[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 8 (Wednesday, January 23, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S200-S201]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO STAN MUSIAL

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it has been said in St. Louis, MO, 
baseball is not a sport, it is a religion. If that is

[[Page S201]]

true, Stan Musial was a St. Louis civic patron saint.
  Stan Musial was an icon in St. Louis. He was the best ballplayer to 
wear a Cardinal's uniform and one of the best to play the game of 
baseball.
  Stan Musial was my childhood hero when I was a boy and he remains a 
hero in my life to this day. When a person reaches my age, and maybe my 
station in life, they are supposed to be beyond the stage of swooning 
adolescence. But when it comes to Stan Musial, I am a 10-year-old kid 
all over again in East St. Louis, IL, buying more bubble gum than I can 
possibly afford in the hope that I would open one of those packages and 
find, covered in pink powder, a card that had Stan Musial's picture. It 
was the treasure of my youth, and it still would be today if my mom had 
not thrown those cards away.
  Stan Musial's death has hit the Cardinals Nation like a death in the 
family. One Cardinal fan spoke for many of us when she said losing Stan 
Musial ``is like losing a grandparent. It's hard not to tear up.''
  I grew up in East St. Louis across the river, and my most prized 
possession when I was a kid was my very first Stan Musial Rawlings 
baseball glove. As a kid I rubbed that glove with something called 
Gloveoleum until I was the only one who could still see Stan Musial's 
name burned in the leather. One of the highlights in my life came 2 
years ago when I got to meet Stan Musial in person for the very first 
time in my life. It was at the White House, February 11, 2011. Stan 
Musial was there to receive from President Obama the Presidential Medal 
of Freedom. He is one of only eight other baseball players in the 
history of America to receive that prestigious honor. Listen to the 
company he joined: Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Roberto 
Clemente, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, and the famous Buck O'Neill.
  At the White House I stood patiently waiting for the moment to ask 
Stan Musial to sign that old baseball glove, which I still have and 
have had since I was a kid. He agreed to do so. What a thrill. I was 10 
years old all over again.
  Outside Busch Stadium in St. Louis is a statue of Stan ``The Man'' in 
his playing prime. He is coiled up in his batting style. Every coach 
said don't bat like Stan ``The Man,'' even though he has great numbers. 
If you do that, you will never hit the ball. We all tried; the coaches 
were right. Etched in the base of that statue are words that Major 
League Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick said when Stan retired in 1963: 
``Here stands baseball's perfect warrior. Here stands baseball's 
perfect knight.''
  On the field and off Stan Musial was always a gentleman, always a 
champion. He exemplified the values of sportsmanship, discipline, hard 
work, grace, consistency, and a love of family. Baseball broadcaster 
Vince Scully, a Hall of Famer himself, once said: ``How good was Stan 
Musial? He was good enough to take your breath away.''
  Stan Musial played his entire 22-year career for the St. Louis 
Cardinals. He did take off one season in 1945 to serve our country in 
the U.S. Navy during World War II. His 3,026 games with the same club 
are second only to the 3,308 games over 23 years by Carl Yastrzemski.
  When Stan Musial retired from baseball after the 1963 season, he held 
29 National League records and 17 Major League records. Here are just 
some of his career numbers: a batting average of .331, an on-base 
percentage of .417, 3,630 hits, 725 doubles, 177 triples, 475 homers--
and the first homer I can ever remember seeing on television was the 
All-Star game in St. Louis, and darned if Stan Musial didn't get up in 
the 12th inning, parking a home run into the outfield stands, winning 
it for the National League. I couldn't have been more thrilled, my 
first exposure to baseball on television. He had 1,951 RBIs and 1,949 
runs. He is the only baseball player to finish his career in the top 25 
in all of these categories.
  Where did he get that nickname? It was coined not by a Cardinals fan 
but by a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in May 1946, after Musial's four hits 
helped lead the Cardinals to a 13-to-4 drubbing of the Brooklyn 
Dodgers. Every time Stan Musial came to the plate, the fans in Ebbets 
Field said, ``Here comes the man.'' And the name stuck.
  The legendary baseball writer Red Barber once described the 1947 
season as ``the year all hell broke loose in baseball.'' It was the 
year Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball. Jackie Robinson 
would later recall when asked about his baseball career that it was 
Stan Musial and Hank Greenberg, two players who went out of their way 
to be friendly and encouraging in that historic and difficult year.
  Maybe Stan Musial's greatest baseball day came on May 2, 1954. It was 
a double header in St. Louis against the New York Giants. He hit three 
homers in the first game and two in the second.
  In 1957, Stan Musial became the first Major League Baseball player to 
earn the amazing salary of $100,000 a year. Two years later, when his 
batting average dipped to .255, it was Musial who went to the 
Cardinals' owners and asked them to cut his salary back to $80,000. He 
wasn't playing up to what he thought he had the potential to play up 
to.
  Late in his final season, he stayed up all night waiting for the 
birth of his first grandchild, and the next day he became the first 
grandfather to ever homer in the Major Leagues. Umpires--and this says 
something about what a gentleman he always was--umpires never once 
ejected Stan Musial from a baseball game in more than 3,000 games.
  On January 21, 1969, Stan Musial was elected to the Baseball Hall of 
Fame on the first ballot. He was named on 92 percent of the ballots--
something on which to reflect after what we just went through a few 
weeks ago when no one made the cut for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Stan 
Musial was the first player to receive 300 votes on a Hall of Fame 
ballot.
  When he retired, the St. Louis Cardinals retired his number, No. 6. 
Cardinals manager Mike Matheny has said that when the entire Cardinals 
team takes the field this year, they will be wearing a No. 6 patch on 
their uniforms. But then he said:

       It will be a call for us to do our very best to live up to 
     that high standard of excellence.

  Then he added:

       You don't come across names like warrior, prince and knight 
     by just having Hall of Fame statistics. It comes from making 
     an impact in people's lives. I was in that group. Mr. Musial, 
     I say thank you. He's a perfect example of what it means to 
     wear this jersey.

  I want to give credit to my colleague, Senator Claire McCaskill. She 
worked with me--in fact, she led the way in terms of the Presidential 
Medal of Freedom, along with Senator Bond, for Stan Musial. And she 
came up with a great idea. I don't know if it is going to go anywhere, 
but I am going to try to help her make it a reality. She has suggested 
we can honor this American hero, this regional hero and the values he 
stood for by naming the new bridge being built across the Mississippi 
River at St. Louis in honor of Stan Musial. I grew up on the Illinois 
side, and we kind of looked over at Missouri a little differently than 
most, and they looked at us a little differently too. But if there was 
one thing that ever united us it was baseball loyalty and Stan Musial. 
It is a perfect name for a bridge that spans between Illinois and 
Missouri in that region of the country.
  I am proud to join Senator Claire McCaskill, and we will be 
introducing a bill to name the bridge the Stan Musial Memorial Bridge. 
Other legislation is being considered in the Illinois and Missouri 
General Assemblies at this time. I wish them the best in honoring this 
great man. It was my great honor to join him on that historic date when 
he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
  (The remarks of Senator Durbin pertaining to the introduction of S. 
113 and S. 114 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on 
Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. DURBIN. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The Senator from Louisiana.

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