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An American Life
Ballantine
May 2011
On Sale: May 10, 2011
Featuring: Stan Musial
400 pages
ISBN: 0345517067
EAN: 9780345517067
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
When baseball fans voted on the top twenty-five players of
the twentieth century in 1999, Stan Musial didn’t make the
cut. This glaring omission—later rectified by a panel of
experts—raised an important question: How could a
first-ballot Hall of Famer, widely considered one of the
greatest hitters in baseball history, still rank as the most
underrated athlete of all time? In Stan Musial,
veteran sports journalist George Vecsey finally gives this
twenty-time All-Star and St. Louis Cardinals icon the kind
of prestigious biographical treatment previously afforded to
his more celebrated contemporaries Ted Williams and Joe
DiMaggio. More than just a chronological recounting of the
events of Musial’s life, this is the definitive portrait of
one of the game’s best-loved but most unappreciated legends,
told through the remembrances of those who played beside,
worked with, and covered “Stan the Man” over the course of
his nearly seventy years in the national
spotlight. Stan Musial never married a starlet. He
didn’t die young, live too hard, or squander his talent.
There were no legendary displays of temper or moodiness. He
was merely the most consistent superstar of his era, a
scarily gifted batsman who compiled 3,630 career hits (1,815
at home and 1,815 on the road), won three World Series
titles, and retired in 1963 in possession of seventeen
major-league records. Away from the diamond, he proved a
savvy businessman and a model of humility and graciousness
toward his many fans in St. Louis and around the world. From
Keith Hernandez’s boyhood memories of Musial leaving tickets
for him when the Cardinals were in San Francisco to the
little-known story of Musial’s friendship with novelist
James Michener—and their mutual association with Pope John
Paul II—Vecsey weaves an intimate oral history around one of
the great gentlemen of baseball’s Greatest Generation.
There may never be another Stan the Man, a fact that
future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols—reluctantly nicknamed “El
Hombre” in Musial’s honor—is quick to acknowledge. But
thanks to this long-overdue reappraisal, even those who took
his greatness for granted will learn to appreciate him all
over again.
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