Stan Musial
Page 38
17 “There was always a store”: Ulice Payne, interview, Apr. 7, 2009.
18 Davis also recalls: Davis, When Smoke Ran Like Water, 6.
19 Old photographs suggest: Cassandra Vivian, The Mid-Mon Valley (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2004).
20 “On the southern end”: Stacey, interview, Mar. 24, 2009.
21 In the winter, the children: Cecconi, interview, Mar. 24, 2009.
22 Some of the Italian families: Bill Bottonari, interview, Nov. 12, 2008.
23 In 2007, Judge Walton presided: Neil A. Lewis, “Libby Guilty of Lying in C.I.A. Leak Case,” New York Times, Mar. 6, 2007.
24 Judge Walton is proud: Judge Reggie Walton, interview Jun. 22, 2009.
25 After law school: Fascinating profile of Judge Walton: http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/dcd/walton.
10 | MENTORS
1 “We were standing”: Email from Scott Dine, May 2009.
2 “We all had ‘relations’ ”: Ed Musial, interview, Dec. 18, 2000, The Legend of Stan the Man Musial.
3 The boys played at Weed Field: Charles Stacey, interview, Dec. 4, 2010.
4 “You had to wait five minutes”: Stan Musial, interview, Halls of Fame: Stan Musial.
5 Joe Barbao, who had played: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 11–13.
6 “When I came in”: Ed Musial, interview, The Legend of Stan the Man Musial.
7 The head coach was: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 16–22.
8 Another adult: Verna Duda, telephone interview, Jan. 23, 2009.
9 In the summer, Duda: Jim Kreuz, “Musial and Griffey,” Ragtyme Sports, Oct. 1995, 80.
10 The business manager at Monessen: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 15–19.
11 “It was deep in the Depression”: Neal Russo, “Vanek’s Decision 25 Years Ago Made Stan Musial a Cardinal,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 7, 1962.
12 “He looked, as Ollie described him”: Jack Sher, “The Stan Musial Nobody Knows,” Sport, March 1949.
13 Musial was a very ordinary student: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 18–19.
14 “His father wanted him”: Verna Duda, interview, Mar. 25, 2009.
15 One constant in the telling: Stan Musial, “The Man’s” Own Story, 21–22.
16 “She’s a big woman”: Stan Musial, “The Man’s” Own Story, 20.
17 the Donora Dragons surprised: Clippings courtesy of the Monessen Public Library, Monessen, Pa.
18 The team was also tested: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 17.
19 Through his basketball ability: Tom Ashley, interview, Feb. 2009.
20 When Pizzica was quite old: Tom Ashley Jr., interview, Aug. 13, 2009.
21 In the spring of 1938: Mary Jane Schmidt, interview, Nov. 14, 2008.
22 “We played baseball”: Cecconi, interviews, 2008, Mar. 2009.
23 Jerry Wunderlich, a gym teacher: Mark Pawelec, interview, Apr. 2, 2009.
24 But Ki Duda recommended: Norma Miller, interview by Roger Kahn, 1957.
25 “hypocritical Protestant bastard”: Lee Lowenfish, Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 280.
26 “I honestly hoped”: Peter Golenbock, The Spirit of St. Louis: A History of the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns (New York: Avon, 2000), 237.
27 In the spring of 1938: Lester J. Biederman, “Modest Stan Musial Still Embarrassed by Hero Worship,” Pittsburgh Press, Dec. 22, 1957.
28 There are several reasons: Sher, “The Stan Musial Nobody Knows.”
29 “Even though Donora”: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 23.
30 There was another trip: Ibid., 24.
11 | LIL
1 He was a familiar sight: Bill Bottonari, interview, Nov. 12, 2008.
2 “My grandparents married so young”: Gerry Ashley, interview, 2009.
3 thereby nicknamed “Shrimp”: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 16.
4 “Always neat as a pin”: Mrs. Stan Musial, “My Life with Stan,” Parade, Jul. 13, 1958.
5 “Stan was never idle”: Jim Kreuz, “Musial and Griffey,” Ragtyme Sports, Oct. 1995, 83.
6 “It’s tough to be the wife”: Tom Ashley, interview, Jun. 25, 2009.
7 Anna Mikula: 1920 census, courtesy of Gerry Ashley.
8 “I’ve been in that house”: Gerry Ashley, interview, 2009.
9 Long after they were married: Robinson, Stan Musial, 21.
10 “I wasn’t sure”: Kahn, “The Man.”
