Product Overview
When baseball fans voted on the top twenty-five players of the twentieth century in 1999, Stan Musial didnt make the cut. This glaring omissionlater rectified by a panel of expertsraised an important question: How could a first-ballot Hall of Famer, widely considered one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, still rank as the most underrated athlete of all time?
In Stan Musial, veteran sports journalist George Vecsey finally gives this twenty-time All-Star and St. Louis Cardinals icon the kind of prestigious biographical treatment previously afforded to his more celebrated contemporaries Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. More than just a chronological recounting of the events of Musials life, this is the definitive portrait of one of the games best-loved but most unappreciated legends, told through the remembrances of those who played beside, worked with, and covered Stan the Man over the course of his nearly seventy years in the national spotlight.
Stan Musial never married a starlet. He didnt die young, live too hard, or squander his talent. There were no legendary displays of temper or moodiness. He was merely the most consistent superstar of his era, a scarily gifted batsman who compiled 3,630 career hits (1,815 at home and 1,815 on the road), won three World Series titles, and retired in 1963 in possession of seventeen major-league records. Away from the diamond, he proved a savvy businessman and a model of humility and graciousness toward his many fans in St. Louis and around the world. From Keith Hernandezs boyhood memories of Musial leaving tickets for him when the Cardinals were in San Francisco to the little-known story of Musials friendship with novelist James Michenerand their mutual association with Pope John Paul IIVecsey weaves an intimate oral history around one of the great gentlemen of baseballs Greatest Generation.
There may never be another Stan the Man, a fact that future Hall of Famer Albert Pujolsreluctantly nicknamed El Hombre in Musials honoris quick to acknowledge. But thanks to this long-overdue reappraisal, even those who took his greatness for granted will learn to appreciate him all over again.
