Stan Musial Journal - sydrogerdavid's Blog

sydrogerdavid's Blog

Stan Musial Journal

Posted on November 1, 2013 at 11:18 PM.

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This was written one day after Stan died.

Stan Musial Journal

I wish I could write this journal saying that I had a chance to meet Stan Musial. I hadn�t. I wish I could write this journal saying that I had seen Stan Musial with my own eyes. I hadn�t. Like so many others, I had only seen Stan Musial through the TV screen. I wish I could have grown up in an era where Stan Musial was the number one focus of St. Louis. Of course he has always been a main focus of St. Louis, but not always the number one focus.

I grew up in an era where baseball players were treated like the president. They have high security everywhere. It is difficult to get an autograph these days, and that�s just for the young guys or bench players. You can just forget about getting an autograph from Mark McGwire, Jim Edmonds, Edgar Renteria, or Albert Pujols after the 2006 season. I have a great appreciation for any ball player that goes over to the stands to sign autographs until game time. I�m getting off track a little here, but Brandon Phillips does this regularly. He knows where he came from and remembers being on the other side of that fence. This is what surprised me most about Stan Musial.

I can�t say the St. Louis media did Stan enough justice before he died. This is self evident in that I never knew he would sign everybody�s baseball. I had no idea he would stand there, for hours sometimes, signing in the player�s parking lot of the original Busch Stadium (Sportsman�s Park).

Stan Musial has been added to my growing list of dead men that I�m trying to live my life like. Some guys already on that list are Darryl Kile, Joe Paterno, and John Wooden. Now I will admit that Joe�s reputation has been called into major question after what Jerry Sandusky did to wreck Penn State, but we will never know what Joe knew or what he had to say, which is a shame in itself. All of these men share very similar qualities; they were incredibly loyal and incredibly friendly.

All of these men loved their families. They found the loves of their lives and stuck with them through all the problems. They were also loyal to their teams and teammates. They all played and coached their sports the right way. They were all honest and made friends with everybody. Most of all, they were all men of God. Everything they did was for the glory of God, which forced these men to put their all into everything they did. Something I wish I could do when it comes to homework.

They didn�t throw their lives away by partying, getting drunk, doing drugs, having sex with strangers, using profanity, or breaking the law. I wonder why more people don�t look up to guys like these. I understand why there aren�t more people like this, their uniqueness makes them special, but why would someone look up to bad guys who do party constantly, get drunk, do drugs, have sex with strangers, use profanity constantly, and break the law.
Out of all these guys, Stan Musial has jumped up to the number one spot in my people to look up to. He was the best out of all these guys. He was the best at what he did while being the nicest guy in the league. He didn�t give special treatment to anyone; he gave the same treatment to everyone. His treatment just happened to be extraordinary.