What’a Ya Say?

Stan the Man has died and, alone, I shed some significant tears this morning because he was The Man!
by Charlie Leck

“Here stands baseball’s perfect warrior. Here stands baseball’s perfect knight.”

It was there in the newspaper this morning. I opened the local paper’s electronic version on my computer and browsed the front page. There, at the bottom, was the link to a story on the sports page: Stan the Man Musial Dies! [Sports, Page 3]. Appropriately, the story was filed out of St. Louis by the Post-Dispatch.

I’ll tell you this, I didn’t hit the link real quickly. I sat looking at the little headline and I said something like this to myself, “Hmph!”

And then, in the silence of a Minnesota winter morning, in my deathly quiet house with only the sound of a distant dog bark, I heard Stan the Man himself. It was unmistakable.

“What’aya say? What’aya say!”

I think Stan had the little greeting copyrighted. It belonged to him. He owned it. Or perhaps it owned him. It was the way he greeted people – strangers, old friends, a handful of people or a crowded room.

He always fell back on it. He wasn’t a handy speaker. He was edgy around lots of people. He was awkward about his fame and stardom. That little “what’a ya say” seemed to help him out.

It was always said with a broad smile and bright, sparkling, slightly nervous eyes!

Those of us who loved him simply called him “The Man.”

Feeling pretty glum, I turned to page 3 in sports section and there was the page headline: So Long to the Man!

They gave him the name in Brooklyn. The Dodger fans there had one of the most beautiful love/hate relationships you could ever imagine. Musial used to come into Ebbets Field and tear the place up. He was so good in that ballpark that the fans of the home team gave him a ton of grudging respect.

“Who dat?”

“Dat? Dat’s Stan the Man.”

I was at Ebbets Field one night when the Dodgers were playing the Cardinals. Musial was my man. I loved him! I followed him as closely as I could, watching him on TV as often as I could, listening to his games on the powerful radio station from St. Louis – picking up the static-filled play by play of his games all the way back in New Jersey. Well, that night in Brooklyn, Musial came to bat in the middle of the game somewhere and the crowd gave him the usual friendly boo-job. The Man just smiled in a friendly, happy way and crouched in the batter’s box in his usual and very unique stance. Somebody (maybe big Don Newcome) fired a fastball in on The Man and he swung gracefully, but with enormous bat speed and caught the ball flush. It was a high, hard line drive to right field and it kept climbing. It crashed into the big screen that protected Flatbush Avenue up there at the top of the big scoreboard. Both the center fielder and the right fielder rushed to the spot where it might fall to the ground, but no ball game down. The two outfielders looked at themselves and then looked up toward the screen. There it was! He struck it so solidly that it hit the screen so hard and jammed itself right there in the diamond-shaped opening of the mesh screen.

The fans hooted and hollered and the umpires stopped The Man at second base with a “ground rule double.” The laughter around the stadium was immense when the ground crew brought out a giant extension ladder and hoisted it up to where the ball was, thirty or forty feet above the ground. They clapped and howled while a guy carefully climbed the ladder and pried the ball out of the screen. They applauded him wildly when the ball released and he climbed down like a victorious champion as they cheered him. He waved the ball joyfully at the crowd as he and the rest of the crew left the field. Musial stood on second base laughing and jawing it up with the shortstop, Pee Wee Reese.

The Man owned Brooklyn. They loved him! And so did I.

I’m not going into all his enormous records and achievements here. I’ll tell you this: Stan the Man was one of the four or five greatest hitters of all times. He’s right there with guys like Ty Cobb and Ted Williams. He played in every All Star game in each of his full seasons in Major League Baseball. And here’s an odd statistic for you. In his career he got 3,630 hits – and 1,815 of them were at home in St. Louis and 1,815 of were on the road, in other ball parks. If he was anything, he was consistent. He had a career batting average of .331.

And, he was also a purely nice guy. Umpires loved him, opposing players loved him and the fans of the game loved him. Pitchers? Well, not so much! Sal Magly, the great pitcher for the NY Giants during the Musial years called him the best hitter he ever went up against and “also the nicest guy I ever knew.”

One time, as a little leaguer, at our season ending banquet, Tom Gorman, a great major league baseball umpire, was the guest speaker. One of the questions was about the best hitter Gorman ever saw. There was no hesitation. Gorman said that Musial “was something special.”

“I’ll tell you,” Gorman said, without hesitation, “if Stan Musial took a pitch with a 3 and 2 count, as an umpire, you knew it was a ball. No question! He had the finest set of eyes of any ball player in my career.”