11 Perhaps he sensed: Giglio, Musial, 29.
12 Very much an outsider: Mike Whiteford, “Musial’s Lowly Beginning: A Bus Ride to Williamson,” The Charleston Gazette, Jul. 22, 1988, 1B.
13 “I didn’t have confidence”: Halls of Fame: Stan Musial.
14 He also caused a stir: Email message from Randolph Fiery, Feb. 17, 2011.
15 “She wanted him to get a job”: Verna Duda, interview, Mar. 25, 2009.
16 On May 25, 1940: Giglio, Musial, 37.
17 Far away: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 33.
18 “I didn’t even see a doctor”: Halls of Fame: Stan Musial.
19 “He called me one day”: The Legend of Stan the Man Musial.
20 “You won’t make it”: Sher, “The Stan Musial Nobody Knows.”
21 Skip ahead: “Kerr Family Happy in New Home, a Gift From Musials,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 21, 1958.
22 Over the years: Giglio, Musial, 37.
12 | TAKEOFF
1 “And he is sitting”: Bob Broeg, interview, ESPN SportsCentury, Nov. 29, 2000.
2 Shotton watched Musial: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 37–38.
3 Years later: Ibid., 57–58.
4 “He was signed”: The Legend of Stan the Man Musial.
5 “I told Clay”: Halls of Fame: Stan Musial.
6 Vanek, who had praised Musial: Sher, “The Stan Musial Nobody Knows.”
7 “Oh, sure, I remember”: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 39.
8 Who was Ollie Vanek?: Dr. Ben Vanek, interview, Dec. 1, 2008.
9 “Mr. Rickey, in a fairly loud”: Jim Kreuz, “Stan’s Rise to the Majors,” Mound City Memories, Summer 2007, 26.
10 “Vanek spoke up”: Bob Broeg, “Vanek Provided an Early Assist in Musial’s Career,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jul. 9, 2000.
11 Springfield’s White City Park: John Hall, interview, Feb. 2, 2009.
12 “I would pat him”: Frank Hungerford, interview, Sep. 19, 2009.
13 “She was the one”: Halls of Fame: Stan Musial.
14 Stan and Lil and Dickie: Tom Fox, “Killed by Greed: The Baseball Season Ended Early This Year,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 30, 1981.
15 Lil also told Fox: Karen Wessel Fox, interview, 2009.
16 “Goodbye, Stan”: Sher, “The Stan Musial Nobody Knows.” 81 The next morning: John Hall, interview, Feb. 2, 2009.
17 “I’ll let you in”: Sher, “The Stan Musial Nobody Knows.”
18 Stan and Lil took the train: Mrs. Stan Musial, “My Life with Stan.”
19 As luck would have it: Giglio, Musial, 53–54.
20 Lil and Dick joined: Betty Jane Schmidt, interview, Nov. 14, 2008.
21 Manager Tony Kaufman immediately: Giglio, Musial, 54.
22 “Well, guess I’ll be seeing you”: Jim Kreuz, “Musial and Griffey,” Ragtyme Sports, Oct. 1995, 81.
23 Lil met him in Pittsburgh: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 44.
13 | PENNANT RACE
1 he missed the train: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 45.
2 “Get your ass out of there”: Dave Anderson, Pennant Races: Baseball at Its Best (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 144.
3 “This is strange”: Halls of Fame: Stan Musial.
4 Stengel watched the kid: W. C. Heinz, “Stan Musial’s Last Day,” Life, Oct. 11, 1963.
5 “Your club has got a guy”: Bob Broeg, interview, ESPN SportsCentury, Nov. 29, 2000.
<
br /> 6 Not everybody was impressed: Boris “Babe” Martin, interview, Jan. 30, 2009.
7 On September 20: Martin J. Haley, sports editor, St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
8 In a doubleheader: James P. Dawson, “St. Louis Defeats Cubs, 6–5, 7–0; Daring Dash Decides First,” New York Times, Sep. 22, 1941.
9 “Musial is really the answer”: Robert L. Burnes, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Sep. 1941.
10 As the team embarked by train: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 46. 87 Looking back at Musial’s debut: Sher, “The Stan Musial Nobody Knows.”
11 “Pop and I”: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 51.
12 “A group of unidentified citizens”: Robert L. Burnes, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Sep. 29, 1941.
14 | MEET ME AT THE FAIR
1 “It’s where he played”: William O. DeWitt Jr., interview, May 5, 2010.
