Photograph courtesy of Synergy
I never saw him swing a bat. I never saw him circle the base paths or reach up to snare a warning-track liner in deep left, the number 6 emblazoned on the back of his jersey. Not live anyway. Stan Musial was already settling into his post-playing career when I came into this world in the winter of 1965, having retired his familiar Birds On A Bat in favor of a pinstripe suit while moving into a new role in the front office. But we had a connection right from the start. I was born a Cardinals fan, as are all St. Louisans, and The Man was the greatest Cardinal of them all. He was, as Ford Frick so eloquently put it, baseball’s perfect warrior, baseball’s perfect knight. Plus, he had built his home on a three-acre parcel of land he purchased from my grandparents in the St. Louis suburb of Ladue, in a spot where Litzsinger Road bends like a twisted paper clip toward Trent Drive. Stan Musial was my next-door neighbor. As a kid, I could often be found trekking down a manicured lawn, through my grandmother’s meticulously groomed gardens—past mossy bricks and ivy-covered birdbaths—toward Stan’s house. On what seemed like a daily basis, I’d ring Stan’s doorbell, his wife, Lil, usually answering the door, a welcoming smile on her face, her hair a shock-yellow hive.
“Can I have your autograph?” I would ask, my only request, as a smiling Stan appeared behind her.
In hindsight, he must have been thinking, “When is this kid gonna leave me alone?”
But he never turned me away. Not once. He signed baseballs, books, photos ripped from the pages of The Sporting News. He signed promotional pieces from Stan Musial & Biggie’s Restaurant, ticket stubs, even stuffed animals. Anything I could get my hands on. I accrued quite a collection, and I still have them all. “To Rich: hope you become a good ballplayer, Stan Musial.” “To Richard, a fine young man, best wishes from your friend, Stan Musial.” “To Richard, a great baseball fan, Stan Musial.” And so on. Always personalized. He wasn’t one to stiff-arm a Sharpie, scribble his name, and walk away.
I marveled at his custom-built swimming pools—one crafted in the shape of a bat, the other, a baby pool, in the shape of a ball. My grandfather, an ambulance driver on the battlefields of France in WWI, accompanied Stan to Game 2 of the 1968 World Series, when pitcher Mickey Lolich fanned nine Cardinals and belted what would be the only home run of his career, leading the Tigers to a lopsided 8-1 win. (Despite the high-mound intimidation of Bob Gibson, St. Louis would lose the Series in heartbreaking fashion, four games to three.) Occasionally, Musial would stop by for a cocktail party or Christmas gathering, the collective revelers in awe of his presence. At least that’s the way I remember it.
Years went by and I didn’t see much of Stan. My father was transferred, and we moved to the East Coast, just a train trip away from the Bronx and the hated Yankees. When my grandparents passed away, their cavernous white house—humorously nicknamed "Fallen Arches"—was sold. (I cried when the new owners moved in; I remember house painters whitewashing the vintage WWI recruitment posters my grandfather had pasted to the basement walls.) Occasionally, we would make the trip back to St. Louis (flying TWA, of course, in an era when a young boy was expected to wear a blue blazer, gray flannel pants, and penny loafers on a plane), usually staying with a family friend, who just so happened to live directly across the street from the Musial residence. On one particular visit, our host, an unabashed woman with an old-school Southern affectation, asked me if I wanted to go see Stan. “Yes,” I blurted out. “Of course.” But in truth, deep down, I was deathly afraid. I hadn’t seen him in years, and I was no longer the uninhibited child who had no qualms about traipsing over to a First Ballot Hall of Famer’s home and barging in.
But she got him on the phone and told him I was coming by. For a dyed-in-the-wool baseball junkie, it was a night to remember. One of the best of my life, in fact. An indelible moment. Alone, I nervously walked up his driveway, past his green Cadillac, its Missouri plates marking his career hit total: 3630. Stan and Lil made me feel at home. I sat between them on their couch, and they actually asked about me. Here was a guy who had hit five home runs in one day, 475 over 22 years, who totaled 1,815 hits at home and 1,815 on the road, who’d played on 20 All-Star teams, asking about me. But that’s the kind of guy he was. Lil insisted Stan gather some autograph material, including a copy of the book he had recently co-authored with broadcaster Jack Buck and Bob Broeg, the Post-Dispatch legend who is credited with coining Stan’s nickname. I was mesmerized.
Though the years skipped by—I would go on to play baseball in high school, and eventually earn an athletic scholarship in college, though I never approached his level of greatness—I kept Stan in the back of my mind. After settling in Washington, D.C. after college in the late '80s, I stumbled upon an organization run by former White House Press Secretary Frank Mankiewicz and Republican political consultant Vic Gold called The Stan Musial Society of Washington, D.C. Here I was, more than 800 miles from St. Louis, periodically gathering in hotel banquet rooms with the likes of senators, congressmen, and leaders of industry (Dick Gephardt and Kit Bond were among the distinguished members), talking Cardinal baseball over lunch. Stan himself even made it to a few of our gatherings, in May 1993 and again in October 1997 at the Capital Hilton, where he entertained us with his harmonica prowess and, yes, even signed a few autographs.
As if I needed another one.
There were other Stan sightings over the years. My mother stopped by his house once in the early 2000s to say hello, sending along a photo as proof. And, of course, in his later years he was regularly seen circling the Busch Stadium infield in a golf cart, donning his signature red jacket and waving to fans. Though I knew he wouldn’t live forever, when he did pass away on January 19, at the age of 92, I couldn’t help but think he had gone before his time. But it’s that way, isn’t it, when boyhood idols die? They’re like family. Stan certainly was for me. Maybe it was fitting for him to go when he did, only months after Lil. With sports headlines dominated by fallen stars (Lance Armstrong, Manti Te’o, Alex Rodriquez, etc.), we are reminded how uncommon folks like Stan Musial are, a rare breed of athlete who was as heroic off the field as he was on it. It was fitting, too, that he should spend his final hours in that same house in Ladue, his swimming pool no longer a bat-and-ball combo, but his doorbell still well worn.
