Stan Musial, R.I.P.

 In his biography by Joseph Stanton, we read,

“Stan, by all accounts, adored his wife Lil and pointedly refused any and all offered opportunities to be disloyal to her. Many have noted his dedication to church attendance. He was (ed. is!) a Catholic who did not think it acceptable to miss Mass. One of Stan’s children reported to Giglio that among the few things their father could be stern about were instances when family members wanted to allow sleepiness to get in the way of getting up for church. Musial’s disciplined concentration was, no doubt, undergirded by his faith. Not overtly religious outside of church, Stan was, nonetheless, spiritually disciplined at the bat and in his life. Concentration was always key."



And how about this?

The slugger met Blessed John Paul II, including twice before Blessed John Paul ascended to the papacy. Musial said they first met when he was archbishop of Krakow, Poland. In 1971, he dropped in on then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who received him even though he was ill with a bad cold.

"I tried to tell him that I was a baseball player, and that my father was born in Poland," Musial recalled in 1988, after his first meeting with Blessed John Paul at the Vatican. The two had some trouble communicating, but when Musial returned to Poland two years later, the Blessed John Paul was already speaking fluent English, he said. "He probably doesn't remember it, but I do," Musial said.

Musial was co-chair of Blessed John Paul's 1999 pastoral visit to St. Louis.