Stan Musial (49 page)

The funeral was private, attended by approximately forty members of the DiMaggio family along with a few remaining old friends and baseball officials, including Commissioner Bud Selig.
As the mourners left the church, we could spot a graying man with a ponytail, wearing “a new suit, and a new set of teeth, that a cousin had bought him for the occasion,” in the words of Richard Ben Cramer, DiMaggio’s biographer. That was Joe
junior, the Clipper’s only child. Six months later, Joe junior would die “from an overdose of crank, heroin mixed with crack cocaine,” according to Ben Cramer. In the days after the funeral, details emerged about the tension between brother Dom and lawyer Engelberg, who flashed a ring he claimed DiMaggio had given him on his deathbed.

The Kid died on July 5, 2002, after years of suffering. I had one of the last interviews with him, when he came to New York to plug a documentary on his old friend Hank Greenberg. Williams did not know me very well, but I pushed the right buttons to loosen him up, reminding him of an ankle-high catch he had made in his first old-timers’ game in Fenway in the early eighties. “Goddam right I did,” he roared. He was a rip, but he was suffering. “You sound like a nice guy,” he told me from a few feet away, which told me the man with the fighter pilot’s eyesight could now barely see.

Williams passed at the age of eighty-three, and the Red Sox put together a highly secular celebration. He had always wanted people to say of him, “There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.” The Sox displayed those words in huge letters on the message board.

In shimmering midsummer Fenway, more than ten thousand fans filed around the warning track to pay their respects to Williams. Young boys right out of a Norman Rockwell painting made leaping catches in front of the Green Monster in left field. Old-timer fans reminisced about Williams’s 521st and last home run, into an autumn gale, in September 1960. A black Marine sergeant stood on guard in front of Williams artifacts. The Kid’s old feuds with fans and reporters were long gone.

That night, with no regular game scheduled, the Sox held a memorial for Williams, with Dommie and Pesky arrayed near home plate. Williams’s old wing squadron leader from Korea, the former senator and former astronaut John Glenn, who once said the Kid was the greatest pilot he had ever seen, was there. And in huge limestone numbers on the dirt near third base was his batting average in 1941—the awesome figure of .406.

IN HIS
mid-eighties, Musial was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The family pitched in, learned about the illness, tried to keep him as active as possible, to reinforce his contact with the world. From Musial’s rare public
appearances, people figured out that this merry and decent force in their lives was fading away.

No longer able to tool around on his tractor, Stan enjoyed sitting outdoors, smoking a cigar, and watching the birds, even in the coldest weather.

When the children came home, they hoped to catch him on a good day. At Christmas 2009, Gerry drove in from Colorado with her daughter, Camille, and her family for a large dinner at Lester’s Sports Bar and Grill in Ladue, with its slightly larger-than-life statue of Stanley outside.

At the family Christmas gathering, Gerry watched her father, hoping to see traces of the jovial man who used to clown around with the children.

“
Back in the day, when Dad was his old self, and would shake the hand of a little kid, he would all of a sudden get a painful expression on his face and say ‘Ow!’ like the little one was so strong that he was hurting him,” Gerry said.

At that Christmas party in 2009, Gerry noticed her dad holding hands with her grandson, Clifford. “It was so touching,” she said. “Dad has gotten so quiet lately, not quite his old self. At one point though, he took his right hand and shook Clifford’s hand and did the old ‘Ow!’ to Clifford. Some of the old spark is left. It made us feel good.”

Having covered the deaths of DiMaggio and Williams, I knew that Musial’s funeral, whenever it happened, would be far more religious, far more civic, far more loving. Stan Musial might finally surpass the Clipper and the Kid. Posthumously.

T
HERE WAS
still a chance to get it right.

The 2009 All-Star Game was coming to the third Busch Stadium, and Musial’s fans were hoping for a Stanleyfest to match the emotional reception for Ted Williams in Boston ten years earlier.

