Outside of the Gateway Arch and Busch Stadium itself, there aren’t many St. Louis monuments as recognizable as the Stan Musial statue. Now a familiar meeting place for Cardinals fans, the statue was dedicated on August 4, 1968, as part of a daylong celebration of Musial’s incredible career. The $35,000 monument was paid for through […]
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Did Stan Musial call his shot in the 1955 All-Star Game? Hank Aaron certainly thought so. On July 12, 1955, almost exactly five years after his longtime teammate, Red Schoendienst, hit the game-winning home run in the 1950 All-Star Game, Musial smacked the first pitch in the bottom of the 12th inning over the right-field
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A decade after he briefly held out of spring training in a bid for a $5,000 raise, Stan Musial became the first $100,000 player in National League history. On January 29, 1958, the Cardinals called a morning press conference at Anheuser-Busch Brewery to announce that Musial, who had been playing for $80,000 per season since
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Is Stan Musial the greatest general manager in St. Louis Cardinals history? The question may be tongue in cheek, but no one can argue with Musial’s record: in his lone season as the Cardinals’ general manager in 1967, the Cardinals won the World Series. Musial was named to the position on January 23, 1967, just
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It took a lot to make Stan Musial visibly angry. But when the legendary Cardinals outfielder learned just before boarding the team’s train to Pittsburgh that the Cardinals had traded Red Schoendienst, his roommate for more than a decade, Musial made his displeasure clear. “The rest of us got the word that Red had been traded
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On June 10, 1944, just four days after D-Day, the Cardinals found themselves facing Joe Nuxhall, a 15-year-old pitcher who had been facing high school opposition just a few weeks earlier. They showed him no mercy. Joe Nuxhall, a lefthander out of Hamilton High School in Hamilton, Ohio, lasted just 2/3 of an inning after
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On October 9, 1944, the St. Louis Cardinals clinched their second World Series championship in three years, defeating the crosstown rival Browns 3-1 and establishing themselves as baseball’s dominant wartime franchise. With America at war in Europe, players from every team either volunteered for or were drafted into the war effort. Though Cardinals stars Enos
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On July 24, 1949, Stan Musial hit for the only cycle of his illustrious career, helping to power the St. Louis Cardinals into first place in the National League with an emphatic 14-1 win over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Though the clubs were still in the dog days of summer, Musial’s achievement came in a series
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Even at age 41, Stan Musial had the ability to take over a ballgame. On July 8, 1962, four months prior to his 42nd birthday, Musial hit three home runs to lead the Cardinals to a 15-1 win over the Mets and become the oldest player to hit three homers in a game. With the
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Even future Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm couldn’t keep Stan Musial in the ballpark on May 2, 1954. In an afternoon doubleheader at Sportsman’s Park, Musial became the first player in major-league history to hit five home runs in a single day, smacking three home runs over the right-field wall in Game 1 before adding
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