ticket at the Day and Night Lunch, and played pool at the Brunswick Pool Room. In his first season, 1938, he pitched 110 innings, struck out 66, walked 80 batters, and had a 6–6 won-lost record with a high 4.66 earned run average. He also hit .258 in 26 games, with a home run.
“I didn’t have confidence in my pitching,” he would say years later. “I had confidence in my hitting. Why they didn’t sign me as a hitter, I’ll never know.”
In the winter of 1938–39 Musial worked at the Labash store and was also given a safe job at the zinc mill.
Sent back to Williamson in 1939, Musial missed his high school graduation, but Lillian stood in for him. He won 9 games and lost 1, struck out 86, but he walked 85 in 92 innings with a 4.30 ERA. His manager, Harrison Wickel, recommended that the Cardinals cut him loose because of wildness, but almost as an afterthought mentioned that he was a nice young man who could hit—.352 with a home run.
He also caused a stir late one night when he wandered into the identical house next door, after perhaps taking one beer too many. It could have been dangerous to ramble around the wrong house, looking for his room, but the Fiery family recognized the popular young ballplayer and escorted him home, making sure he was safe.
On Sunday mornings Musial would attend Mass, and Geneva Zando, a senior in high school, would observe how devout and handsome he was on the Communion line. Soon she would marry Howard Fiery, who lived in the house Musial had entered by mistake. Over the decades they would listen to Cardinal games on the radio and tell their son, Randolph, why they rooted so intensely for Stan the Man.
Back home in Donora, Lil was aware that her boyfriend was playing for pennies so far from home.
“She wanted him to get a job,” Verna Duda, the widow of Musial’s teacher-mentor, said in 2009. “Her family had money. They weren’t wanting for anything.”
With war looming, Lil’s father told Musial to give it another year, so the young man went off to Daytona Beach, Florida, in the spring of 1940, aminimal upgrade. His manager was Richard Kerr, who already had an honorable place in baseball history.
In 1919, Kerr had been a rookie left-hander with the Chicago White Sox, ignored by some unscrupulous older teammates who were involved, to one degree or another, in a gambling scheme to lose the World Series. This scandal has been chronicled by Eliot Asinof in his book
Eight Men Out
and later by John Sayles in his movie of the same name. In both works, Dickie Kerr is a minor character, but an honest one.
Ostracized by the sharpies, Kerr pitched a three-hit shutout in the third game and a ten-inning victory in the sixth game, but the conspirators managed to lose the Series to the Reds. When the scandal was exposed after the 1920 season, all eight players were found not guilty of legal charges but were banished for life by the new commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
Dickie Kerr suffered in the wake of the scandal. The symbol of incorruptible decency, he asked for a better contract after 1921 but was turned down by the same haughty owner, Charles Comiskey, whose cheapness—dirty uniforms, substandard salaries, broken promises—had emboldened Kerr’s crooked teammates to blow the 1919 Series. Kerr quit the White Sox and pitched in independent leagues, returning to the majors only for a cameo in 1925.
The reward for his honesty was that in 1940 Kerr was still scuffling for a modest minor-league managing salary when the Cardinals sent him the wild left-hander from up north.
Stanley’s poker luck came through at a crucial time. He could have been managed by a bully, a drunk, a liar, an incompetent, or some combination thereof. The wrong manager could have sent him rushing back to Donora. Instead, Musial drew another inside straight in the card game of life.
When Lil joined Stan in Florida early in the spring, she was visibly pregnant. They said they had been married in
“I didn’t have confidence in my pitching,” he would say years later. “I had confidence in my hitting. Why they didn’t sign me as a hitter, I’ll never know.”
In the winter of 1938–39 Musial worked at the Labash store and was also given a safe job at the zinc mill.
Sent back to Williamson in 1939, Musial missed his high school graduation, but Lillian stood in for him. He won 9 games and lost 1, struck out 86, but he walked 85 in 92 innings with a 4.30 ERA. His manager, Harrison Wickel, recommended that the Cardinals cut him loose because of wildness, but almost as an afterthought mentioned that he was a nice young man who could hit—.352 with a home run.
He also caused a stir late one night when he wandered into the identical house next door, after perhaps taking one beer too many. It could have been dangerous to ramble around the wrong house, looking for his room, but the Fiery family recognized the popular young ballplayer and escorted him home, making sure he was safe.
On Sunday mornings Musial would attend Mass, and Geneva Zando, a senior in high school, would observe how devout and handsome he was on the Communion line. Soon she would marry Howard Fiery, who lived in the house Musial had entered by mistake. Over the decades they would listen to Cardinal games on the radio and tell their son, Randolph, why they rooted so intensely for Stan the Man.
Back home in Donora, Lil was aware that her boyfriend was playing for pennies so far from home.
“She wanted him to get a job,” Verna Duda, the widow of Musial’s teacher-mentor, said in 2009. “Her family had money. They weren’t wanting for anything.”
With war looming, Lil’s father told Musial to give it another year, so the young man went off to Daytona Beach, Florida, in the spring of 1940, aminimal upgrade. His manager was Richard Kerr, who already had an honorable place in baseball history.
In 1919, Kerr had been a rookie left-hander with the Chicago White Sox, ignored by some unscrupulous older teammates who were involved, to one degree or another, in a gambling scheme to lose the World Series. This scandal has been chronicled by Eliot Asinof in his book
Eight Men Out
and later by John Sayles in his movie of the same name. In both works, Dickie Kerr is a minor character, but an honest one.
Ostracized by the sharpies, Kerr pitched a three-hit shutout in the third game and a ten-inning victory in the sixth game, but the conspirators managed to lose the Series to the Reds. When the scandal was exposed after the 1920 season, all eight players were found not guilty of legal charges but were banished for life by the new commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
Dickie Kerr suffered in the wake of the scandal. The symbol of incorruptible decency, he asked for a better contract after 1921 but was turned down by the same haughty owner, Charles Comiskey, whose cheapness—dirty uniforms, substandard salaries, broken promises—had emboldened Kerr’s crooked teammates to blow the 1919 Series. Kerr quit the White Sox and pitched in independent leagues, returning to the majors only for a cameo in 1925.
The reward for his honesty was that in 1940 Kerr was still scuffling for a modest minor-league managing salary when the Cardinals sent him the wild left-hander from up north.
Stanley’s poker luck came through at a crucial time. He could have been managed by a bully, a drunk, a liar, an incompetent, or some combination thereof. The wrong manager could have sent him rushing back to Donora. Instead, Musial drew another inside straight in the card game of life.
When Lil joined Stan in Florida early in the spring, she was visibly pregnant. They said they had been married in
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