Stan the Man was more versatile than you knew
I think the reason I am so enamored with HOFer Stan Musial is that unlike HOFers Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio, (for example) Musial was still playing when I was born. As was the great HOFer Ted Williams. Of course, I was three when Stan the Man retired after the 1963 season, and I hadn’t yet turned one when the Splendid Splinter hung up his spikes in 1960.
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My son and I just did a podcast about the greatness and the everlasting myths of Stan Musial and Ted Williams. It’s in part because we don’t watch much film of their careers other than the grainy black and white images you sometimes see. So, all we have are the numbers, the stories and their reputations.
I saw Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays play although it was much later in their careers since Mantle retired after the 1968 season and Mays after the 1973 season. It was easy since I lived in New York, both played in New York and Willie came back from San Francisco finished his career with my beloved Mets.
As players Musial and Williams remain almost mythological to me. My recollection of Musial after his career is him standing with a bunch of guys wearing a Cardinal’s red blazer. There wasn’t much film to watch. Even less for Williams and I knew better that Williams managed the Washington Senators from 1969–72 following the team to Texas for that 1972 season. That was a season in which the Rangers went 54–100 — their third straight losing season signaling the end of his managing career at age 53.
How does Stan the Man stand up to Teddy Ballgame? Pretty darned well.
Musial had the longer career
Before 1961 there were only eight teams in each league so neither Wiliams nor Musial had their careers positively impacted by the thinning of the pitching ranks with the addition of the new Washington Senators (the old ones moved to Minnesota that year), and California Angels in 1961 and the Mets and Astros (nee Colt-45’s) in 1962. They both were too late in their career to really benefit from hitting against some guys that would have been minor leaguers a few years prior.
Their careers compare favorably, but as a batter, Ted Williams with a career OPS+ of 191, more home runs playing 734 fewer games than Musial, was in a class by himself and still may be. Both of their careers were interrupted by WWII military service, Williams serving three years to Musial’s one. 19 seasons total for Williams vs. 22 for Musial allowed Stan to aggregate more RBIs in addition to total hits and plate appearances.
Musial was first a pitcher in the minor leagues until an arm injury forestalled his pitching career and in Furman Bisher’s book ‘Strange but True Baseball Stories’ from 1966 I remember a scout was quoted as saying about Musial, “That man’s not a pitcher, he’s a hitter!” or something like that. I love that story even if it’s not true.
Missing one year in his prime did impact Musial’s career stats
I liked this tidbit from Paul White’s excellent Substack last week:
I failed to note Veteran’s Day on Monday, so to make up for that let’s also note that it was the anniversary of Navy veteran Stan Musial winning his first MVP Award in 1943. He won his first of seven batting titles that year, and also led the league in hits, doubles, triples, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS+, total bases, and WAR while helping the Cardinals win the pennant. Not a bad year.
Since Musial missed only one season during World War II, he sometimes isn’t mentioned with the likes of Ted Williams, Hank Greenberg, Bob Feller, and others who lost several years’ worth of statistics to military service. But that one missing year in Musial’s case likely cost him quite a few milestones.
Taking the average of the four seasons immediately around the one he missed in 1945, the two before that year and the two after he returned, Musial likely lost something like 207 hits, 114 runs, 45 doubles, 17 triples, 15 homers, 93 RBI, 79 walks, and 8.2 WAR off his career totals. Add those onto what he actually accomplished, and he would have surpassed 2,000 career runs scored, 2,000 RBI, and would have been knocking on the door of 500 home runs. Plus, he’d have hit 770 career doubles, which would have put him second all-time and within shouting distance of Tris Speaker for number one overall at 792. He’d have 3,837 hits, which would have moved him past Henry Aaron for third place on the all-time list. He also would have moved into the all-time top 10 in triples, walks, and WAR.
So Happy Veterans Day to Seaman Second Class Stanley Frank Musial, who sacrificed a bit of personal glory in service to his country.
Musial could have had 500 career homers
Musial had 475 career home runs so it’s possible he might have hit 25 in 1945, even though his consistent power came later in his career, and he didn’t bash more than 19 home runs over the first five full seasons of his career.
Even casual baseball fans might know that of Musial’s 3,630 career base hits, 1,815 were achieved on the road and 1,815 in home games. That’s amusing but really nothing more.
However, what I found to be extremely interesting was the way Musial was used defensively. I had always thought him to be a decent outfielder although Baseball-Reference.com does not agree as Musial had a career -9.2 dWAR.
Between the outfield and first base
Below is Stan Musial’s Baseball-Reference.com list of appearances in the field
Musial came up as an outfielder for 12 games in 1941. He exclusively played the outfield — all three positions sometimes within the same season, until he returned from military service in 1946. A season in which he won his 2nd MVP. Yet at age 25 Musial played only 42 games in Left Field, playing 114 at first base. In case you don’t recall, the Cardinals won their sixth World Series since 1926 that season and it was Musial’s third championship season in six years (five seasons since he missed 1945).
When outfielders are moved to first base seldom will they play significantly in the outfield ever again. Not Stan Musial. He played 149 games at first base the next season in 1947 but moved back to the outfield for the 1948 and 1949 seasons playing only three games at first base over those two seasons. Then it got even more weird.
Back and forth he goes
From 1950–52 Musial spit his time between the outfield and first base. He played a third of the time at first and the other two-thirds of the time in the outfield over those two seasons. The next season in 1957 he played all 157 games (!) in the outfield. Wait, how did Musial play in 157 games when the season was only 154 games? And the Cardinals finished third in the NL far behind the Milwaukee Braves so there were no postseason play-in games. I am not sure. Maybe rainouts in which stats were kept could be a possible explanation?
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After 1953 he played only 10 games at first base in 1954 before becoming a mostly first baseman for the next five seasons. Musial played outfield sporadically from 1954–59 but never more than 51 games. Then the strangest thing happened, Musial moved back to primarily play outfield for the remainder of his career! This happened in the season he turned 39 years old. Who moves back to the outfield at the end of his career? Stan. The. Man.
I can’t think of another player who had this sort of cadence between outfield and first base — or any infield position. Can you imagine Bryce Harper returning to the outfield?
The greatness that was Stan Musial should include his positional versatility!
About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com