In St. Petersburg, in 1972 (I think it was), the company I was working for booked me into Stan Musial’s hotel in that city. I checked in and went to the elevator to take it to my room. A few people gathered behind me and moved into the cabinet of the elevator when the doors slid open. At the back of the elevator, I turned around to face forward and I saw him sliding in with the rest of the people. I gasped.

“Stan Musial,” I stuttered, like a small boy, overwhelmed by the site of my incredible hero. He heard me and looked me in the eye.

“What’a ya say? What’a ya say!” He stuck out his hand to shake mine.

Somehow, stuttering and shaking, I let him know how much I had loved watching him play and what an immense fan I was.

“You checkin’ in?”

“Well, yes, sir! We’re having sales meetings here this week!”

“Good, good,” he said. “Put your bags in your room and come on up to the penthouse and have a drink with me.”

I looked at him in amazement.

“Really! Just take the elevator to the top floor and knock on the only door up there. Great view! We’ll chat for a little while.”

And, I did. The great man introduced me to his lovely wife, poured me a drink, pushed some pretzels out across the bar and came around and sat on a stool next to me. We chatted for fifteen or twenty minutes about the ballgames I’d seen and how I idolized him. Stan loved his fans. He got out a photograph of himself, in his batting stance ,in his Cardinal uniform, and he autographed it and gave it to me. It hangs on the wall near this desk and I can see it as I write this.

I saw him a number of years later, too, when we were guests of Augie Busch at a Cardinal World Series game against Milwaukee. I flew down there with one of the boys. We had first row box seats very near third base. Musial, in a bright (cardinal) red blazer came walking along the track, shaking hands with folks in the boxseats. When he got to me and we shook, he looked at me as if he remembered something.

“Maybe ten years ago! In your suite in St. Pete,” I said. “We had a couple of beers together.”

His eyes brightened and he, at least, pretended to remember.

“What’a ya say? What’a ya say!”

He shook my hand again and then moved on down the field.

I’m no youngster with stars in his eyes, but, I’m here to tell you, that I loved that man – The Man – like no other figure in the entire sports world. And, today, I’m a bit sad.

But, you all know how I feel about this. He’s got the best seat in the house now! Out there among those stars, he’ll watch it all and he’ll be smiling widely.

Way to go Stan! Way to go!

In 2011, at the White House, President Obama presented Mr. Musial with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor bestowed upon a civilian.

Upon his retirement in 1963, the Commissioner of Baseball, Ford C. Frick, said of Musial: “Here stands baseball’s perfect warrior. Here stands baseball’s perfect knight.”

"What’a ya say, Stan! What’a ya say!”

Read the Post-Dispatch story here (you can also watch a video of Musial hitting)

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Take a look at this fantastic midsummer night’s sight in Poland!
by Charlie Leck

On Tuesday last week, the community of Poznan, in Poland, established a new world record when they released 8,000 Chinese lanterns in celebration of the shortest period of darkness of the year – Midsummer’s Night. The lanterns rose into the sky, making an incredible and delightful sight and music played on in the background.

Watch the video below. I found this on my favorite web site, Open Culture, which is also currently featuring, in memory of Peter Falk (one of my favorite all-time actors), a scene from the movie Wings of Desire. One can get lots of free classic films through Open Culture. Right now you can also watch Andy Warhol eat a hamburger, which is quite an extraordinary sight. Visit Open Culture often at http://www.openculture.com

I hope my favorite Pole, Stanley (Stanislawa) Musial, gets to watch this video. He’s in his twilight years now but still the great slugger in my mind. I just finished reading George Vecsey’s wonderful book about him, Stan Musial: An American Life [read Hardball Times review of the book here]. Oh, how Stan the Man loves his father’s homeland. He’s built ballfields over there and contributed thousands of bats, balls, uniforms and St. Louis Cardinal paraphernalia to the kids of that nation.

A wonderful hometown friend of mine when we were kids, Charlie Adams, sent me the neatest signed Stan Musial poster a number of years ago and I love that thing. It just showed up in the mail one day. At the time, Charlie was a sports memorabilia dealer in Atlanta. I’ve since lost touch with him and I’m upset about that. If any of you know anything about Charlie, please let me know.

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1946 World Series

I have a distinct memory of a classic baseball World Series that was played nearly 64 years ago, when I was only six years old!
by Charlie Leck

I have no business remembering anything about the 1946 World Series, but I do (well, sort of). I had just turned 6 years old – a month before the World Series began – and six year olds shouldn’t be baseball savvy. However, I was. I had a father who was a baseball nut and the radio in the store was always tuned in to the New York Giant baseball games – nearly every day during the summer. My grandfather (my mother’s father) was also baseball crazy and he was a Brooklyn Dodger fan. And, I had a brother, John, who was six years older than I and he was a St. Louis Cardinal fan and also baseball crazy. I used to sit with my dad or my grandpa and listen to baseball games on the big radios that each kept nearby during baseball season. I was an early reader and could read bits of stories in the sports section of the New York Herald Tribune – and I loved the constant baseball photographs the paper ran during the summer.

