Stan Musial was always overlooked by the media of his day and the media since he retired from baseball fifty years ago because he was not from New Yawk or Bahstin. Instead, the junkies, cokeheads, bigots, racists, assholes, bullies, self-promoters, juicers, pill poppers, cheaters, philanderers, and all around dickrags who couldn’t carry Musial’s dirty socks have become cultural icons forced upon us because they wore pinstripes or played in the shadow of the Monster while Stan the Man gracefully and politely lived out his days in his adopted hometown, dying just months after his wife of 70 plus years passed away.
Well, after the whirlwind past week, and in fitting fashion, Musial’s funeral was ignored as it happened by some worthless college basketball games and random coverage of Ray Lewis, fake dying girlfriends, and whatever scrapings from the shitpile that is modern sports. That’s too bad, for people missed this classic eulogy by Bob Costas.
While Costas may have been, and probably still is, a fool for his recent speechifying about guns, this speech is indeed beautiful, not for its pomp and grandeur; rather, Costas laid bare the emotions of a true fan and a man who knew and will always know he will never measure up to Musial. And that humility is why it was and is great.
Now I just hope he never talks about guns again.
