This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Feb. 15, 2011 - WASHINGTON - Calling the former St. Louis Cardinal "the best of American sports icons," President Barack Obama on Tuesday presented Stan Musial with the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
At a star-studded ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Obama paid tribute to Musial as a great baseball player and a role model. "Stan remains, to this day, an icon, untarnished; a beloved pillar of the community; a gentleman you'd want your kids to emulate," Obama said.
The 90-year-old Stan the Man -- wearing a Cardinal red sports jacket and sporting his Hall of Fame ring -- sat just a few feet from the president's podium during the hour-long ceremony. In front of him was another honoree, former President George H.W. Bush, and sitting next to Musial was former Boston Celtics star Bill Russell.
In an interview at his hotel just before the ceremony, Musial told the Beacon: "This is the top honor I'm ever going to receive." He said he had met every president since Dwight Eisenhower. He's impressed by Obama, but said his favorite president was John F. Kennedy. "Kennedy was a great president," he said.
Musial had to be helped to his chair as he entered the East Room with the other Medal of Freedom honorees, but he told the Beacon that his health is generally good these days. "I eat good, feel good and drink good," he said with a smile.
On Monday, Musial and his wife Lillian were flown from St. Louis to Washington in a private jet chartered by Cardinal chairman Bill DeWitt Jr., who attended the White House ceremony as the team's representative. Musial's four children and two grandsons also were in the audience.
"It's a great honor for Stan and for the whole family," said one of the grandsons, Brian Musial Schwarze. Musial and his family were scheduled to fly back to St. Louis immediately after the White House ceremony and the following reception. Among the regional members of Congress who attended the ceremony and greeted Musial afterward were Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
"This is a guy who is a role model for all professional athletes," said McCaskill. "In fact, he's a role model for every American."
Durbin, whose "most prized possession" as a kid growing up in East St. Louis was a Stan Musial Rawlings Special baseball glove, brought the glove with him to the White House and asked Musial to sign it. One witness said afterward that Durbin quipped, "I've waited 57 years for this."
Aside from Musial, Bush and Russell, the award-winners included billionaire investor Warren Buffett, poet Maya Angelou, artist Jasper Johns, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and civil rights activist Sylvia Menendez. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who did not attend the ceremony, will receive the award at a later date. (See below for full list.)
In his tribute to Stan the Man, Obama quoted a line from one of Musial's books: "I hope I've given [baseball] nearly as much as I've gotten from it," Stan wrote in his memoir, knocking it out of the park one more time."
Obama said that Musial's "brilliance could come in blinding bursts; hitting five home runs in a single day's doubleheader; leading the league in singles, doubles, triples and RBIs over a single season; three World Series; first-ballot Hall of Famer; worthy of one of the greatest nicknames in sports -- Stan the Man."
The president added: "Stan Musial made that brilliance burn for two decades. Stan matched his hustle with humility. He retired with 17 records, even as he missed a season in his prime to serve his country in the Navy."
With Cardinals owner DeWitt in the audience, Obama pointed out that Musial "was the first player to make -- get this -- $100,000." After the crowd laughed, the president continued: "Even more shocking, he asked for a pay cut when he didn't perform up to his own expectations. You can imagine that happening today."
The comments struck home for DeWitt, whose Cardinals management is facing a deadline of 11 a.m. Wednesday to negotiate a contract with the man who is arguably the greatest Redbird player since Musial: first baseman Albert Pujols. Without a new contract this week, Pujols has said he will enter free agency in the fall.
In an interview at his hotel lobby with several reporters, Musial said he was confident the Cardinals would sign Pujols to a new contract. "I'm sure they will" sign Pujols, he said. "He's a great hitter and a home-run hitter."
While Tuesday's White House appearance will rank as one of the highlights of his life, Musial said his absolute favorite day was May 2, 1954. Stan the Man played in a doubleheader against the Giants and he hit three home runs in the first game and two in the second game.
Of the thousands of players in the history of baseball, Musial is only the eighth to be so honored -- the others being Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Frank Robinson and Buck O'Neil. A dozen other sports figures, including Muhammed Ali and Jack Nicklaus, also have received the award.
Musial and Obama had met once before -- at Busch Stadium in St. Louis at the 2009 All Star Game. The two men don't share many similarities, but they both led their high school basketball teams to the state playoffs. Both of their fathers came from abroad -- Musial's Dad from Poland, Obama's from Kenya -- and both men rose to the top ranks of their respective fields in adjacent states, Missouri and Illinois.
In 1952, the legendary ballplayer Ty Cobb called Musial "the closest to being perfect in the game today." Former Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick hailed Musial as "baseball's perfect knight." And current Commissioner Bud Selig called him "an extraordinary human being, a great American and one of the best players in the history of the game."
At the White House on Tuesday, Obama added the nation's highest civilian award to the accolades for Stan the Man.
Other Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients for 2011:
President George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st president of the United States. Prior to that, he was vice president in the Reagan administration, director of Central Intelligence, chief of the U.S. Liaison's Office to the People's Republic of China, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and a member of the House of Representatives from the 7th District of Texas. He served in the Navy during World War II. President Bush and President Clinton worked together to encourage aid for victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.
Chancellor Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel is the chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. She is the first woman and first East German to serve as chancellor of a unified Germany, which this year marks its 20th anniversary. She has often said that freedom is the happiest experience of her life. Chancellor Merkel was born in Hamburg but was raised in what was then Communist East Germany after her family moved to Templin. Her political career began when she joined the new Democratic Awakening party in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1990, as West and East Germany merged into one reunited country, her party joined with the Christian Democratic Union, and she was elected to the German parliament. She has been chairman of the CDU since April 2000 and was recently reelected to another term.
