Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Stan "The Man" Deserved Better



One of the common arguments I would get into while traveling up and down the East Coast broadcasting baseball was how great Stan Musial was. It was common, after all I worked in an area where the Yankees ruled, I worked with Yankee fans, and they are the team and only team for many people.

However, when I started dropping Musial stats on them, what he did in his career and how he is one of the greatest, maybe top 5 ball players of all time the ridicule began. People just don’t realize how great of a ball player this man was, how great of a Man he is and I thought the 2009 All-Star game was finally going to put that into perspective for everyone.

It didn’t.

Whoever is to blame, whether it’s MLB, Fox Broadcasting or even the Cardinals, they should feel ashamed and embarrassed for the disrespect of one of the greatest guys every to play the game, a true living legend.

This is a guy who played 22 seasons in the big leagues, all with the Cardinals. He was elected to 20 All-Star games, the only two he did not attend was his first two seasons in the league. He had a lifetime batting average of .331, 475 home runs, 3,630 hits, .417 on base percentage, three MVP awards and he missed a year of baseball to serve our country and fight in World War II.

The best we could do to honor this man is have him be the ball boy for the game?

Where is the video tribute?

Where are all the players at to congratulate him and pat him on the back?

Where is his moment to be recognized by the crowd for what he did and how much he meant to this city?

How about the five seconds of attention given to the other Cardinals Hall of Famers that were there?? Bob Gibson, Ozzie Smith, Bruce Sutter, Red Schoendienst and Lou Brock were introduced so quick and moved away so fast if you blinked you missed it.

For all the hype, all the build up of how this was going to be the day that Stan Musial returns to Busch Stadium and is honored by MLB, it sure fell flat and was a big disappointment and very disrespectful to the type of ball player that is an endangered species. They don’t make them like Musial anymore, and they probably never will.

Baseball fans don’t recognize how great this man is, hell, just look at how he was left off the All Century team. Bud Selig had to add him to correct the roster.

I never saw him play in person, but he is still one of my favorite ball players of all time because I have seen him play through the stories I hear from other people.

Stan, you still are The Man here in St. Louis and we all respect you and love you and know how great you are to this game.







-----article posted by Nick Barrale-------