Stan musial biography children
•
Stan Musial
“How good was Stan Musial? He was good enough to take your breath away.” — Vin Scully
About twenty-five miles south and a bit east of Pittsburgh, roughly along the Monongahela River (Western Pennsylvanians call it the Mon and the Mon Valley), lies the town of Donora. Donora and the surrounding communities used to be a fairly thriving multi-ethnic area comprised of Italians, Eastern Europeans, and African-Americans that turned out steel, zinc, and world-class athletes. The Depression and management chicanery took care of the steel industry. A thermal inversion finished off zinc. Many of the ung people left before conceiving children, athletic or otherwise.
It was glorious while it lasted, though. Dan Towler went to nearby Washington and Jefferson College and then to the old Los Angeles Rams, where he once led the National Football League in rushing. Arnold Galiffa quarterbacked Red Blaik’s undefeated 1948 and 1949 teams at Army. Buddy
•
Stan Musial, often called Stan "the Man," was born in Donora, Pennsylvania on November 21, 1920. Musial was the second child and first son of six children born to working class immigrants. His father, Lukasz Musial, was a Polish immigrant born in Warsaw and his mother, Mary Lancos, was the daughter of immigrants from Czechoslovakia. His father hated working in the mines of western Pennsylvania and was determined that his children would never have to endure such miserable conditions to man a living.
The name Stanislaus was Anglicized into Stanley when Musial started school. It became apparent early on that Musial was an exceptional athlete. He played both basketball and baseball at Donora High School. Musial's basketball skills seemed to promise a college scholarship, but he had his heart set on baseball.
In 1937, at the age of 16, Musial was offered his first professional baseball contract. Musial's father immediately rejected the offer, wanting him to finish high school and atte
•
My favorite player: How a kid settled on Stan (The Man) Musial
“If there was a better hitter than me, it was Musial.”
– Ted Williams, recounting a conversation he once had with his son
When I was kid in the 1950s, my heroes were Stan and Ted.
The Man and The Kid.
I knew those nicknames because I read everything I could find about Stan Musial and Ted Williams. Actually, I read everything I could find about baseball. And baseball came alive in the pages of The Sporting News, which arrived in our mailbox every week.
We lived on a farm in southern Pennsylvania, a few miles from the Maryland border. I had never travelled beyond a 25-mile radius from our house. Until I was 11, we had no TV. The Sporting News was my baseball lifeline, a virtual escape hatch to a world I yearned to inhabit.
My love affair with baseball started when I was seven or eight, thanks to my Uncle John – I was his namesake – who owned the local hardware store. I was too young to have seen him play, but