The only autograph of a professional athlete I
remember receiving as a kid was Stan Musial’s.
The three-time National League Most Valuable Player (1943, 1946, 1948),
seven time batting title winner, and 1969 Hall of Fame inductee who played his
entire 22 year baseball career with the St. Louis Cardinals died this past
January 19th. Musial was 92
years old. The story behind getting
Musial’s signature is not hilarious or dramatic, but just an unplanned crossing
of paths with one of baseball’s legendary great players.
My love for baseball began in the late 1950s when
Musial was in the latter stage of his career.
Listening to the Cardinal games on a radio station out of St. Joseph,
Missouri, I was able to know all about him, even though I lived in an American
League city; Kansas City. I heard Cardinal radio broadcasters Harry
Carey and Jack Buck always calling him, “Stan the Man”.
In the winter of 1962, Kansas City had a pro
basketball franchise in the ill-fated American Basketball League (ABL), the
Kansas City Steers. The idea of Harlem
Globetrotter owner Abe Saperstein, the ABL’s only full season before it folded
was in1961 – 1962. It was while I was
leaving a Steer’s game that I saw Musial.
I recognized him from pictures in sports magazines
and newspapers. As I think about it now,
St. Louis had a pro basketball team at that time; the St. Louis Hawks. The team did not move to become the Atlanta
Hawks until 1968, so Musial probably did not come to Kansas City just to see a professional
basketball game. Being a basketball fan,
he played in high school; he must have been in town on business and decided to
attend the game.
As the crowd was exiting the auditorium through the
foyer, Musial and his small group stopped along the side to let the crowd
pass. I cannot remember who gave me a pen, either my
father or brother. I took it and went
back to ask for his autograph. Musial
did not look annoyed and tell me to get lost, but he did not smile. He just patiently signed the Steer’s program
I handed him.
I had forgotten about the autograph until I heard of
Musial’s death. Do I still have it? There is a closet in my mother’s home that
could still have junk from my younger days that I have to search. I will be as thrilled as I was 51 years ago if
I still have that old Kansas City Steers’ program. If I cannot find it surely my initial
disappointment will give way to the lasting fond memory of getting an autograph
of a great Major League ballplayer; Stan “The Man” Musial.
What autograph of a famous athlete have you
obtained? What’s the story around you
getting it?
