Stan Musial[An American Life] (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
I found this book to be a boring biography. Musial had an incredible playing career that is practically glossed over. There really should have been some gameday drama at least.Really unfortunate biography in how poorly it covers Musial the player and the person. For an author who, like Bud Selig, believes Musial is an overlooked personality, I can't say I have come away with any reason to believe otherwise. The book itself was not a homerun and in part suffers from the fact that the biographer never interviewed his subject. That being said, it was an interesting angle that Vecsey took in repeatedly coming back to the Musial v. Williams v. DiMaggio comparison. Stan the Man gets overlooked by most modern fans because he wasn't flashy or from a big media market like the other two. Also, because Musial was such a decent, nice "regular" guy - there's not much "drama" in this biography - but then again that was sort of the point the author was making about Musial. As a life-long Cardinal and Musial fan, I was hoping for a little bit more from this book, which at some point became "this guy says nice things about Musial" chapter after chapter. While the author did a very nice job in giving us a picture of Stan Musial, the man - it fell short in describing Stan Musial, the baseball player. At times the baseball was almost an afterthought - which is a shame, because to give Musial his due, one must really look at him day-to-day on the field. All in all, not a bad read, but I imagine that there are better books about Musial out there.
What do You think about Stan Musial[An American Life] (2011)?
This book helped me learn more about one of the forgotten greats from a period full of superstars.
—Sym
A great book about baseball, when players play for the love of the game especially Stan the Man.
—CrzyKina
Did not follow a clear timeline and gave too much tangential information about other people.
—Queenbee
