From This Week's Sports Illustrated

The newest Sports Illustrated arrived today (John and Jim Harbaugh on the cover), and so far, it is proving to be an good issue, and I haven't even gotten to the Super Bowl stuff yet.  However, more than any story I've read thus far, I was most struck by the full page ad placed by Budweiser which I have scanned and shown above.  Well done, Budweiser.  And the story on Stan the Man by Richard Hoffer is a good one.

Also, in appreciation for Earl Weaver by Tom Verducci, there were two great quotes.  The first was by umpire Bill Haller who once said of Weaver, "When he dies, his family is going to have to pay for pallbearers."  The other - and I know my SABR and Facebook friend Father John Hissrich will like this one - concerned one of his "born again" outfielders, Pat Kelly.  After striking out with the bases loaded late in a game, Kelly said "Earl, I hope that you will walk with the Lord one day", to which Weaver replied, "Pat, I hope that you will walk with the bases loaded one day."

Chances are neither of those stories are true, but if they aren't, they should be!

Another great line  came in a story about the travails last week of Manti Te'o and the Cheating, Lying, Bullying Bicycle Rider, whose name I'd rather not mention.  Anyway, in describing the Oprah Winfrey interview with the C.L.B.B.R. and the moment when he confessed to all of his cheating, lying, and bullying, author S.L. Price writes "It was a classic TV takedown. Throw in a trail of cigarette smoke, and Edward R. Murrow would have felt right at home."

That's good writing!

I was interested to see how SI would right about the whole Te'o affair and and the Fall From Grace of the C.L.B.B.R., considering how they went all in on Te'o with a cover story in October and how no publication was more in the tank for the Bicycle Rider (was any lapdog ever more loyal to his owner than columnist Rick Reilly was to this guy?) over the years.  To the magazine's credit, Price pulls no punches in describing how the magazine (and every other news outlet) was duped by the Te'o story and the Bicycle Guy. 

Good issue, and now it's on to the Super Bowl Preview stuff.

To Absent Friends: Stan "The Man" Musial

The news came last night about the death of Hall of Famer Stan Musial at the age of 92.  When I arrived home after attending a basketball game last night, my Facebook feed was filled with posts from people expressing their sorrow upon his passing, and the sheer wonderment of the ballplayer that he was.  Simply put, Musial was one of the greatest ballplayers EVER.  Rather than restate everything, let me copy some comments I made on this blog on February 22, 2011:

Last week President Obama awarded the nation's highest civilian award to 15 Americans, including two athletes, Bill Russell and Stan Musial. Hard to dispute either award, and I will focus only on Musial today.

Go to a baseball encyclopedia of any online baseball reference and look at the lifetime stats for Stan Musial. When great players of his era are mentioned, the names of Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio are always brought up, but rarely do you hear Stan the Man's name in the same conversations. Why is that?

Over the course of a career that lasted 22 seasons, Musial put together 475 HR, 1,951 RBI, and a .331 lifetime BA, 3,630 hits, and seven NL batting titles. Six times he recorded an OPS in excess of 1.000, and seven other times an OPS of .900 or more. Over those 22 seasons, he averaged 86 walks a year and only 37 strike outs. In fact, in only three seasons did he strike out over 40 times, and two of those seasons were his final ones, 1962 and 1963, when he was 41 and 42 years old. And to add some perspective, in that '61 season, at age 41, Stan hit .330 with 19 HR and 82 RBI.

Of course, Stan never had a "signature event" like Williams .406 average or DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak, so perhaps that is why he gets lost in history, but what a shame that is.

How can you not say that Musial is not one of the top ten players of all time?

Not much more to add is there?  Except to highly recommend that you read George Vecsey's 2011 biography, "Stan Musial: An American Life", which I wrote about in October 2011:

http://grandstander.blogspot.com/2011/10/book-review-stan-musial-american-life.html

I would also recommend the obituary written by Gene Collier that appears in today's Post-Gazette:

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/obituaries/obituary-stan-musial-donora-pa-native-won-7-batting-titles-671247/

As Bob Smizik put it on his blog last night, Musial was "A hero for the ages. We'll not soon see his like again."

RIP Stan Musial, "Baseball's perfect warrior; baseball's perfect knight."

Book Review: "Stan Musial, An American Life"

Twice in the last 12 months I have written posts on this blog about Stan Musial, so it was with interest that I read this new biography of Stan the Man by New York sportswriter George Vecsey. The book starts with the premise that Musial is really the forgotten superstar in baseball history. Heck, a person would have to be pretty much over 50 years old to have any memory of having seen him play ball.

The superstars who were his contemporaries, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, are certainly far more famous and celebrated. He played in St. Louis, not New York and Boston (although Vecsey, somewhat defensively, I think, is quick to point out how New York writers loved him). He didn't marry Marilyn Monroe, but rather his hometown sweetheart, a marriage that has lasted over 70 years, and he never had the "signature season" of a .400 average or a 56 game hitting streak, but for sustained excellence over a 22 year career, a case can be made that Musial was the equal, if not better, than either Joe D. or Teddy Ballgame. No scandals, no ugly off field events ever tarnished Musial's image. I will not recite all of Musial's records or accomplishments, but would recommend that you just look at Musial's career stats on any online reference site. They are mind boggling.