2 “I was able”: Halls of Fame: Stan Musial.
3 At the start of the twentieth: U.S. Census, http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab13.txt.
4 by 2010 its population: Malcolm Gay and Campbell Robertson, “Population Off Sharply in St. Louis and Birmingham,” New York Times, Feb. 24, 2011, A19.
5 Meet Me in St. Louis: Music and lyrics by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, 1944.
6 “Monkus,” he said quietly: Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again (Garden City, N.Y.: Sun Dial Press, 1934), 65–66.
7 Other writers took their measure: Kate Shaw, “St. Louis Writers Who Fled, and the City That Loves Them,” Current on Line, University of Missouri at St. Louis, Jan. 24, 2005.
15 | THE MAHATMA OF THE MIDWEST
1 “I went down to see him”: The Legend of Stan the Man Musial.
2 “He was very diplomatic”: Stan Musial, St. Louis, May 17, 1978, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project, University of Kentucky Library, Lexington.
3 Wesley Branch Rickey: Lowenfish, Branch Rickey, 19–25.
4 After serving: Henry D. Fetter, Taking on the Yankees (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 122.
5 “You know”: William O. DeWitt Sr., Cincinnati, Sep. 29 and Oct. 1, 1980, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project.
6 “Pepper played the banjo-guitar”: Robert Creamer, “Mudcats in the Gashouse,” Sports Illustrated, Apr. 22, 1957.
7 “That one really got to him”: Tom Ashley, interview, Feb. 2009.
8 “I didn’t do well”: Halls of Fame: Stan Musial.
9 “He was big”: Garagiola, Just Play Ball, 171–73.
10 “I’m tearing it up, my boy”: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 55.
11 “Don Padgett told me”: John J. Archibald, “Musial … Musial … Musial … Name and Fame Here to Stay, All Agree,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 25, 1957.
12 “Everybody started laughing”: Marty Marion, interview, ESPN SportsCentury, Nov. 29, 2000.
13 “I didn’t have my good arm”: Halls of Fame: Stan Musial.
14 “Whenever the center fielder”: Enos Slaughter, interview, ESPN SportsCentury, Dec. 13, 2000.
15 Leo would put one foot: John Heidenry and Brett Topel, The Boys Who Were Left Behind: The 1944 World Series Between the Hapless St. Louis Browns and the Legendary St. Louis Cardinals (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), 57.
16 This was the only time: Broeg, The Man Stan, 75.
17 “Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy”: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 238.
18 double whammy: Ibid., 70–71.
19 The Yankees were not used to: Lowenfish, Branch Rickey, 317.
20 “Stan was having a terrible time”: Sher, “The Stan Musial Nobody Knows,” 66–67.
21 Now that Rickey was gone: Bob Broeg, “Baseball Vastly Different from Breadon’s Day,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 11, 1997.
22 “They were entirely opposites”: William O. DeWitt Sr., Cincinnati, Sep. 29 and Oct. 1, 1980, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project.
23 Marty Marion has talked about cliques: Golenbock, The Spirit of St. Louis, 256.
24 “We’d cook corn”: Danny Litwhiler, interview, Apr. 13, 2010.
25 Most of the Cardinals rented rooms: Freddy Schmidt, interview, Apr. 14, 2010.
26 “We had a young club”: Danny Litwhiler, interview, Apr. 13, 2010.
27 “Musial came up next time”: Mickey Owen, Springfield, Mo., May 27, 1989, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project.
28 Players had their own ways: Tim Cohane, “Cards’ Walker Cooper Draws $850 Penalty,” New York World-Telegram and Sun, Aug. 2, 1943.
29 The Yankees were so decimated: Heidenry and Topel, The Boys Who Were Left Behind, 44.
30 “Brownie town”: Ibid., 81.
16 | OLD NAVY BUDDIES
1 Keith Hernandez, interview, Nov. 10, 2008.
17 | THE WAR
1 “I was fortunate”: Musial, St. Louis, May 17, 1978, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project.
2 The people of Donora: “Donora Honors Musial,” Sporting News, Oct. 21, 1943.
3 “They were called into service”: Bimbo Cecconi, interview, Mar. 24, 2009.
4 Musial was playing: Heidenry and Topel, The Boys Who Were Left Behind, 116–17.
5 “A storm came out”: Richard Goldstein, Spartan Seasons: How Baseball Survived the Second World War (New York: Macmillan, 1980), 81–82.
