This is what Bill James wrote about Musial in his first edition of THe Historical Baseball Abstract:
“The image of Musial seems to be fading quickly…. It doesn’t seem that the image is very sharp, that anybody really knows what made him different…
“What he was was a ballplayer. He didn’t spit at fans, he didn’t get into fights in nightclubs, he didn’t marry anybody famous. He hustled. You look at his career totals of doubles and triples, and they’ll remind you of something that was accepted while he was active, and has been largely forgotten since: Stan Musial was one player who always left the batter’s box on a dead run.”
In that book he rated Musial ahead of Williams as the best left-fielder of all time, although he did reverse that decision in the second edition without much explanation. I would rather have had Musial on my team than Williams.
I refinanced my house back in the late 90's. The loan officer and I ended up talking baseball. He had seen Stan as a player. We got into a fascinating discussion about batting and batting stances. Being a young guy, I of course talked about Joe Morgan and the chicken arm flap, and the Pete Rose crouch. He showed me the Stan Musial "peekaboo" stance. I had never seen it.
It was cool. The loan guy was in his 70's at the time and knew every big time 1940s and 50s player's batting technique.
'The image of Musial seems to be fading quickly…. It doesn't seem that the image is very sharp, that anybody really knows what made him different…
What he was was a ballplayer. He didn't spit at fans, he didn't get into fights in nightclubs, he didn't marry anybody famous. He hustled. You look at his career totals of doubles and triples, and they'll remind you of something that was accepted while he was active, and has been largely forgotten since: Stan Musial was one player who always left the batter's box on a dead run.'
Thank you, Gil4. Stan Musial was one of a kind. I sure hope God sends us another Musial with similar decent, mature, down to earth qualities soon.
Coincidentally "The Natural" just began on a local station.
There was a time where Musial got distracted and didn't immediately notice play had resumed. A fly ball was hit to left field and Musial didn't have his glove on. Musial ran the ball down and caught it BARE-HANDED!