[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 543-546]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING STAN MUSIAL

  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, first of all, this is the first time I 
have spoken on the floor when you were in the chair. Welcome to the 
Senate and welcome to the presiding chair.

[[Page 544]]

  I want to talk for a few minutes today about a baseball great, a 
Missouri great, Stan Musial, who passed away on Saturday at the age of 
92. Stan Musial was born in November 1920 in Denora, PA. His title was 
Stan ``The Man.'' He was the youngest of six children. When he wasn't 
called Stan ``The Man,'' he was just a guy who worked at a company as a 
young man, whose dad was a Polish immigrant, whose mother was of 
Czechoslovakian ancestry, and whose dreams were probably not to become 
a professional baseball player but who was, indeed, a great athlete 
from the very start.
  In his remarks, when he presented Stan Musial the Medal of Freedom in 
2011, President Obama said the following:

       Stan matched his hustle with humility. He retired with 17 
     records--even as he missed a season in his prime to serve his 
     country in the Navy. He was the first player to make--get 
     this--$100,000. Even more shocking, he asked for a pay cut 
     when he didn't perform up to his own expectations.

  I don't think that August Busch gave him the pay cut--again, a 
quote--but I have read the story where Stan Musial was holding out for 
a pay package somewhere in the mid-90s and August Busch, Jr., who not 
long before that had bought the Cardinals, called him into the office 
and said: I'm never going to pay you 90--whatever thousand dollars he 
was asking for. He said: I'm going to pay you $100,000, and you are 
going to be the first baseball player to make $100,000.
  Stan Musial played for the Cardinals from 1941 to 1963, the only 
Major League team he played for. He entered the majors in 1941 as the 
fifth youngest player. He ended his career in 1963 as the third oldest 
player. He had a record of 24 times being named to the Major League 
Baseball All-Star team. He won seven National League batting titles, 
three National League Most Valuable Player awards, and he led the 
Cardinals to three World Series championships in the 1940s.
  Stan Musial--No. 6--had a batting average of at least .300 in every 1 
of his 17 seasons--a .300 hitter for every 1 of his 17 seasons. His 
lifetime batting average was .331. He batted .330 in the year before he 
decided to retire. He had 3,630 career hits, hitting 1,815 hits in St. 
Louis at Sportsman Park and Busch Stadium, and he hit another 1,815 on 
the road. He played as well at home as he did away from home. He missed 
the entire 1945 season while he was serving in the Navy.
  It was a fan at Ebbet's Field--with the Dodgers playing at Ebbet's 
Field--who groaned as he came to the plate one time in a game--he was 
always particularly good against the Dodgers. The fan said: Here comes 
the man. And from that point on, his nickname was Stan ``The Man.''
  I had a chance to sit by Tommy Lasorda at a luncheon a few years ago 
after I had read a biography of Stan Musial. Tommy was sort of the 
longtime Dodgers manager who was a player when Stan Musial was playing, 
and he said he thought Stan Musial was the best ballplayer he ever saw 
play, and he was death on the Dodgers. The Dodgers fans liked him, but 
it was a real rivalry.
  Stan was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame the first year he was 
eligible, in 1969, and he would be one of the great ambassadors to 
baseball for the rest of his life. When he retired in 1963, 
Commissioner Ford Frick said:

       Here stands baseball's perfect warrior. Here stands 
     baseball's perfect knight.

  Stan Musial became an American icon throughout ballparks and over the 
radio in the 1940s and 1950s. KMOX, in the 1960s, had a booming signal 
that went almost all the way to the west coast and covered a lot of the 
South, and the St. Louis Cardinals were the furthest south of any 
baseball team and the furthest west of any baseball team. Because of 
that, Stan Musial played on a club that, in many ways, became America's 
team at that time.
  I can remember growing up in southwest Missouri on a dairy farm, and 
particularly late at night when we were hauling hay--and I can remember 
this when I was 10 or 12 years old--and whoever was in the truck must 
have been almost deaf because the driver would have the radio turned as 
loud as you could turn the radio up, and the St. Louis Cardinals game 
would be coming out of both windows as we were out there working in the 
fields or, if we weren't working in the field, we would be sitting on 
the porch somewhere listening to the Cardinals play, and there was no 
greater Cardinal than Stan Musial.
  Bob Gibson, another great Cardinal and Stan's teammate and fellow 
Hall of Famer, said:

       Stan Musial is the nicest man I ever met in baseball.

  And Bob Gibson went on to say he didn't particularly associate nice 
with baseball, but he associated nice with Stan Musial.
  Bob Costas had this to say about Stan Musial:

       Stan Musial didn't hit in 56 straight games. He didn't hit 
     .400 for a season. He didn't get 4,000 hits. He didn't get 
     500 home runs. He didn't hit a home run in his last at bat, 
     just a single. He didn't marry Marilyn Monroe; he married his 
     high school sweetheart. His excellence was a quiet 
     excellence.

