I was going to say baseball could use more Stan Musials, but really, EVERY walk of life could use more people who are exceptionally good at what they do but are classy, decent human beings.
How many athletes have been that awesome, but also that fundamentally decent, kind, classy, appreciative of their fans, good family men? I can’t think of many. Wayne Gretzky would be one. No other names are jumping immediately to mind.
Am I remembering right: He holds the 3B liveball era record.
He’s either second or third in the live ball era; Paul Waner hit 191 triples. Sam Rice also hit a few more and the great majority of his career, and his triples, were post-1920. Rice has a weird career, actually.
Bill James said of Musial’s doubles and triples totals, “Stan Musial was one man who always left the batter’s box on a dead run.” Musial is third all time in doubles, behind only Speaker and Rose.
Of course, if you think about it, it’s also hard to name very many players who had as many hits as Stan Musial did AND had power. The only players with more extra base hits are Henry Aaron and Barry Bonds, who hit a lot more balls over the fence, though Stan The Man was no slouch at slugging the dingers. But nobody else piled up that many extra base hits. Speaker and Rose, the only guys who surpass him in doubles, didn’t hit as many home runs BETWEEN them as Musial hit.
He christened the 400/3000 Club.
One of my favorite Musial anecdotes came from Joe Posnanski, who wrote once that he’d seen Musial off by himself, minutes before an autogrph session, taking a few puffs on a cigarette.
Posnanski said Musial reddened, and asked sheepishly that Joe not write anything about it.
Musial wasn’t perfect, obviously, but he really WANTED to be a positive role model, and his apparently broke his heart that anyone would find out he smoked.
THAT was Stan’s darkest secret, which speaks volumes about what a fundamentally decent man he was. That and the fact that so many of baseball’s earliest black players cited him as one of the few stars who was always welcoming, always quick to give them a pat on the back and a “hang in there.”