The Man!

Rarely does a player’s image relate so much to the team and city he played in.  Very few teams are fortunate enough to have that player who played his whole career in one city and continued to spread goodwill for the team when his career was over. It’s getting exceedingly rare with the current economic structure of baseball to have a player play his entire career solely for one team, so when it happens teams and fans have to appreciate what they have.

There’s no other player who embodies the role of former player turned team ambassador than Stan Musial. Stan the Man was a 24-time All Star for the Cardinals from 1941 to 1963*. He’s considered one of the greatest players of all time, and he has my vote for greatest left fielder ever. He put up incredible offensive numbers during a time in which pitchers dominated. He ranks in the top 10 in most of the career offensive statistics.

*That’s right! If you were paying attention to the math there, you would have noticed that he didn’t even play 24 seasons, but he was an All Star 24 times. From 1959 to 1962, MLB played two All Star Games in each season. Of course, Musial played in both All Star Games.

When you think about the most basic way to win a baseball game is scoring runs, Musial ranks third all time Runs Created with 2,562, using the great baseball statistician Bill James’s famous formula. He contributed to his team winning a lot of games. The Cardinals won 3 World Series Titles (1942, 1944, and 1946) when he was on the team, and he won 7 batting titles and 3 MVP awards.

He’s one of the greatest baseball players of all-time, but his biggest contribution to the game of baseball might not even be what he did on the field. His role as a goodwill ambassador for the Cardinals and the city of St. Louis has created such a connection between he and the team, when people think of the Cardinals they think of Stan the Man. He’s so beloved by Cardinals fans, it’s impossible to think of any player for any other team that fans hold to that much esteem.

He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama on February 15, 2011 for his lifetime of achievement and service. So many stories of Musial revolve around him signing every autograph, even when he was exhausted after a double-header. Stardom didn’t change Musial, he just continued to be the same humble and down-to-earth kid from Donora, Pennsylvania that just happened to become one of the greatest players of all time.