By now, baseball had long since merged with show biz. The fans were connoisseurs of reality shows and makers of home videos, fancying themselves as potential Spielbergs. They remembered how Henry Aaron and Junior from Donora had physically and psychologically lifted the old pilot, giving him one more glory day in Fenway.

The Musial support system began to envision the worldwide television audience paying homage to Musial. They could imagine him responding to the crowd, feeling the love from all over the world, and willing himself back into The Stance, one more time. Or more likely, a few more times.

The Cardinal organization was always so nice to Musial, acknowledging him as the greatest Cardinal of all, introducing him on special occasions, giving him a motorized ride around the ballpark, the way Gussie Busch used to tour the premises behind his Clydesdales. Time was running out.

ON OPENING
day of 2009, Musial was driven onto the field for another ovation. Albert Pujols, sitting next to Musial on a golf cart, adjusted his red Cardinals jacket, while Musial’s left hand was braced on Pujols, the way an
old man will lean on a younger man, for strength. The body language was clear: Musial knew he was in the company of an equal, who had the strength and stature Stan had once enjoyed.

The next day there was a beautiful color photo in the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
of Pujols caring for Musial, deferring to him, not because time was on his side but because grace was in his soul.

Pujols was already a civic treasure—born in the Dominican Republic, moved to Kansas City in his teens, thoughtful and talented. With every Most Valuable Player Award, with every home run, with every charitable deed and gracious gesture, he became acknowledged as the greatest Cardinal hitter since Musial.

A few weeks after opening day in 2009, I asked Pujols about the moment captured in the photo. Pujols is a proud man, a solid citizen, and he does not chat idly with reporters, particularly strangers. He seemed a trifle mystified by my question, as if saying,
Look, this is what anybody would do
—treat an older man, particularly Stan Musial, with love and respect.

“
It was cold,” Pujols said. “His jacket wasn’t buttoned. I was afraid he would be cold out there.”

Musial and Pujols seemed almost mystically linked. Totally by accident, Musial happened to be in Denver at an autograph show when Pujols made his major-league debut on opening day in 2001 and thereby witnessed Pujols’s first hit.

Their mutual admiration cut through the mists of time. Whenever they were in the same place, Musial would perk up, as if somebody had injected him with youth serum.

Rick Hummel, the longtime baseball sage of St. Louis, witnessed this in July 2009 when Musial and Pujols were brought together for a photo shoot to prepare for the All-Star Game. At first they were polite, doing their job and looking at the camera, but to Hummel’s delight they soon began talking baseball: their stances, their bat sizes, their playing weights (175 to 240, to mutual amazement).

Sample:

Pujols left that photo shoot about six feet off the ground. Hit two homers that night. After that, Pujols put out the word around town. People had begun calling him “El Hombre,” but Pujols politely rejected that nickname. Never has a young superstar been so gracious to an old superstar.
There is only one Man in this town
, he said.

ALL OF
St. Louis began anticipating the 2009 All-Star Game, and the Cardinal front office began planning for an extravaganza, a night of nights.

Except for one detail beyond their control. Major League Baseball had invited the new American president, Barack Obama, to the game. It would be his first major baseball function since the inauguration in January. There was no political or social statement in the president’s invitation; given baseball’s vestigial status as national pastime, there is a standing invitation to any president to any baseball event.

The new president accepted. And nothing was ever the same. Whatever videos had been planned to depict the glory of Musial’s career were now downsized. A parade around the warning track? An honor guard of old teammates encircling him? His own harmonica rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”? Albert Pujols helping him take one more swing?

Whatever was in the hearts and minds of St. Louis impresarios, official and unofficial, was now obliterated by the hard reality of the White House and the Secret Service and the need for Major League Baseball to make the president the center of attention.

Nearly half a century earlier, Musial had been charmed by a charismatic young candidate named John F. Kennedy. Now he was overshadowed by protocol, by fate, by time, by another magnetic young president.

“
The whole dynamic changed,” said Dick Zitzmann, Musial’s business associate.

The Musial family could see it happening. There was nothing to do but show up.

