As 90 Nears, Stan Musial Forever Worthy of Celebration

by Terence Moore

Filed under: Cardinals, MLB Hall of Fame

Even though Stan Musial turns 90 on Sunday, he already has one of his biggest birthday presents: the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was gift-wrapped by the White House this week for the former St. Louis Cardinals slugger. In fact, he will be honored with others early next year by Barack Obama "for (his) especially meritorious contribution" in society as a sports icon and beyond.

That's nice. But is Musial worthy of a bigger gift? I mean, baseball tagged Joe DiMaggio as The Greatest Living Player from 1969 until his death 11 years ago, so is Musial now that guy?

Nope.

It's Hank Aaron.

For one, Aaron is the legitimate home-run king compared to whatever Barry Bonds is with his artificially enhanced body. Not only that, Aaron has more offensive records than anybody in baseball history. He also could run, field and throw, but let's return to his hitting for a moment. Despite his prolific slugging, he never struck out 100 times in a season.

There was a pause over the phone on Thursday before Tommy Lasorda interrupted his business trip in Hawaii to say, "Well, out of all the guys, Aaron's gotta be right up there (pause). You know, I'm going to take two guys. I'm going to take Aaron and Musial."

 

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