On the recordJanuary 23, 2013
it has been said in St. Louis, MO, baseball is not a sport, it is a religion. If that is true, Stan Musial was a St. Louis civic patron saint. Stan Musial was an icon in St. Louis. He was the best ballplayer to wear a Cardinal's uniform and one of the best to play the game of baseball. Stan Musial was my childhood hero when I was a boy and he remains a hero in my life to this day. When a person reaches my age, and maybe my station in life, they are supposed to be beyond the stage of swooning adolescence. But when it comes to Stan Musial, I am a 10-year-old kid all over again in East St. Louis, IL, buying more bubble gum than I can possibly afford in the hope that I would open one of those packages and find, covered in pink powder, a card that had Stan Musial's picture. It was the treasure of my youth, and it still would be today if my mom had not thrown those cards away. Stan Musial's death has hit the Cardinals Nation like a death in the family. One Cardinal fan spoke for many of us when she said losing Stan Musial ``is like losing a grandparent. It's hard not to tear up.'' I grew up in East St. Louis across the river, and my most prized possession when I was a kid was my very first Stan Musial Rawlings baseball glove. As a kid I rubbed that glove with something called Gloveoleum until I was the only one who could still see Stan Musial's name burned in the leather.…





