Stan Musial

by George Vecsey

  A staggering portion of the Polish citizens—78 percent of adults—was estimated to be watching on television that night as Walesa stood up to Miodowicz. The public immediately judged that Walesa had won the debate.

  Musial and the rest of the American party watched in the home of the archbishop of Warsaw. Within minutes after the debate ended, an exuberant Walesa came bounding into the room. As Michener described the moment, the Pole seemed like “some notable opera star who had come into Sardi’s theatrical restaurant on Broadway at the end of the grand performance to receive the applause and adulation of the crowd awaiting him there.”

  Two years later, Walesa would be elected president of Poland, and would serve for five years. Musial had been there the night Walesa won over the Polish nation.

  ON DECEMBER 3, the tour continued to Rome, where the three amigos were invited to dinner at the pope’s quarters in the Vatican, a rare honor. Michener greeted the pope by saying, “I am so glad to see you, my dear friend,” a Quaker touch that seemed to boggle the Polish pope. Twice during dinner, Michener duly reported, John Paul II “looked across the table at me and said: ‘So you are the man who called me his friend.’ ”

  Michener added, “I could not tell whether this was a rejection of what he had deemed an unwarranted familiarity or simply a reflection of an unusual greeting. But I did get the feeling that at his second repetition there was a sharp edge to his voice.” Given that Wojtyla was an actor, writer, and linguist as well as a prelate, the odds are essentially 99–1 that he knew exactly what he was saying and what inflection he intended.

  A master of detail, Michener also recorded the meal. “Three courses served by a nun: some of the best cannelloni I have ever had; an excellent chicken dish, and, I feel sure, some kind of dessert; but I was so busy listening that I took no specific notice of it. The pope ate none of this: he had soup with crackers and a plate of fruit.”

  There is no record of how closely Musial followed the byplay between the pope and the author. By all recollections the pope knew Musial as a famous retired American athlete and a Roman Catholic of Polish ancestry, and the two robust, secure men were physically and psychically comfortable with each other.

  At five-thirty the next morning, the amigos were summoned to the Vatican for a private Mass said by the pope. As they prepared to climb six or seven flights of stairs to his personal chapel, Musial was recognized by some young American priests.

  “I’m entitled to be here because I’m also a Cardinal,” he said, delighting the priests.

  The American group had expanded to include Jim Murray, the former general manager of the Philadelphia Eagles and a friend of Piszek’s.

  “I watched Stan interact with the pope,” Murray said, adding that Musial’s demeanor was that of an altar boy in awe of the pontiff.

  The participants at the Mass included four nuns from Vietnam and an Irish tenor who would sing the Ave Maria. Michener also observed that the pope celebrated Mass old-style, with his back to his guests.

  As the guests left, the pope gave each celebrant rosary beads he had blessed. Michener noted that the pope “joked and exchanged pleasantries as if he were a parish priest at the close of prayer.”

  Larry Christenson, a Lutheran, would always treasure his rosary, as well as the way the athletic pope—a linebacker, by body type—looked up at Christenson’s six feet four inches and 215 pounds.

  Like many people who heard John Paul II speak English (and speak it quite well), Christenson would forevermore imitate the Polish inflections as the pope told him: “You are a big dude.”

  Then it was time for the pope’s nuanced farewell to Michener.

  “Grasping my hand in both of his, he said: ‘Keep writing those long books,’ ” Michener dutifully recorded.

  These words constitute perhaps the most trenchant literary criticism ever uttered by a pope. To his credit, Michener repeated the line in his subsequent book.

  The Americans were invited to the residence of the American ambassador to Italy, Maxwell M. Rabb. Among the guests was Richard L. Thornburgh, the former governor of Pennsylvania who had been appointed attorney general by President Reagan that summer and was visiting Europe to investigate the links between drugs and terrorism.

  “When I saw Musial there, I was blown away. I was going back to my early teens,” said Thornburgh, who had grown up near Pittsburgh and had mastered the art of copying Musial’s signature as a kid.

  Thornburgh spotted a recent signature ostensibly by Musial, and although he had never met him before, he bluntly told Musial: “That is not your autograph.”