  ESPN titled Musial the most underrated athlete ever. Only Hank 
Aaron--thinking about the things Stan Musial didn't do--had more runs 
than Stan Musial and extra base hits. Only Tris Speaker and Pete Rose 
had more hits. And only Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds created more runs. 
But Stan Musial was at the highest levels in all of those areas.
  Writing in the St. Louis Post Dispatch this week, Bernie Miklasz 
wrote:

       Let's celebrate Musial's extraordinary life and be thankful 
     for his enduring presence through the decades. Let's keep it 
     simple in honor of this remarkably uncomplicated man. There 
     has never been a more perfect union, a better relationship 
     between an athlete and a town, than Stan Musial and St. 
     Louis. From the time Stan took his first at-bat as a 
     Cardinal, until his death Saturday at his home in Ladue, he 
     was part of the community's soul for 71 years, 4 months, and 
     2 days.

  Many stories about Stan Musial have been told, but I want to mention 
three that Bernie mentioned in that same article. He talked about when 
Musial was first inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame--as I said 
earlier, as soon as you could possibly be inducted. It was an overcast 
day in Cooperstown. The crowd was quiet, subdued, and a little bit put 
off by the day. Moments before Musial's official ceremony, the clouds 
got out of the way and the sunshine emerged, and Dizzy Dean's widow 
said: ``Stan brought the sun. He always does.''
  In the 1960s, a second story emerged of Musial and other Major League 
stars visiting U.S. troops in Vietnam, and they went to the military 
hospitals to console the wounded soldiers. One seriously injured 
soldier looked up at Musial from his hospital bed and said: ``You're 
the best.'' And Musial's response was: ``No, you are.''
  Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Joe Black, an African American, told a story 
about being racially taunted by players in the St. Louis dugout during 
a game. Musial, who was batting at the time, and facing Joe Black, 
stepped out and angrily kicked the dirt to display his disapproval of 
his own teammates. He waited after the game to tell Black:

       I'm sorry that happened. But don't you worry about it. 
     You're a great pitcher. You will win a lot of games.

  Black said Musial's support helped him gain the confidence he needed 
to become a top pitcher.
  The fourth and last story Bernie told was of legendary center fielder 
Willie Mays, who frequently talked about Musial befriending African-
American players, relating that at an All-Star game black players were 
being ignored by the other players. Mays said:

       We were in the back of the clubhouse playing poker and none 
     of the white guys had come back or said, ``Hi'' or ``How's it 
     going?'' or ``How you guys doing?'' or ``Welcome to the All 
     Star Game.'' Nothing. We're playing poker and all of a sudden 
     I look up and here comes Stan towards us. He grabs a chair, 
     sits down and starts playing cards with us. And Stan didn't 
     know how to play poker! But that was his way of welcoming us, 
     of making us feel a part of it. I never forgot that. We never 
     forgot that.

  Musial didn't make a lot of fiery speeches. He didn't ``lead'' a 
movement or try to promote himself as an angelic humanitarian. He just 
did good things.
  There is one last story, a love story, between Stan and his wife Lil. 
This may be the best Musial statistic of all.

[[Page 545]]

