Sport: That Man

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After six days, the Cards were still leading (by 2½ games), and Outfielder Musial had raised his batting average to .321, hit six home runs (27 for the season).

With a Waggle.Steady-eyed,thin-faced Stanley Frank Musial, 28, has been the National League's most consistently spectacular hitter since Melvin Ott of the New York Giants was in his prime. He is also one of the most unorthodox.

Before squaring off on the left side of the plate, he limbers up with a hula-like motion, bat held above his head, hips and shoulders waggling. It looks a little ridiculous, but it helps loosen him up and opposing pitchers do not laugh. Before the pitch, he goes into a crouch in the far outside corner of the batter's box, stands motionless as a statue, his feet close together, knees bent, body slanted forward.

In his stance, Musial is the antithesis of the American League's great left-handed slugger, Ted Williams, a stand-up hitter who crowds the plate and hits so consistently to right field that opposing clubs shift most of their defense to the right side of the field when he bats. Musial's striding swing brings him diagonally forward in what is almost a flank attack on the ball. He can reach an outside pitch and send it lining into left field, or rifle it through the pitcher's box; he can meet a close-in pitch and thump it to right. Nobody pulls the "Williams shift" on a man who can spray his hits around the full 90° arc of the playing field.

Almost as unusual as his famous crouch is Musial's disposition. If he has an iota of fire and imagination, he succeeds in keeping it veiled behind his deadpan Slavic features. "I hate to calla bad one on him," says Umpire Bill Stewart. The umpires know that Musial has a deadly eye and that he can separate the balls from the strikes more accurately than most. They are also disconcerted when Musial makes his strongest protest: a calm, open-mouthed stare that seems to say, "How can you be so wrong?"

Such placidity makes him the despair of sportwriters who follow the Cards all season and dig in vain for Musial "color," but there is color in every move he makes on the field. He is the fleetest man afoot on the 1949 Cardinals, and he is versatile enough afield to play right field (his regular position), fill in at center field or do a turn at first base.

"Thin Red Line." It took eight years in the big leagues, three batting championships (in 1943, '46, '48) and three awards as the league's "Most Valuable Player" (same years) before a trace of inconsistency showed in the placid professional life of Outfielder Musial. This year he started the season determined to be the home-run king, in addition to everything else. By trying too hard to hit the ball out of the park, he upset his delicate timing and skidded into a bad slump. By May 20 the Musial batting average, a booming .376 in 1948, was a dismal .253.

The decline of Stan Musial, the baseball wiseacres figured, would finish the Cardinals for 1949, especially since this was not supposed to be a St. Louis year anyway. The Cards were due for rebuilding. What was left of the talented crew that had won .four pennants and never finished worse than second in eight years was spoken of in sepulchral tones as the "thin red line of heroes."