  Thornburgh recalled: “He looked at me kind of askance and I said, ‘Here’s your autograph,’ and I remembered well enough how to fake his autograph in grade school. He was just completely blown away. He said, ‘That used to be my autograph but I guarantee what I have given you is the real McCoy.’ ”

  Twenty years later, Thornburgh still glowed at the memories of “a very, very pleasant evening. Crowd of people, highly impressed with Musial and Michener, the whole idea of their mission, just about at the end of the Soviet empire. Unforgettable evening.” (When he got back to Washington, Thornburgh would receive a ball, definitely autographed by Musial.)

  Stanley was in rare form that night at the embassy, performing his famous banana trick—somehow slicing it within the skin after sprinkling it with his own special “woofer dust.”

  At the same time, intrigue was taking place beyond the hilarity. It turned out that the three amigos had also been invited to the residence of the American ambassador to the Vatican, Frank J. Shakespeare. Two dinners at the same time, a mile or so apart—a difficult trick, even for those guys.

  While Stanley was performing, the Vatican embassy was calling the Rome embassy to say that Ambassador Shakespeare was expecting Michener and Musial and Piszek. Not wanting to offend anybody, the first team jumped in a waiting limousine and sped across Rome to the next party. Christenson, Murray, and some other friends—who called themselves “the turd team”—stayed behind.

  Reunited with all his friends the next day, Stan posed for a photo wearing three championship sports rings—his own from the Cardinals, Christenson’s ring from the 1980 Phillies World Series, and Murray’s National Football Conference ring from the 1980 Eagles. They also made a trip to the Colosseum, where Musial posed in his familiar crouch, using Michener’s aluminum cane for a bat.

  Later, Musial spotted a wedding and somehow or other crashed it, knowing no Italian or, for that matter, anybody in the wedding party.

  “Stan could have been the bride’s father,” Murray said. “We had so much fun, we were like little kids.”

  There was another side venture when Musial noticed there was an Italian baseball league in Anzio, where Allied troops had landed early in 1944.

  “We got to Anzio and the cemetery was closed, so we broke in and did our thing and then we found the ball game,” Murray said. “All of a sudden, the announcer stops the game and says, ‘Stan Musial is here’ and everybody came around to talk to him, and even the people who ran the club, they asked if he could get them a pitcher, and Stan was like a general manager, taking down notes: ‘Let me see if I can help.’ ”

  Murray—a generous man and a pioneer in the Ronald McDonald houses for children with cancer—enjoyed seeing Musial and Michener together.

  “A perfect marriage,” he called it. “Both had total ability and total confidence. You would never recognize their status, seeing them. On that Poland trip, Michener was the star, and Stan loved seeing Michener get the award. Total respect. Some guys are just pros. Some guys have that aura. And both of them were like that. They had what I call a tangible intangible. Big leaguers.”

  Murray continued: “Stan would take out his harmonica and you could see a little sparkle between them. It wasn’t them telling war stories or anything. It was just total awe of each other.”

  Musial was so identified as a prominent Polish American that he became something of a t
ouchstone for Polish contacts. Pat Henry, a professor in Washington State (from Brooklyn!), advised Musial he had a counterpart in Krakow—Father Stanislaw Musial, who was honored for his long support of the Jewish community in Poland. Father Musial’s family had shielded a Jew early in the war, and was nearly executed until the four-year-old pleaded with a Nazi soldier, who granted them mercy. Stan Musial was delighted to know of the priest and sent autographed photos of himself to Henry in Brooklyn and Father Musial in Krakow.

  MUSIAL RETAINED his bond with Poland and its fledgling baseball program.

  On July 7, 1989, President George H. W. Bush invited Musial to the White House lawn for a Little League celebration. A few days later, on a trip to Poland, the president referred to Musial’s frequent trips to Poland and also mentioned other stars of Polish ancestry.

  In 1990, Stan and Lil and Piszek traveled to Wroclaw, three hours from Warsaw, to bring 486 bats, 250 gloves, 925 Cardinals caps, and uncounted baseball cards. Wroclaw dedicated a six-foot granite marker in Musial’s honor.

