in twos -
like Whitey's three kinds of pitch and pre-
diagnosis
with pick-off psychosis.
Pitching is a large subject.
Your arm, too true at first, can learn to
catch your corners - even trouble
Mickey Mantle. ("Grazed a Yankee!
My baby pitcher, Montejo!"
With some pedagogy,
you'll be tough, premature prodigy.)

They crowd him and curve him and aim for the knees. Trying
indeed! The secret implying:
"I can stand here, bat held steady."
One may suit him;
none has hit him.
Imponderables smite him.
Muscle kinks, infections, spike wounds
require food, rest, respite from ruffians. (Drat it!
Celebrity costs privacy!)
Cow's milk, "tiger's milk," soy milk, carrot juice,
brewer's yeast (high-potency -
concentrates presage victory

sped by Luis Arroyo, Hector Lopez-
deadly in a pinch. And "Yes,
it's work; I want you to bear down,
but enjoy it
while you're doing it."
Mr. Houk and Mr. Sain,
if you have a rummage sale,
don't sell Roland Sheldon or Tom Tresh.
Studded with stars in belt and crown,
the Stadium is an adastrium.
O flashing Orion,
your stars are muscled like the lion.