Stan “The Man” Musial During His Playing days

Stan Musial was one of the greatest players, and human beings, ever to grace the game of baseball; on January 19^th, he passed away at the age of 92. During his 22-year career, you couldn’t find a more consistent hitter. He was “The Man” that Cardinal fans depended on during clutch situations; he almost always delivered too. That’s one of the reasons he is so highly regarded in baseball circles.

To realize how absolutely crazy Musial’s performance on the diamond was, all you have to look at is his total number of hits; that by the way stands at 3630, 1815 of those at home and the other 1815 of those on the road. Think about that, someone actually was able to perform consistently at his home ball park and on the road.

While Musial’s standard career stat line is impressive, .331 batting average, 1951 RBIs, and 475 home runs; the advanced metrics say that his performance at the plate was even more impressive than any look at his standard metrics could possibly tell you. “The Man” had an insanely high career BABIP of .320, an equally impressive .559 SLG, and a sparklingly low 5.5 K%.  Even more impressive than his ridiculously low K%, is his ridiculously high BB%; that’s 12.6%, in case you were wondering.

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The other man who passed on the 19^th was legendary Baltimore Orioles skipper Earl Weaver, he was 82.

Earl Weaver Coaching

Weaver was hired by the Baltimore Orioles before the 1968 season. In his first season he led the Orioles to a 82-48 record, that’s good for a winning percentage of .631 (holy shit). The very next season he and his Orioles went to the World Series, only to fall short against the “Miracle Mets”. He led the Orioles for 17-years (there was a three-year gap between 1982 and 1985), and accumulated a 1480-1060 career record.

While Weaver is probably one of the best managers to lead a Major League Baseball team, he is mostly going to be remembered for his colorful antics when it came to umpires. His colorful antics made him one of the more entertaining managers to watch, and endeared him to the fans. The umpires on the other hand, well they probably weren’t too happy whenever Weaver started to exit the dugout.

Baseball lost two of its legends on January 19^th, 2013. We offer our condolences to their families and wish them nothing but the best moving forward.