As was announced last fall, today Stan Musial will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The ceremony is this afternoon at 1:30PM Eastern/12:30 Central. KSDK.com and NewsChannel 5 in St. Louis will carry it live if you’re interested.
As I said back in November, Musial is most worthy of this. Not just because he was one of the greatest ballplayers who has ever lived, but also because his integrity, demeanor and just plain and simple decency stands for the notion that a sports figure can be a role model, even if we are increasingly inclined to reject that notion in this day and age. He’s been in the public eye for close to 70 years, and I’ll be damned if I’ve ever read or heard one negative thing about him. Which is frankly amazing considering how the world works these days.
There is really no one else like Stan Musial in baseball. He doesn’t need an award from the President for anyone to realize it, but by gum, I’m glad he’s getting it.