  On July 23, the Stan Musial Little League Field in Jaslo was dedicated, through donations by Polish Americans. Musial cried as the field was opened, saying, “It’s my father’s homeland. And it’s quite an honor to be honored like that for something you loved doing all those years—baseball.”

  Murray said Musial was still something of an innocent about life in Poland. One day Musial rented a car and went off by himself to visit distant relatives in another corner of Poland, carrying a video camera to record the meeting.

  That evening, Musial was late for a reception with the American ambassador, John R. Davis Jr. When he finally arrived, he told Murray he had been taking pictures of the beautiful Polish countryside when suddenly the police swooped in and arrested him.

  “What he doesn’t know is there’s a Russian tank farm in the forest,” Murray explained. “We found out later. This is pure Stan Musial. He’s going to help somebody he hasn’t even met before, some relative. He didn’t know the tanks were there. He was talking into a camera.

  “The point of the story is,” Murray continued, “he didn’t pull rank. He didn’t say, ‘Hey, I’m a great American baseball player looking for a poor relative.’ He had no idea of the security.”

  Murray then told Stanley that the arresting officer was probably on his way to Siberia for disturbing a state guest. That made Musial feel even worse, Murray said. “That’s the kind of humility he has.”

  THE FRIENDSHIP between Michener and Musial endured on domestic soil, a sort of movable feast. Julius Hunter, a television personality and writer in St. Louis, got a glimpse of the friendship when he was invited to join the Musials and Micheners for dinner. Totally by coincidence, Hunter’s wife, Barbara, was reading Michener’s book Iberia, because the couple was planning a trip there.

  Michener, Hunter recalled, was not feeling well and let his wife answer some of the questions. “It took only a couple minutes to realize that she was the more articulate, and perhaps deeper of the two,” Hunter wrote.

  Hunter did ask Michener how he came to be so prolific, and Mari replied that he often worked with three secretaries and three typewriters at once.

  During the lunch, Hunter observed that Michener’s drink of choice was bourbon, whereas Musial stuck with beer. The two buddies clearly shared memories of all-guy rambles around Florida. As Hunter noted, “A listener would also pick up that wives need not know all the details of the boys’ boozing, card-playing and cigar-smoking.”

  One outing by Michener and Musial was described by Tom McEwen, the longtime sports columnist and power broker with the Tampa Tribune.

  McEwen wrote he had received a phone call from Art Pepin, the powerful Busch distributor in the Tampa area, saying he was in a recreational vehicle with Musial, Michener, and Red Schoendienst. Apparently, Michener was thinking of writing a book about aging in America, and wanted to scout the area as a possible locale.

  I waited at the door when the great man got out, jacket and hat with a brim, cane. He came to the door and I introduced myself. Said he knew me. Said he often read me. Didn’t matter that he did or did not, he said it, and looked to the right to my pretty comfortable office and he said it was much like his. Sure. And then, the great James Michener lifted his cane a bit in gesture, and asked: “May I ask you a question, Tom?”

  Well, sir, of course, sir, I think I stammered. Him, Mr. Michener, asking me a question? I knew something he did not?

  “What is the matter with Vinny Testaverde?”

  Michener was, of course, referring to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ quarterback, who was prone to interceptions.

  “He’s colorblind,” McEwen told Michener—inside sportswriter stuff.

  McEwen joined the lads on the RV during their trek around Tampa. Many years later he recalled how Musial turned to Pepin and said, “Art, I have been on this bus an hour and a half and you have not offered me a beer. Not feeling well?”

  Michener echoed Musial, asking: “Got any bourbon, Art?”

  So that may have been the extra ingredient in the friendship: the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer and the Hall of Fame ballplayer were drinking buddies.

  McEwen also recalled a birthday dinner that Stan and Lil held for Michener with guests like Gussie Busch, Art Pepin, and Jack Lake, the publisher of the St. Petersburg Times, as well as Al Lopez, Ted Williams, and Robin Roberts.

