Stan Musial Photo Gallery
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Happy Birthday to the Great Stan “The Man” Musial!
“Stan Musial is a better player than Joe DiMaggio was in his prime.” -Ty Cobb speaking of Stan Musial in 1952.
“Cobb is baseball’s greatest. I don’t want to contradict him, but I can’t say that I was ever as good as Joe DiMaggio.” – Stan Musial replying to Ty Cobb’s compliment, with his usual modesty.
Can’t let the day go by without mentioning that today is the 96th anniversary of Stan Musial’s birth, November 21, 1920. Let’s all take a moment to remember one of baseball’s true greats.
Some think Frank Robinson was the most underrated player in baseball history. That may be true, but if so, then Stan Musial must be a close second. His career stats are staggering. Last year I featured Stan Musial’s 1946 season as one of the best ever. Thanks to one of our readers for pointing that his 1948 season may have even been better. Both were “off the charts,” but I’ll let you decide for yourself which was the best.
Stan Musial played 22 seasons for the Cardinals (1941-’45) and (1946–’63) Over his career, he hit .331, currently 25th all-time. At the time of his retirement, Stan held National League records for career hits (3,630, currently 4th all-time, with 1815 at home and 1815 on the road); RBIs (1,951, 6th all-time); runs (1,949, 9th all-time); doubles (725, 3rd all-time), total bases (6,134, 2nd all-time), and extra base hits (1,277, 3rd all-time). His 475 career home runs at retirement ranked second in National League history behind Mel Ott (511). Had his career not be interrupted by military service, he probably would be a member of the 500 Home Run club.
Stan won seven National League batting titles and two RBI titles. He had a .417 career on-base percentage, and .599 slugging average. He won three National League MVP awards, and led the Cardinals to three World Series championships (1942, ’44, and ’46). He shares the major league record for the most All-Star Games played (24) with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays.
In 1946, Musial led the National League in most offensive categories, including batting average (.365) runs (124), hits (228), doubles (50), triples (20), total bases (366), OBP (.434), and slugging (.587), to go with 16 home runs and 103 RBIs, winning his second National League MVP award. He led the Cardinals to their third pennant in five years and the 1946 World Series championship. It would be hard to top a season like this. However…
Could 1948 Have Been Even Better? In 1948, Musial again led the National League in virtually every offensive category. But what made this season so historically significant was that his lead in most of the categories was by huge margins: Batting average (.376, 43 points higher than second place finisher), hits (230, 40 higher), runs (135, 18 higher), doubles (46, six higher), triples (18, six higher), RBIs (131, six higher), OBP (.450, 27 points higher), slugging average (.702, 138 points higher), extra base hits (103, 28 higher), and total bases (429, 113 higher). In 611 at-bats, Musial struck out only 34 times. His 39 home runs, a career high, left him just one short of league-leaders Johnny Mize and Ralph Kiner, and thus one home run short of the Triple Crown.
Stan Musial was a first-ballot inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969. He was also selected for the Major League All-Century team, and to the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame. His #6 has been retired by the Cardinals.
-Gary Livacari
Photo Credits: “Sports Illustrated The Baseball Book”; and Public Domain; beautiful colorization of Stan Musial by Don Stokes
Information: Excerpts edited from the Stan Musial Wikipedia page
Statistics from www.Baseball-Reference.com, Stan Musial page.
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