Today's blog post has me beginning a thread over the next couple of months spotlighting cards from my "Whole Nine Yards" custom set released a few months back, focusing on cards from the 1950's through the 1980's that I normally wouldn't create for the blog, beginning with a 1958 Topps base card for St. Louis Cardinals legend Stan Musial:
Of
course we all know the story by now as to Musial not having a Topps
card through the 1950's (a tragedy for us collectors!), finally getting
his first card in the 1958 set, but NOT a base card but rather an
All-Star card, before getting that first base card the following year in
1959.
For Musial, his MLB numbers are just absurd: Seven batting
titles, two R.B.I. titles, five triples titles and eight doubles titles,
with career numbers of 475 home runs, 1951 runs batted in and a .331
career average. Throw in his 725 doubles, 177
triples and 3630 hits along with 1949 runs scored and the numbers are
staggering.
And don't forget that Musial also lost a year to military duty,
easily putting him over 500 homers, close to 3900 hits and around 2100
runs batted in if he played in 1945.
Funny thing is I always felt Stan Musial was often overlooked in the decades since his playing days ended after the 1963 season.
When talk of "Greatest Living Player" came up it was always
Williams, DiMaggio, Mays or even Aaron that would come up. But Stan
Musial would always kind of be that after-thought.
Criminal.