The book is not a detailed biography in the traditional sense. Vecsey doesn't bog you down with a lot of detailed runs-hits-errors stuff, but he does paint a great picture of Musial the man and the ballplayer. And there are some great stories to be told in the book:

• To Cardinals major domo Branch Rickey, Musial was little more than just another one of hundreds of minor league ballplayers under the Cardinals controled back in the late 1930's. Until, that is, it became apparent what kind of a player Musial was to become, at which point Rickey never missed the opportunity to tell anyone who was listening the key role that he, Rickey, played in Musial's discovery and development. Musial never publicly disagreed with Rickey, but he never gave him credit either.


• When Musial was discharged from the Navy in 1946, he hitchhiked back to St. Louis.


• When attending a reunion of old Cardinals, Musial stopped at a bank and took out a bunch of $100 bills, which he surreptitiously handed out to old teammates who were down on their luck. An observer guessed that he gave out over $10,000 that night.


• When some Cardinals fans began to call Albert Pujols "El Hombre", Pujols graciously asked that they not do so stating that there was and could only be one "Man" in St. Louis.

In awarding Musial the Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this year, Barack Obama summarized Musial well: "Stan remains, to this day, an icon, untarnished; a beloved pillar of the community; a gentleman you'd want your kids to emulate."

Musial will turn 91 in November and through much of the past decade he has been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. Not a nice way for anyone, much less an elite athlete, to end their days. It is nice that Vecsey has written this book to remind everyone of the career and life of a guy who was and remains a true class act.

"Unbroken", Stan the Man, Bob Nutting, and Dick Groat

It has been awhile since I have checked in, so here goes an extended version of The Grandstander for today.

Let's start with a book, Laura Hillenbrand's #1 bestseller, "Unbroken." I just finished reading the incredible story of Louis Zamperini. Zamperini was a young member of the 1936 American Olympic track team in Berlin, who was looking to be right on track, no pun intended, to win a gold medal for the USA in the 1500 Meter race in the 1940 Olympics that were scheduled to be in Tokyo.

Of course, WWII intervened and those Olympics never took place. Zamperini enlisted in the Army Air Corps and therein lies an amazing story. In 1943, Louie's plane crashed over the Pacific, he survived for 47 days floating in a raft in the ocean, was captured by the Japanese and then spent two and one-half years in several POW camps.

It is a most compelling story of perseverance and the triumph of the human spirit, and an incredibly sad and depressing story of man's inhumanity to man. At times while reading the book, I felt like I couldn't take much more of this story, but in the end, you are in awe of what Zamperini and his fellow POW's withstood.

Not to give too much away, but here is one statistic that will give you some idea of this. In WWII, 1 in 100 American POW's held in Germany and Italy died. Of the Americans held as POW's in Japanese camps, 1 in 3 died.

No doubt, this is an important and worthwhile book, but Hillenbrand's book of a few years back, "Seabiscuit", was a lot more fun to read.

******

Last week President Obama awarded the nation's highest civilian award to 15 Americans, including two athletes, Bill Russell and Stan Musial. Hard to dispute either award, and I will focus only on Musial today.

Go to a baseball encyclopedia of any online baseball reference and look at the lifetime stats for Stan Musial. When great players of his era are mentioned, the names of Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio are always brought up, but rarely do you hear Stan the Man's name in the same conversations. Why is that?

Over the course of a career that lasted 22 seasons, Musial put together 475 HR, 1,951 RBI, and a .331 lifetime BA, 3,630 hits, and seven NL batting titles. Six times he recorded an OPS in excess of 1.000, and seven other times an OPS of .900 or more. Over those 22 seasons, he averaged 86 walks a year and only 37 strike outs. In fact, in only three seasons did he strike out over 40 times, and two of those seasons were his final ones, 1962 and 1963, when he was 41 and 42 years old. And to add some perspective, in that '61 season, at age 41, Stan hit .330 with 19 HR and 82 RBI.

Of course, Stan never had a "signature event" like Williams .406 average or DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak, so perhaps that is why he gets lost in history, but what a shame that is.

How can you not say that Musial is not one of the top ten players of all time?

*****

News came from Bradenton yesterday that Pirates owner Bob Nutting addressed the team. This is the year, Bob said, where things will change....merely being "good" is not enough....the only acceptable goal will be the National League Championship. I also believe that

the old Nutting buzzword, "accountability" was also tossed out there. Yawn.

We've sure heard this song and dance before haven't we?

I don't believe that any mention was made that the Bucs will open the season with a payroll in the bottom five (if not the bottom one or two) of MLB. This has been another hallmark of the Nutting Era.

*****

I know that Dick Groat is considered by many to be a hallowed institution here in Pittsburgh. After all, Dick Vitale always has the ESPN cameras pan in on him while he, Vitale, sings his praises whenever the four letter network is televising a Pitt game. So, at the risk of committing a mortal sin, I have to say that listening to Groat in the closing moments of Pitt's loss to St. John's while out running errands on Saturday was high comedy. Oh, the foolish turnovers, oh, the fouling of St. John's best free throw shooters, and, of course, the jobbing of Pitt by the officials. I thought old Richard Morrow Groat was going to start weeping at any moment during those final three minutes when Pitt was unable to make a basket. Even the biggest homer announcer of all, Bourbon -Nose Billy Hillgrove, was a model of journalistic comportment by comparison.