6 As Litwhiler told it: Danny Litwhiler, with Jim Sargent, Danny Litwhiler: Living the Baseball Dream (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006), 86–87.
7 “The pilot gave me a seat”: Danny Litwhiler, interview, Apr. 2010.
8 “If I hadn’t done it”: Ed Linn, Hitter: The Life and Turmoils of Ted Williams (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993), 127.
9 “Doesn’t he know”: Richard Ben Cramer, Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), 198.
10 “People just don’t like”: Ibid., 200.
11 Joe D. had other trouble: Ibid., 207.
12 “I remember that very well”: Stan Musial, St. Louis, May 17, 1978, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project.
13 In January 1945: “Musial of Cards Accepted by Navy,” New York Times, Jan. 20, 1945.
14 “Why didn’t you tell me”: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 83.
15 Bill Dickey, the old Yankee catcher: Leigh Montville, Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 118.
16 “After bouncing around”: Frederick W. Turner, When the Boys Came Back: Baseball and 1946 (New York: Henry Holt, 1996).
17 Eager to please the brass: Goldstein, Spartan Seasons, 236.
18 He was also persuaded: Stewart, Stan the Man, 78.
19 “My five-year-old”: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 84. 116 Late in October: Montville, Ted Williams, 118.
20 “The day before I was scheduled”: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 84–85.
21 he did pitch in the minors: Letter from George Shuba, 2009. Shuba would recall bunting on Shepard and being secretly happy when the one-legged pitcher fielded the ball and threw him out.
22 “They sent the whole unit”: Turner, When the Boys Came Back, xiii.
23 “It happened right near the end”: Goldstein, Spartan Seasons, 252.
24 “All the guys”: George Vecsey, ed., The Way It Was: Great Sports Events from the Past (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974), 48.
25 Other Cardinals came back wounded: Turner, When the Boys Came Back, 6.
26 “Some of the guys”: Vecsey, ed., The Way It Was, 49.
27 “He stands in awe”: Tom Ashley, interview, 2009.
18 | CHECKS ALL OVER THE BED
1 Stan and Lil stared: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 90.
2 “Assassins of careers!”: Lowenfish, Branch Rickey, 393.
3 Willie Wells, an African American: Wendell Smith, Pittsburgh Courier, May 6, 1944.
4 “Same country you did”: George Vecsey, “Ray Dandridge, The Hall of Fame and ‘Fences,’ ” New York Times, May 10, 1987.
5 An American advance m
an: Mickey Owen, Springfield, Mo., May 27, 1989, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project.
6 “I don’t think I will go”: Giglio, Musial, 129.
7 “Stan, you’ve got two children”: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 91.
8 “Musial was smoking”: Mickey Owen, Springfield, Mo., May 27, 1989, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project. UK.
9 “As I recall”: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 90.
10 “Packing”: Ibid.
11 “I told ’em that I wasn’t”: Stan Musial, St. Louis, May 17, 1978, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project.
12 “Breadon said, ‘I want to see’ ”: Bob Broeg, interview, ESPN SportsCentury, Nov. 29, 2000.
13 Gardella, a fringe outfielder: Danny Gardella, Yonkers, N.Y., Aug. 27, 1980, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project.
14 “A little later on”: Stan Musial, St. Louis, May 17, 1978, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project.
15 “And Stan made a great decision”: Marty Marion, St. Louis, May 19, 1978, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project.
16 “I’m sure that he had signed”: Mickey Owen, Springfield, Mo., May 27, 1989, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project.
19 | JUBILEE
1 Much of this chapter and also Chapter Twenty-one is informed by conversations over the years with Joe Garagiola, Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Harry Walker, and also by a book I edited: The Way It Was: Great Sports Events from the Past, 33–51.
2 “He’d shake hands solemnly”: Red Schoendienst with Rob Rains: Red: A Baseball Life (Champaign, Ill.: Sports Publishing, 1998), 24.
3 “So you’re the little SOB”: Vecsey, ed., The Way It Was, 34.
4 “He had a bad knee”: Stan Musial, St. Louis, May 17, 1978, A. B. Chandler Oral History Project.
5 “I didn’t like first base”: Stan Musial: “The Man’s” Own Story, 104.
6 cornball music returned: Broeg, The Man Stan, 105.
7 “Terry would chew you out”: Vecsey, ed., The Way It Was, 35.
8 “Oh, man, we were fearless”: Ibid., 34.
9 Garagiola was outwardly brash: Broeg, The Man Stan, 164.