And 1946 was an absolutely crazy baseball season. It began less than a year after the war ended. Many of the great, professional players of the game had been in one branch of the military or another. A number of them came home with serious injuries that ended their careers. Others came home great heroes – none greater than Ted Williams, the remarkable Boston Red Sox slugger who distinguished himself as a pilot during the war.

Ted Williams signed up with a naval reserve unit in Massachusetts and missed three years of an extraordinary baseball career. Williams was a natural athlete and quickly mastered the skills of flying and became a pilot instructor. This player, who has often been called the greatest hitter in the history of the game, also became a national war hero.

So, William’s team, the Red Sox, won the American League championship in 1946 and the St. Louis Cardinals won the National League championship as they had been making a habit of doing. They would meet in the World Series that has often been called the greatest in the history of baseball. What would I as a six year old ever know about that?

The St. Louis Cardinals, my brother’s team, managed to catch the Brooklyn Dodgers, my grandpa’s team, on the final day of the 1946 season to tie them for the National League championship. The tie called for the first best-of-three-game playoff of the century. The first game was played in St. Louis and the Cardinals won, 4-2. Both teams boarded trains and headed to New York, where the playoff series would continue.

I remember my brother and father jumping for joy on the day of that game at Ebbet’s Field. Though a Giant fan, my father hated the Dodgers and he was pulling mightily for the Cardinals. Harry “the Cat’ Brecheen pitched for the Cardinals in that game and beat the Bums 6-4. The Cardinals boarded a train to return to St. Louis and the first game of the World Series.

The games of the Fall Classic in those days were played during the day – under beautiful, natural sunlight and great big, blue skies. The first game was played on a Sunday. In the afternoon, my father and brother huddled near a radio to hear the play by play call of every pitch. I sat nearby, listening to the radio and to the comments of my dad and brother. The Red Sox won the first game in extra innings before 36,000 fans in old Sportsman Park. My brother was depressed and so was my father and, therefore, so was I; however, the Cardinals won the next day (Monday) 3-0. I can remember rushing home from school and listening to the last innings of the game in our little living room in front of a radio that was bigger than our TVs of today. Harry Brecheen pitched magnificently and shut the Red Sox out completely. My father was extremely happy and my brother, who had dashed home from school to listen with me, was beaming with happiness also.

The series would take a day off as the players climbed on trains and headed for Boston. The next game would be played on Wednesday, October 9. Again, I rushed down the hill from our elementary school to join my father as he listened to the broadcast of the game. My father, brother and I were all very depressed when the Red Sox won the game 4-0. But, the next day, I scampered home from the school to listen to the radio, the Cardinals were way ahead in the game when I got home and it ended with the Cards ahead 12-3. They’d collected 20 hits – 4 of them by my brother’s favorite player, Enos (Country Boy) Slaughter.

Boston struck back on the next day and won the game 6-3. Slaughter got hit on the elbow by a Joe Dobson pitch. The Cardinal doctor felt that Slaughter couldn’t play again in the series; however, he had a travel day as the teams headed back to St. Louis. Slaughter iced and nursed the elbow as the train traveled through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana.

On Sunday, October 13, in the sixth game of the series in St. Louis, Slaughter was in the line-up and the Cardinals evened up the series 3-3. Again, it was Harry Brecheen on the pitcher’s mound for the Cardinals and he gave up only a single run in the 8^th inning.

“If I’m alive, I can play,” Slaughter had said before the game.

The final game of the World Series was played on a Tuesday afternoon. My father was working his luncheonette and general store, but the radio was booming and every customer spent some moments listening to the action. My father listened to it all as he rushed around in his store giving attention to customers, but my brother and I sat in our little living room, glued to the action. My mother made big roast beef sandwiches on buns for us.

If it wasn’t the greatest World Series in the history of baseball, it was certainly one of the top ones for excitement and drama; and that may be why I, as a six year old, can remember the action and detail. And it was the excitement and drama of game seven that makes the Series stand out in the history of baseball.

The Red Sox had an awesome team, loaded with stars: In addition to Williams, the Sox had Dom DiMaggio in center field, Johnny Pesky at shortstop and Bobby Doerr at second base. Rudy York played first base. That Boston team had six regulars hitting better than 300 for the season. Williams led them all at 342. However, newspaper reporters, guys Ted Williams liked to call “the Knights of the Keyboard,” reminded everyone that the American League was loaded with weak pitching.

