More Man

A few days ago, I wrote about the passing of Stan Musial.  Probably all the coverage of Stan the Man that day showed footage of him in action as a player for the St. Louis Cardinals.  Of course that's what they'd show -- he was a Hall of Fame ballplayer, after all.  A few, like Elisberg Industries did, might have shown another side of him, his love for playing the harmonica.  But I'm guessing that few reached back and showed Stan the Man...the man.  Well, since we're a Full Service Information Enterprise here, we aims to please.  And so, here is Stan Musial appearing as the secret guest on the old series, What's My Line?

My friend Chris Dunn, a fine TV writer who's a big St. Louis Cardinals fan (and I still like him, which I think speaks well of him -- and of me...), sent along a wonderful quote from Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher, Carl Erskine, who faced Musial often throughout their careers:  "I've had pretty good success with Stan by throwing him my best pitch and backing up third."

Chris also passed along a tale from when he was a wee kidling, "My mother was just telling me that when we lived in St. Louis she went with our family to a few games but he never got a hit when she was there so she took to asking people in St. Louis what was so great about him, anyway.  She made a lot of enemies."

This might not show why he was so great either.  But it's nice to see him as...well, him.  A nice, modest and charming man, who happened to be a great baseball player.