Musial to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom

I received my introduction to St. Louis Cardinals baseball at the perfect time. I was six years old when my dad first turned the radio to KOAM, 86 AM, and I heard Harry Caray and Jack Buck broadcasting the Cardinal games.

That first game made a fan of me forever as Cardinal catcher Gene Oliver won the game with a late inning home run.

I still remember the Cardinals from that year, Kenny Boyer from this area at third, Julio Gotay at short, Julian Javier at second and Bill White at first. The outfield, as I recall, has Charley James in right and Curt Flood in center.

Bob GIbson, Curt Simmons, and Ernie Broglio were among the starting pitchers and the manager was a man named Johnny Keane.

But the name that meant more than any was that of the left fielder, Stan Musial. It was Musial's next to last year in the major leagues, and I felt privileged that I got to listen to his last two years and even see him on the Game of the Week (which was broadcast on Saturday and Sunday with Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese).

Heartbreak came in 1963 when the Cardinals made one last ditch effort to put "The Man' back in the World Series. The Cardinals reached the Fall Classic in 1944 (the first all-Missouri Series against the St. Louis Browns), 1945, and 1946, but had fallen short for the next 16 years.

Sadly, they fell short again. Despite winning something like 19 of their last 20 games, they ended up one game short of the eventual world champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

And that spelled the end for Stan Musial's playing career. The next year, with new heroes like Lou Brock, Mike Shannon, Tim McCarver, and Ray Sadecki in the lineup the Cardinals made another late season sprint and this time reached the Series and beat the New York Yankees.

Two more Series appearance and another world championship came in 1967 and 1968, but even with all of that success and the success that came during the Herzog and LaRussa eras, Cardinal Nation's love of Stan Musial never faltered.

Tomorrow, Stan the Man will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a long overdue honor. It was never just about the records he set or championships he won. As columnist Joe Posnanski so eloquently pointed out earlier this year in Sports Illustrated, it was the way he went about his business. He showed up for work every day, gave it his best, and never bragged about it.

And, as Posnanski noted in his cover story, not once in his 22 years in the major leagues did an umpire ever kick Stan Musial out of a game.

In this era, when the name of Albert Pujols has become synonymous with St. Louis baseball it is revealing that Pujols asked Cardinal fans not to call him by the nickname "El Hombre." Of course, the translation for that Spanish phrase is "The Man."

And as Albert Pujols politely pointed out, in St. Louis, there is only one "man" and that is Stan Musial.