The Cardinals were loaded, too. They had Musial at first, Red Schoendienst (another hall of famer) at second base. Marty Marion played next to Red at shortstop. They had only three regulars hitting in the 300 or more range, but Schoendienst (281), Marion (233) and Terry Moore (263) were all hitting well at the end of the season.

Of course, the two great stars going into the series were Ted Williams and Stan Musial. How different they were. Williams was curt, brash and sarcastic with nearly everyone and certainly with the reporters. He didn’t want to be bothered by other players, the press or the fans. Musial, who had a fantastic year and hit 365 for the season, with 228 hits in 624 at bat, was the direct opposite of Williams. He was friendly with everyone, including the press. He happily gave out all the autographs that he possibly could and was constantly smiling and laughing.

For the aficionados of baseball, one of the memorable strategies discussed for years was the Cardinals’ decision to shift their infield to the right field side whenever Williams came to bat. Leaving only one infielder (third baseman, Whitey Kurowski) on the left field side, they dared Williams to stroke the ball rather than swinging with power. Of course, the stubborn Williams refused to alter his swing and batted only 200 for the Series. Some years later, Musial was impetuous enough to say that he would have “hit a ton” in a situation like that.

What I remember more than the games about that series was the closeness of my father and my brother and I – as we – huddled near the radio. We were all so close together that our nervousness and excitement was shared intimately. Every moment was tense and thrilling. The play-by-play announcers were extraordinary and maybe somewhat hyperbolic and dramatic. There is something very special about listening to a game rather than watching it. A good radio play-by-play guy paints pictures for the listeners so that the game actually becomes auditory or audile (images in the mind) for the careful listener.

Ted Williams, still facing the challenging infield shift, was trying to pull the ball hard and over the right field fence, but he had no success. The Cardinal pitcher, Murray Dickson, retired eighteen of nineteen batters from the second to the seventh inning. In the eighth inning the Cardinals brought in Harry Brecheen to relieve Dickson. Brecheen had pitched the entire nine innings of the game two days previously (something that modern teams would never do). The Cardinals were ahead by two runs at the time and Brecheen entered, with two men on, to face Dom DiMaggio. Joe’s brother slashed a double into the corner and both runners scored to tie the game. Running to second base, however, Dimaggio pulled a hamstring muscle and had to leave the game. It would prove to be a disastrous injury for the Boston team.

Williams stepped into the batter’s box to face Brecheen and the Cardinal’s infield shift. He popped up to the second baseman to end the inning.

Enos Slaughter, with the sore elbow, was the first batter in the bottom of the eighth and he lined a single to center field. Two outs later, however, he was still on first base. Harry Walker, a 237 hitter during the regular season, came up to the plate. Walker had been swinging well during the World Series and was filled with confidence. He was about to be involved in one of the most thrilling moments in the history of baseball.

With two balls and one strike on him, Walker stroked the next pitch smoothly and lined it into left center field. Slaughter, who had been running on the pitch, easily rounded second and headed for third base. Dom DiMaggio’s replacement in center field, Leon Culberson, was out of position and playing too far toward right field. Culberson raced over to the ball and bobbled it slightly and then threw it casually to shortstop Johnny Pesky, the cutoff man in the infield.

Slaughter had become known in baseball at the greatest hustler in the history of the game. He was loaded with guts and daring. Without stopping and without looking back, from pure baseball instinct he knew that Pesky would never expect him to keep running. Slaughter slowed for just an instant, to decoy Pesky, and then took off at full speed toward home plate. Pesky hesitated for just an instant, but it was the split second that Slaughter needed. Pesky’s throw was hurried and up the line. Slaughter slid home a hero. Pesky hung his head, unfairly, as the game’s goat.

Through the wonder of You Tube, you can see the dash Slaughter made from first base on the very ordinary single and how the throw from Pesky was off target.

Harry the Cat gave up two hits in the ninth inning but then retired the next three batters and the Cardinals were the World Series champions. And I became an ardent Cardinal fan and Stan Musial became my lifelong idol (“blind admiration, adoration or devotion,” the dictionary says). He had played in four World Series in his first five years in baseball. After 1946, he would not play in another.

Now, to defend my assertion that I can remember all of this 64 years later, while only a six year old at the time, I must tell you that I have read dozens and dozens of baseball books over the years, and I’ve heard the story of Enos Slaughter’s famous dash from first base to home plate many times. I recognize that my memory, therefore, is likely adulterated by the attention I’ve given to this historic baseball moment throughout my life. Nevertheless, I defend to my last breath the paragraph about the closeness and nervousness I felt with my brother and my father as we listened to those ballgames together.

You can watch another You Tube video that presents nearly three minutes of highlights from the ’46 World Series.

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