“
Mom and I were worried because we had to go so early because of the security,” said Gerry Ashley, who understood that even Hall of Fame ballplayers must go into lockdown when a president is expected. Doors and corridors and rooms that are normally available are suddenly unavailable.

The Musials were legitimately concerned that the weary man might get upset and ask to go home, but something wonderful happened: in the company of fellow Hall of Famers—Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Bruce Sutter, Ozzie Smith, and, of course, Red—a version of the old Stanley emerged. He passed the time chatting with them, being one of the boys, until it was time to go on the field.

Musial was the last player to be introduced. Wearing a red jacket, riding in from center field in a cart, his grandson Brian Schwarze at his side, he carried the ceremonial first ball, as cameras flashed and people cheered.

Then President Obama was introduced. The athletic basketball player bounced up the dugout steps, wearing blue jeans and a Chicago White Sox jacket, striding over to Musial’s cart, taking the ball from Musial. The president then made the ceremonial first pitch to Pujols, bouncing the ball in the dirt.

The moment passed quickly—nothing like the swarm of love for Williams in 1999—and the Musials reconvened in a suite high above the field.

To their delight, the president arrived later, chatting with everybody. Stan was pretty low-key, but Lil, ever the social director, took charge.

“My mom, knowing that Obama likes basketball, told him, ‘Stan was offered a scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh but he turned it down to play baseball,’ ” Gerry Ashley reported.

With his winning smile, Obama told Lil: “I guess he made the right decision.”

Already an Obama fan, Gerry was totally charmed.

“Obama’s so cute,” she said.

Not everybody was charmed. Part of the annoyance might have been political, but most of it stemmed from the civic hero’s rule having been minimized once again.

“For the next three days, all of St. Louis was on the talk radio,” Gerry
said. “They kept saying that Major League Baseball had promised the same thing it did for Ted Williams.”

Reflecting the mood of her hometown, Gerry concluded: “Same old, same old.”

FEELING THE
rush of time, in 2010 the Cardinals picked up on a suggestion five years earlier by the
Post-Dispatch
columnist Bernie Miklasz that Musial deserved the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which had been given to other prominent athletes including, yes, DiMaggio and Williams.

William O. DeWitt Jr., the owner of the club, approved a sophisticated electronic campaign called “Stand for Stan.” DeWitt formally nominated Musial for the medal, and fans seconded the motion through the Cardinal website.
Often they were photographed in ballparks or more exotic settings with a flat cartoon likeness of Musial, adapted from the Flat Stanley series, used in literary programs.

“
The day we started, the team was in San Diego, and there were fans in the stands with Flat Stanley posters,” said Ron Watermon, the Cardinal official who led the project. The campaign was backed up by two Missouri senators and one Illinois senator and the White House staff presented a list to President Obama, including the aging gentleman the president had met at the 2009 All-Star Game.

On November 17, 2010, the White House announced that Musial was to receive the medal, along with Bill Russell, the great center of the Boston Celtics, and former President George H. W. Bush and other prominent Americans as well as German chancellor Angela Merkel.
DeWitt and everybody else who congratulated Musial reported that he felt honored and humbled by the news.

Stan and Lil were flown to Washington for the ceremony on February 15, 2011, on a plane provided by Bill DeWitt. All four children were there, Dick and Gerry, Janet and Jeanne, bubbling to be with their parents on this day. In the East Room of the White House, wearing his Cardinal red jacket, Musial sat quietly as President Obama raved about his playing career and then recalled how Musial once requested a cut in pay when he had a bad year.

“You can imagine that happening today,” the president said drily.

Then Obama reminded the guests that there was so much more to this man: “Stan remains, to this day, an icon, untarnished; a beloved pillar of the community; a gentleman you’d want your kids to emulate.”

In the presence of two presidents, poets and cellists, philanthropists and activists, Musial was being honored as a good citizen, a role model, the American success story. Somehow, through all the hairstyles and music styles, the wars and the booms and the recessions, he had played by the rules, had done things right, had met the ball squarely.