Stan Musial - Honors and Recognition

Honors and Recognition

"Here stands baseball's perfect warrior. Here stands baseball's perfect knight."

In early 1953 the Dapper Dan Charities in his hometown of Pittsburgh honored Musial as "Sportsman of the Year" for 1952.

On August 4, 1968, a statue of Musial was erected outside of Busch Memorial Stadium on the northeast grounds of the St. Louis stadium. The statue was moved from its original location to the west side of the new Busch Stadium for its first season in 2006, where it became a popular meeting place for generations of Cardinals fans. Musial's statue is inscribed with a quote attributed to former baseball commissioner Ford Frick: "Here stands baseball's perfect warrior. Here stands baseball's perfect knight."

Musial was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1969, named on 93.2 percent of the ballots. In 1989, he was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Five years later, a baseball field was named after him in his hometown of Donora. He was ranked tenth on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players published in 1998. He was also one of the 30 players selected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team, added by a special committee after he finished 11th in fan voting among outfielders. In 2000, he was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians, and a bronze bust depicting him is on permanent display in the rotunda of the Missouri State Capitol.

Nearly two decades after Musial retired, baseball statistician Bill James and the sabermetrics movement began providing new ways of comparing players across baseball history. In 2001, James ranked Musial the tenth-greatest baseball player in history, and the second-best left fielder of all time. According to Baseball-Reference.com, he ranks fifth all-time among hitters on the Black Ink Test, and third all-time on the Gray Ink Test—measures designed to compare players of different eras. He ranks first on Baseball-Reference's Hall of Fame Monitor Test, and is tied for second in the Hall of Fame Career Standards Test. Despite his statistical accomplishments, he is sometimes referred to as the most underrated or overlooked athlete in modern American sports history. For instance, in his analysis of baseball's under- and overrated players in 2007, sportswriter Jayson Stark said, "I can't think of any all-time great in any sport who gets left out of more who's-the-greatest conversations than Stan Musial."

Musial threw out the first pitch in Game 5 of the 2006 World Series and delivered the ceremonial first pitch ball to President Barack Obama at the 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. A "Stan the Man" day was held in his honor by the Cardinals on May 18, 2008. In 2010, the Cardinals launched a campaign to build support for awarding Musial the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his lifetime of achievement and service. The campaign realized its goal, and on February 15, 2011, Musial was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.