Stan Musial*

Stan Musial was born in 1920 in Donora, Pennsylvania. His parents were immigrants, his father from Poland and his mother from Czechoslovakia, who met while working at the Donora wire mill. Musial was the fifth of six children, a brood that required his mother to bake 10 loaves of bread at a time. The bread often lasted only two days. One of Musial's early childhood chores was to crawl into a pit in his backyard to get coal for the kitchen stove.

Musial said he did not remember a time when he didn't play baseball. He played for his high school team and then, in 1941 and at the age of 20, he joined the major leagues. He played 22 seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals before retiring in 1963, and was inducted into baseball's exclusive Hall of Fame in 1969.

Musial won seven National League hitting championships, batting over .300 his first 17 seasons in the major leagues and ending up with a career average of .331. He was selected National League Player of the Year three times and The Sporting News' Major League Player of the Year twice. Sports Illustrated named Musial its Sportsman of the Year in 1957, and The Sporting News honored him as Player of the Decade 1946-56. In 1968, a statue of Musial was erected outside Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1999, The Sporting News placed him 10th on the 100 Greatest Baseball Players list.

After Musial retired in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson named him to head the U.S. Council on Physical Fitness. "The President's Council was going around the country in the 1960s, trying to promote fitness to youngsters," he said. "It took so long for our people to learn the value of fitness. Now you see everybody jogging and working out and exercising and watching their diet."

In 1986, Musial retired from the varied businesses that had occupied his time since baseball. He owned the Stan Musial and Biggie's restaurant in St. Louis, the Red Bird bowling alley, and three hotels. He remained president of Stan the Man, Inc.

Musial firmly believed in education. He had honorary degrees from Monmouth College, Washington University, and the University of Missouri at St. Louis. Both St. Louis University and the University of Missouri at St. Louis have scholarships named after him.

In 2011, Musial received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his service in the U.S. Navy during World War II, for being a pillar to the community, and for his humility on and off the field. He had numerous baseball fields named after him, as well as the "Stan the Man" Musical Bridge in his hometown of Donora.

When offering advice to young people, Musial said, "Don't try to rush the future. There are good times when you're a teenager, there are good times when you're in your 20s, there are good times when you're in your 40s, even great times when you get older."