Baseball loses two greats in one day

— By now I’m sure you’ve noticed that two baseball Hall of Famers, Stan Musial, 92, and Earl Weaver, 82, died Saturday.

Musial batted .331 across a 22-year career for the St. Louis Cardinals, including 475 home runs, 1,951 RBI, 1,959 runs, 1,599 walks, 3,630 hits and 6,134 total bases. He was in four World Series from 1942 through 1946, and a member of the winning team three times.

When not quite 20 years old, he no doubt thought his career was ruined when he made a tumbling outfield catch that landed him on his left shoulder during a Class D league game. (His regular job was left-handed pitcher. He had stayed busy between starts, pinch-hitting or playing the outfield.) Late in the 1940 season, he already had 17 victories, but his damaged shoulder felt no better when spring training started.

When the 1941 spring training was ready to wrap up, Musial was assigned to Springfield, Mo., as an outfielder and first baseman and, of course, a hitter. He tore up that league, and then was assigned to Class AAA Rochester in the International League, then to St. Louis with 12 games remaining for the Cardinals. Musial broke in by batting .426 the rest of the way.

His peak year was 1948, when he batted .376 with 39 home runs and 131 RBI.

When Cardinals fans were around Musial (especially after he retired as a player), he’d often go into his corkscrew batting stance and say something like, “Gosh, that’s a strange-looking hitter.”

In 1967, Musial served as St. Louis general manager with a team that won a pennant that season.

Ray Winder, the longtime general manager of the Arkansas Travelers, was known to be ill in Little Rock. I ran into Conway newspaperman Joe McGee late one afternoon. He rushed up and asked if I knew Mr. Winder had died.

“No,” I said. “How did you find out?”

“Stan Musial called the Travelers office a little while ago and found out,” Joe McGee said.

How many other GMs would have been so forthcoming?

I first met Earl Weaver in 1961, during spring training along with Baltimore’s other minor leaguers. The Arkansas Travelers were in camp, managed for the second year by Fred Hatfield. After that season, the Class AA Southern Association celebrated its 61st season by simply vanishing. The Travs signed a three-year Class AAA contract with the Philadelphia Phillies.

The only impression I got from Weaver was that the people running the camp seemed obviously high on him.

Weaver died Saturday night on a Caribbean cruise associated with the Baltimore Orioles, his marketing agent said.

“Earl was a black and white manager,” former Orioles pitcher and Hall of Fame manager Jim Palmer said. “He kind of told you what your job description was going to be, and kind of basically told you if you wanted to play on the Orioles, this was what you needed to do. And if you couldn’t do it, ‘I’ll get someone else.’

“I know that’s kind of tough love, but I don’t think anyone other than Marianna [Weaver’s wife] would describe Earl as a warm and fuzzy guy.”

Weaver, who managed only Baltimore in his major league career, took the Orioles to four World Series, winning only one in 1970. His .583 winning percentage is fifth among managers who served 10 or more seasons in the 20th century.

“When Weaver was managing, I can’t think of any umpire who could stand him,” said former American League umpire Bill Valentine. “I read where he was ejected 91 times, including once in both games of a doubleheader.

“Some umpires tried to figure out who had ejected Weaver the most times. I said, ‘It can’t be me.’ They showed me the results. It was me.”

Sports, Pages 16 on 01/22/2013

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