A pair of giants of yesteryear from our National Pastime passed last weekend.\u00a0 Earl Weaver and Stan Musial both died Saturday.<\/p>\n
Both are members of the MLB Hall of Fame.\u00a0 Both were IMO deserving of Cooperstown.<\/p>\n
They were as different as chalk and cheese.<\/p>\n
Stan the Man<\/span><\/p>\n Musial was an amazing player; his career statistics speak for themselves<\/a>.\u00a0 Musial retired in 1963, yet still ranks 4th all-time in hits.\u00a0 He had a career batting average of .331, a career on-base percentage of .417, and a career slugging percentage of .559; his career spanned 22 seasons.\u00a0 Had he not missed the 1945 season due to wartime service in the Navy, Musial would almost certainly have joined Ruth and Aaron as the only 500 HR\/2,000 RBI\/2,000 runs scored players in baseball history (he finished with 475 HR, 1951 RBI, and 1949 runs scored).\u00a0 He might also be 3rd in career hits \u2013 Musial\u2019s less than 150 hits behind Aaron, and averaged 199+ hits per year from 1943-1957.<\/p>\n Musial was indeed a great player.\u00a0 But by all accounts, Musial was an even better man.\u00a0 There are many anecdotes; two will suffice<\/a> to show his character.<\/p>\n Joe Black, an African-American, was pitching for the visiting Brooklyn Dodgers during the early part of baseball\u2019s integrated era.\u00a0 At the time, Black was racially taunted by players in the St. Louis dugout during a game.<\/p>\n Musial, batting at the time, stepped out and angrily kicked the dirt to convey his disapproval. Stan waited for Black after the game, shook his hand and said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry that happened. But don\u2019t you worry about it. You\u2019re a great pitcher. You will win a lot of games.\u201d Black said Musial\u2019s support helped him gain the confidence he needed to become a top pitcher.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Willie Mays had a similar story concerning an All-Star Game in the late 1950s.\u00a0 That year, the National League squad had seven black players.\u00a0 Race relations were still somewhat tense.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were in the back of the clubhouse playing poker and none of the white guys had come back or said, \u2018Hi,\u2019 or \u2018How\u2019s it going?\u2019 or \u2018How you guys doing?\u2019 or \u2018Welcome to the All-Star Game.\u2019 Nothing,\u201d Mays said. \u201cWe\u2019re playing poker and all of a sudden I look up and here comes Stan toward us. He grabs a chair, sits down and starts playing cards with us. And Stan didn\u2019t know how to play poker! But that was his way of welcoming us, of making us feel a part of it. I never forgot that. We never forgot that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Stan Musial has been referred to as \u201cbaseball\u2019s perfect knight\u201d.\u00a0 From all accounts, he deserved that accolade.<\/p>\n Stan Musial died at his home late in the day on January 19, 2013, aged 92.\u00a0 He was preceded in death by his wife Lillian last year.\u00a0 At the time of her death, they’d been married over 71 years<\/em>.<\/p>\n Rest in peace, Mr. Musial.\u00a0 It’s said you had no enemies.\u00a0 I can believe that.<\/p>\n The Earl of Baltimore <\/span><\/p>\n If Musial was chalk, then Earl Weaver was cheese \u2013 an extra sharp cheddar, or perhaps a spicy pepper jack.\u00a0 His career in MLB began a few years after Musial\u2019s ended.<\/p>\n Weaver never reached the majors as a player; he bounced around the minors for years before realizing he simply didn\u2019t have the talent.\u00a0 But he had a keen, analytical mind; an excellent eye for talent, including determining strengths and shortcomings; and an in-depth understanding of the game.<\/p>\n Weaver was no saint and no gentleman.\u00a0 He grew up during the depression in Saint Louis – hard times.\u00a0 He was a short man, and often acted as if he had a chip on his shoulder.\u00a0 He had a volcanic temper, and was profane.\u00a0 He still holds the AL record for total number of times ejected from a game during a career (various sources give the number of Weaver\u2019s ejections as being from 91 to 97).<\/p>\n Some of his eruptions and grudges are legendary.\u00a0 Like this Weaver blowup<\/a> – caught on video because the umpire involved, Bill Haller, was participating in a documentary project and wearing a microphone that day. (WARNING \u2013 LINK IS ABSOLUTELY NOT SAFE FOR WORK OR CHILDREN)<\/i><\/strong>\u00a0 Weaver\u2019s running feud with one umpire, Ron Luciano, was so well-known that his own team reputedly ran a betting pool<\/a> on what inning Weaver would get tossed from the game by Luciano. And Weaver’s gag \u201cManager\u2019s Corner\u201d tape from 1980 \u2013 done as a joke<\/a> after a flubbed take for an episode of the program \u2013 has become an Internet classic<\/a> (AGAIN, WARNING \u2013 LINK IS ABSOLUTELY NOT SAFE FOR WORK OR CHILDREN).<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n Yet Weaver was far from merely a profane clown.\u00a0 He was a truly great manager and baseball strategist.\u00a0 For his career, his teams won nearly 60% of their games (.583 winning percentage).\u00a0 Weaver was a pioneer of the use of statistics to govern in-game match-ups and replacements.\u00a0 He also was one of the first (if not the first) to use radar guns to track the speed of pitches during spring training.<\/p>\n His philosophy was that talented players made the manager, not the other way around – and that it was the manager’s job to put his players into situations where they could excel.\u00a0 Weaver did.<\/p>\n Regardless of whether he was loved or hated by others, his team produced.\u00a0 During his 17 years as manager, Weaver’s teams won 100 games five times; won six division titles and four AL pennants; and won the 1970 World Series.\u00a0 He was selected as Manager of the Year three times.<\/p>\n His only losing season was his last one \u2013 after he\u2019d come out of retirement to manage a second time.\u00a0 He then retired for good.<\/p>\n