  To McEwen’s chagrin, Musial introduced him as a “member of Mr. Michener’s profession” and suggested McEwen might like to say a few words. McEwen was horrified that a self-styled “klutz” like himself would be compared to the source of South Pacific, but he would indeed say a few words.

  I took the bouquet off my table, took it to Mr. Michener and said something numbskullish like he was his craft’s flagship, how we all saluted him for his skill and speed, thanked him for his work and so would he accept this bouquet on our behalf, which, I noted, was an aphrodisiac. I took a bite of a flower in the bundle and so did he, then offering his lady a bite as well. Even Ted Williams laughed.

  Michener was wearing down. He was honored on February 3, 1992, for his eighty-fifth birthday, at a black-tie dinner in New York at the Pierpont Morgan Library. Walter Cronkite and Musial were the only two of the 130 guests to be singled out by name in the New York Times.

  Mari Michener, who was younger than her husband, died first, on September 25, 1994. Michener developed severe kidney problems, and Musial visited him several times in Austin, Texas, and sometimes phoned him.

  “He’s on a dialysis machine three days a week,” Musial said in 1996. “It was his eighty-ninth birthday. So I got my harmonica out and played ‘Happy Birthday’ for him, and Lil was singing.”

  After turning ninety on February 3, 1997, Michener began talking of stopping dialysis, which he knew would end his life. In his final days, Michener alternated between sleep and taking calls from old friends like Merv Griffin, Cronkite, and Musial. He died on October 16, 1997, at his home in Austin. Musial went down for the funeral.

  Musial described him as a “down-to-earth guy” who liked sports and knew a great deal about the world. “Jim was an outstanding guy,” Musial said. “We are all saddened by the passing of a dear friend.”

  FIFTEEN MONTHS later, a weary Pope John Paul II stopped off for a thirty-one-hour visit to St. Louis on his way home from Mexico. Musial greeted the pope at several receptions, one at the cathedral and another at a luncheon at the archbishop’s residence. Musial also attended the evening Mass at the domed arena downtown. Colonel James Hackett, one of Musial’s closest friends, recalled Musial’s generosity in making sure that Musial’s business manager, Dick Zitzmann, Zitzmann’s mother, and another friend, Bill Suntrup, a prominent Ford dealer, had tickets for the papal Mass.

  Edward Piszek later went through some turbulent financial times and finally sold Mrs. Paul’s in 1982, but he still lived comfortably, and was still a philanthropist when he died of bone cancer on March 27, 2004. Musial flew to Philadelphia
to attend the Mass, and the pope sent a note that he was “deeply saddened” by Piszek’s death.

  After years of visibly growing weaker, Pope John Paul II died on April 2, 2005, at the age of eighty-four.

  “They remained friends until Dad died,” Helen Piszek said. “I’m glad Dad died first because I think he would have been devastated.”

  For Musial, the long friendships, the international and domestic rambles, were also coming to a close.

  44

  THE FACE IN THE CROWD

  BOB COSTAS had dreaded Mickey Mantle’s funeral, although he had known it was coming. Mantle was his boyhood hero; Costas carried the 1958 Mantle bubble gum card in his wallet as a statement of devotion.

  A longtime resident of St. Louis, Costas had entertained Mantle in his home, along with Stan Musial and other baseball people. He’d seen the good side of Mantle and, on occasion, the bad.

  Now Costas had been asked to speak at Mantle’s funeral on a hot August day in 1995 at the Lovers Lane Methodist Church in Dallas. He would not try to hide his adulation of the flawed, golden star.

  Afraid he would lose his composure, Costas avoided even a glance at the Mantle family in the front row. They had gone through many tortured years in public, through Mantle’s drinking and his escapades, until, in his final years, he had willed himself into sobriety. Then he had been brought down by liver cancer a few months short of sixty-four. Costas could feel the sadness in the church. Just when the Mick had gotten control of his life, it was all over.

  Adept at public speaking, Costas could deliver his address while shifting his gaze around the room, the journalist, the observer.

  “I had come in through the back, and I hadn’t seen everybody who was there,” Costas recalled years later. “I was looking over the audience, making an inventory, to see who is here.”

  Even as he spoke about his hero, Costas made a discovery that touched him.