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.
I saw him
First thing I asked my dad was why was his stance so funny. I got one of his bats cracked in a foul.
I used it for a rock bat.
Yeah
I know
My husband saw him many times in person. And when my husband was still a uni student in the late 1960’s, Musial had a restaurant in St. Louis and would be there most of the time. Once my husband met Musial at the restaurant, and, as usual for anyone who asked, Musial signed a photo of himself for my husband.
Yes, I saw him a number of times at old Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, in the late 50s/early 60s towards the end of his career. I understood I was watching a legend.
His batting stance was different, but a lot of guys then had different kind of stances. One thing my dad always pointed out to me was that he would go to the plate and while he was digging in, he would wipe out the back line of the batters box. When he finally took his stance, his back foot (for him left foot) was mostly outside where the line would have been. That gave him just that extra split second to watch the pitch.
I saw my first major league game in 1950 the Cardinals vs the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Bottom of the 2nd inning Stan led off and hit the first pitch over the screen in right field. I would have been satisfied to leave right then for the 200 mile trip home.
I was there for Stan's last at bat, a single off Jim Maloney.
Yep, saw him in his last game played at Connie Mack (Phillies), saw a lot of the great NL players like Mays, Koufax, Clemente and Aaron there, wasn't much to see on the Phillies side, I missed Ashburn when he played for the Phillies, I would have been 4 when he left Philadelphia.
I saw him play in an old timers game in 1971.
When I was a kid, I tried to copy his stance.
It didn’t do me any good.
Saw him hit one out of Al Lopez in Spring Training in Tampa against the Reds. He made it look easy.