Goodbye Number 6

[cactuswatcher]

Stan Musial has passed away. All of us native St. Louisans will miss him. It's hard to believe how many years ago it was when I first saw him play baseball.

His last 10 years playing nobody ever questioned whether he'd be in the Hall of Fame, any more than anyone questioned whether Ted Williams would be or Mickey Mantle or Hank Aaron or Willie Mays. Nobody worried about doping, lockouts, or million dollar salaries. Nobody said any of those guys were perfect, but they really didn't have to be. Being really, really good at what they did was good enough.

Stan's approach to the game was pretty simple. When a young black rookie named Curt Flood asked him for any tips on hitting, Stan told him, 'I wait for a strike and then I knock the shit out of it.' Not the most detailed of advice, but not the worst either. ;o)

Comments

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Two great hall of famers passing today. Since I'm too young to actually remember his playing career, he's someone I only see through today's lens. As one of the clear all-time greats, who was consistently a top player for a really long time. And apparently had no major marks against him. Hero of a bygone age, because we don't live that simply anymore. But maybe that's not entirely true. What Cal Ripken is to Baltimore, what Tony Gwynn is to San Diego... is that all that far off from what Stan Musial was to St. Louis and most baseball fans of the Midwest?

Earl Weaver, I do remember. Earl was a demanding perfectionist, and picked constant fights with players and umps. But as big as "Moneyball" has gotten in the past few years - a lot of those weren't new ideas. Weaver was as big an influence on how people analyze playing the game today as anyone else. Emphasis on walks, on the preciousness of outs and the unwillingness to give them up with bunts or stolen bases, and the willingness to challenge convention.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

Probably closer to what Cal Ripken is to Baltimore. Tony Gwynn may mean even more in San Diego since he's about the only great baseball player immediately identifiable as a Padre. There were other great players before Stan in St. Louis, but he's the one, that everyone identified with even long after he quit playing, soft spoken publicly, a fun personality and a family man.

It's hard to imagine now, but Weaver was actually a fairly conservative manager except for how he handled his pitchers. The philosophy you describe is very typical of the 1940s and 1950s. But he got more out of his pitchers than any other manager of his time, which of course was a giant step toward success. It's not as if Earl Weaver's teams weren't fun to watch either, especially his Championship teams with the Robinsons in the late 60s.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Plus Gwynn and Ripken are from San Diego and Balimore (Aberdeen is a northern suburb) too...

Beyond general success, the thing on Weaver that's often remarked about is that his team took an average 100+ more walks per season than they permitted. Between my proximity to the Baltimore market and having Davey Johnson (a Weaver guy) managing the Nats, we're getting a lot of Earl coverage.

"Weaver on Strategy" BTW is a great baseball book.