Stan Musial George Vecsey

Stan Musial George Vecsey

The summary from Audible.com below gives Stan’s statistics, but what I really enjoyed in this book was the man beyond the diamond.  Here was a very complex man who most described as the nicest man in baseball, but the author allows us to see his flaws and tantrums – something we all have.

What is fascinating is how Musial in St Louis was to the NL what DiMaggio and Williams were to the AL, but he played in the “west” and his fame was in the great plains, not the east coast so his legendary status did not get the same recognition as Ted and Joe, even though he was their equal and they recognized that fact. 

But do fans today even know about him?  Probably not.  Here was a 175 pound slugger – no steroids here, no personal weight trainer, just a good well-coordinated player who used his natural abilities to the max.  As a boy I remember the end of his career and I was a NL fan so he was someone I admired.  If he had been a Milwaukee Brave I would have liked him even more.

But this is also a rags to riches story.  He is a man of very humble beginnings who rose to great heights and never let the later success mar his basic personality and life.  

I have read reviews that criticize the book, one in particular because he sees a political slant to the story, but I though Vecsey spoke of Stan's involvement with president Kennedy and other presidents with a straight forward candor and these stories were well told.  In this age, people really like to read in to everything said and written.

The Following is from Audible.com:
When baseball fans voted on the top 25 players of the 20th century in 1999, Stan Musial didn't make the cut. This glaring omission - later rectified by a panel of experts - aised an important question: How could a first-ballot Hall of Famer, widely considered one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, still rank as the most underrated athlete of all time? In Stan Musial, veteran sports journalist George Vecsey finally gives this 20-time All-Star and St. Louis Cardinals icon the kind of prestigious biographical treatment previously afforded to his more celebrated contemporaries Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. More than just a chronological recounting of the events of Musial's life, this is the definitive portrait of one of the game's best-loved but most unappreciated legends, told through the remembrances of those who played beside, worked with, and covered "Stan the Man" over the course of his nearly seventy years in the national spotlight. Stan Musial never married a starlet. He didn't die young, live too hard, or squander his talent. There were no legendary displays of temper or moodiness. He was merely the most consistent superstar of his era, a scarily gifted batsman who compiled 3,630 career hits (1,815 at home and 1,815 on the road), won three World Series titles, and retired in 1963 in possession of seventeen major-league records. Away from the diamond, he proved a savvy businessman and a model of humility and graciousness toward his many fans in St. Louis and around the world. From Keith Hernandez's boyhood memories of Musial leaving tickets for him when the Cardinals were in San Francisco to the little-known story of Musial's friendship with novelist James Michener - and their mutual association with Pope John Paul II - Vecsey weaves an intimate oral history around one of the great gentlemen of baseball's Greatest Generation. There may never be another Stan the Man, a fact that future Hall of Famer Al...