Congressman John Lewis
John Lewis is an American hero and a giant of the Civil Rights Movement. He served as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), helped to organize the first lunch-counter sit-in in 1959 at the age of 19, and was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington. In May 1961, he participated in the initial Freedom Ride, during which he endured violent attacks in Rock Hill, S.C., and Montgomery, Ala. In 1964, he helped to coordinate the Mississippi Freedom Project, and, in 1965, he led the Selma-to-Montgomery march to petition for voting rights where marchers were brutally confronted in an incident that became known as "Bloody Sunday." Eight days later, President Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress, condemned the violence in Selma, and called for passage of the Voting Rights Act, which was enacted within months. Since 1987, John Lewis has continued his service to the nation as the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th District, which encompasses all of Atlanta.
John H. Adams
John H. Adams co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1970. Adams served as executive director and, later, as president of the nonprofit environmental advocacy group until 2006. His tenure is unparalleled by the leader of any other environmental organization. Rolling Stone writes: "If the planet has a lawyer, it's John Adams."
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou is a prominent and celebrated author, poet, educator, producer, actress, filmmaker, and civil rights activist, who is currently the Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. She has served on two presidential committees, was awarded the Presidential Medal for the Arts in 2000 and the Lincoln Medal in 2008.
Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett is an American investor, industrialist, and philanthropist. He is one of the most successful investors in the world. Often called the "legendary investor Warren Buffett," he is the primary shareholder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Mr. Buffett has pledged that all of his shares in Berkshire Hathaway -- about 99 percent of his net worth -- will be given to philanthropic endeavors. He is a co-founder of The Giving Pledge, an organization that encourages wealthy Americans to devote at least 50 percent of their net worth to philanthropy.
Jasper Johns
American artist Jasper Johns has produced a distinguished body of work dealing with themes of perception and identity since the mid-1950s. Among his best known works are depictions of familiar objects and signs, including flags, targets and numbers. He has incorporated innovative approaches to materials and techniques, and his work has influenced pop, minimal, and conceptual art.
Gerda Weissmann Klein
Gerda Weissmann Klein is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who has written several books about her experiences. After Nazi Germany took over her homeland of Poland, Klein was separated from both her parents: they were sent to Auschwitz and she to a series of labor and concentration camps. In 1945, she was sent on a forced 350-mile death march to avoid the advance of Allied forces. She was one of the minority who survived the forced journey. A naturalized citizen, she recently founded Citizenship Counts, an organization that teaches students to cherish the value of their American citizenship. Klein has spoken to audiences of all ages and faith around the world about the value of freedom and has dedicated her life to promoting tolerance and understanding among all people.
Dr. Tom Little (Posthumous)
Dr. Tom Little was an optometrist who was brutally murdered on Aug. 6, 2010, by the Taliban in the Kuran Wa Munjan district of Badakhshan, Afghanistan, along with nine other members of a team returning from a humanitarian mission to provide vision care in the remote Parun valley of Nuristan. Dr. Little and his wife, Libby, lived and worked in Afghanistan for three decades beginning in 1976, raising three daughters and providing vision, dental and mother/child care to the people of that country through the NOOR program (Noor means "light" in Persian) that Dr. Little ran for the International Assistance Mission.
Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma is considered the world's greatest living cellist, recognized as a prodigy since the age of five whose celebrity transcends the world of classical music. Born in Paris, Ma was a child prodigy who went on to study with Leonard Rose in New York. He made his Carnegie Hall debut at age 9. He was the recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize in 1978, and, in 1991, Harvard awarded him an honorary doctorate in music. He serves as artistic director of the Silk Road Project, and has won 16 Grammy awards. He is known especially for his interpretations of Bach and Beethoven, and for his ability to play many different styles of music, including tango and bluegrass. He serves on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.
Sylvia Mendez
Sylvia Mendez is a civil rights activist of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent. When she was 8 years old, her parents attempted to enroll Mendez in an all-white school in their community, but were denied entry at and were told to go to the school for Mexican children. Her father and other parents sued and prevailed. The Mendez v. Westminster case was a landmark decision in the civil rights movement against segregation. Mendez currently travels around the country giving speeches on the value of a good education.
Bill Russell
Bill Russell is the former Boston Celtics' Captain who almost single-handedly redefined the game of basketball. Russell led the Celtics to a virtually unparalleled string of 11 championships in 13 years and was named the NBA's Most Valuable Player five times. The first African American to coach in the NBA -- indeed he was the first to coach a major sport at the professional level in the United States — Bill Russell is also an impassioned advocate of human rights. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and has been a consistent advocate of equality.
Jean Kennedy Smith
In 1974, Jean Kennedy Smith founded VSA, a non-profit organization affiliated with the John F. Kennedy Center that promotes the artistic talents of children, youth and adults with disabilities. From 1993 to 1998, Smith served as U. S. Ambassador to Ireland, and played a pivotal role in the peace process. Smith is the youngest daughter of Joseph and Rose Kennedy and is the Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Kennedy Center.
John J. Sweeney
John J. Sweeney is the current president emeritus of the AFL-CIO, and served as president of the AFL-CIO from 1995 to 2009. The son of Irish immigrants, a domestic worker and a bus driver in the Bronx, he worked his way up in the labor movement to become President of the Service Employees International Union, growing the union to serve as a strong voice for working people. As President of the AFL-CIO, he revitalized the American labor movement, emphasizing union organizing and social justice, and was a powerful advocate for America's workers.