They were married for 71 years, 4 months, and 2 days until Lil's death 
on May 3, with Stan following her in January.
  I listened to KMOX from the hay truck I talked about earlier, like 
lots of other Cardinals and Musial fans, but I remember the first time 
I saw Stan Musial play at Sportsman Park. I remember the first time, 30 
years later, I actually met him, when I was the Secretary of State in 
Missouri. Getting to meet Stan Musial was about as good as it got even 
then. I remember hearing him play ``Take Me Out to the Ball Game'' on 
his harmonica.
  Baseball was lucky to have him, Missouri was lucky to have him, and 
the Cardinals and St. Louis were lucky to have him, and I am pleased to 
be here today to say how much we appreciate Stan Musial.
  I am also pleased to be joined by my colleague from Missouri, Senator 
McCaskill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. Madam President, I want to thank my colleague. He and 
I disagree on many things, but we agree on many things also, and one of 
those things usually begins and ends with the State we love, Missouri, 
and certainly some of our most famous and beloved people who come from 
Missouri. Obviously, there is no one who deserves more love and respect 
than Stan Musial.
  There are so many memories about Stan Musial that I want to try to 
encapsulate today, but the interesting thing about the memories I have 
about Stan Musial is that I don't have these memories because I am a 
Senator. They do not belong uniquely to me because I am an elected 
official. I have these memories that I share with hundreds of thousands 
of people who were lucky enough to encounter Stan Musial during his 
time on Earth.
  You know, when you meet somebody, and you can tell they are kind of 
looking over you to try to find the person who is more important behind 
you or maybe they are impatient because they do not think you are a big 
enough deal to be taking their time? If you look at our sports icons 
today who travel with posses and have entourages and certain rules 
about who can come near them and who can't and when, that was not Stan 
Musial. Not one day of his career or one day after his career did he 
consider himself untouchable. He saw it as his duty and obligation to 
be there for all fans. Whether it was somebody who worked at the 
ballpark sweeping after the game was over or whether it was a very 
talented ballplayer from another team, everyone was equal in Stan 
Musial's eyes. What a wonderful American value.
  I could stand here today, Madam President, and talk about his amazing 
record as a baseball player, his unique swing, and the beauty of his 
accomplishments in America's favorite pastime, but what we need to 
focus on as we mourn the loss of this living legend is his character 
because it was his character that brought universal love, respect, and 
devotion to the man, our man, Stan ``The Man.''
  I know Senator Blunt talked about this story, but I want to elaborate 
a little bit.
  It is 1952. Joe Black has just been called up to the majors after 
spending 1 year in the minors with the Brooklyn organization. He is 
facing Stan Musial. Now, keep in mind that this is an accomplished 
baseball player who had won two championships in the Negro Baseball 
Leagues, and it had only been a few years since Jackie Robinson had, in 
fact, broken the color barrier for Major League Baseball. He is facing 
Stan Musial, who already was the most feared hitter in baseball. He is 
standing there as a Black man on the mound in this baseball game, and 
out of the Cardinal dugout come jeers and taunts. In fact, one of the 
things said was, hey, Stan, you are not going to have any trouble 
hitting that ball against that dark background.
  When the game was over, Stan Musial decided not to stay in the 
Cardinal dugout. Joe Black told the story that as he sat in the dugout, 
he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up, and there was Stan Musial 
from the opposing dugout saying to Joe Black: You are going to be a 
great pitcher.
  Now, that encapsulates the character of Stan Musial.
  Chuck Connors, ``The Rifleman,'' used to tell this story. He was a 
struggling hitter for the Chicago Cubs.
  I may need to explain to you, Madam President, but I certainly don't 
need to explain to anybody in Cardinal Nation that the Chicago Cubs are 
an opponent. Now, we don't like the Chicago Cubs in Cardinal Nation.
  Chuck Connors asked a teammate what he should do about his swing. He 
was struggling with being able to hit in the majors, and they all told 
him the same thing: The only guy who can help you is Stan Musial. So 
even though he was reluctant to approach a hitter on the opposing team, 
he went to Musial and asked for help, and, of course, Stan responded as 
all of us would expect he would; he spent 30 minutes in the cage with 
an opposing player trying to help him with his swing. Connors recounted 
that he really wasn't ever that good of a hitter, but he said he never 
forgot Stan Musial's kindness.

       And when he finished watching me cut away at the ball, Stan 
     slapped me on the back and told me to keep swinging.

  After the 1946 season, the promoters from the Mexican League decided 
it was time for them to up the ante on baseball. At the time, Stan 
Musial was making the enormous sum of $13,500 playing for the St. Louis 
Cardinals. The Mexican League came to Stan Musial and said: We are 
going to offer you--a king's ransom at the time--$125,000 for 5 years. 
That was a lot of money for Stan Musial and his family, but he turned 
down the Mexican League. When asked about it later, he said:

       Back in my day, we didn't think about money as much. We 
     just enjoyed playing the game. We loved baseball. I didn't 
     think about anybody else but the Cardinals.

  Harry Caray knew Stan Musial for over 50 years. He would often tell 
the story of Stan Musial wandering out of the ballpark after a steaming 
doubleheader--and trust me, we can have steaming doubleheaders in 
Missouri--looking as if he had been through 15 rounds in a prize fight 
and every single thing in his body language signifying that he was 
exhausted and just wanted to go home and lie down. Instead, when he got 
to his car, he found fans waiting for him. ``Watch this,'' Harry Caray 
told a friend. And sure enough, Musial's whole body straightened--like 
Popeye had just eaten a can of spinach--and he started shouting, 
``Whaddya Say! Whaddya Say!'' And he signed every single autograph of 
all the fans surrounding his car. Harry Caray loved telling that story 
not because it was unusual--that is who Stan Musial was--but for the 
opposite reason: because it was ordinary. Even in his time, when 
baseball players weren't paid as much and so were more part of the 
community, Stan Musial stood apart by standing with the people in the 
community.
  It wasn't just Cardinal Nation that worshipped Stan Musial. His 
opponents, the opposing teams--can you imagine this happening today? 
Believe it or not, the New York Mets had a Stan Musial Day at their 
park. And in Chicago, the home of the Cubs, he once finished first in a 
favorite player survey, edging out the legendary Ernie Banks, who was 
also a very nice guy who was beloved by the fans of baseball in the 
Midwest.
  I could go on and on with stories that reflect this man's character. 
Yes, he has amazing statistics. Yes, him hitting a baseball was a thing 
of beauty to all baseball fans in America. But, really, what this man 
was about was that phrase we love to throw around in politics way too 
often; that is, American values. This was a man who didn't have to talk 
about his values because he lived them--his love for his family and how 
close they are.
  I am very fortunate to be friends with the Musial family and have 
visited with them in the days since his death. They received messages 
from every star in the constellation of American baseball, but one 
stood out. Joe Torre, upon hearing of Stan's death just a few days ago, 
sent a message to the Musial family, and it simply said this:


[[Page 546]]

       Stan Musial was a Hall of Famer in the game of life. We 
     will miss you, Stan Musial.

  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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