The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-07-31
Musial's Somersault Gives
 St. Louis Slugging Outfielder
Bad Shoulder Ends Pitching Days Of Cards Great Hitter
BY BURTON BENJAMIN (NEA Service Stan Correspondent

tNEA service Stam COrreSpOndent)
 New York, July 31 = The only time Stan Musial ever miscued on his somersaults, it altered his en- tire baseball career.
 The St. Louis Cardinal slammer does his flip-dop whenever he dives for a shoe-string catch. He explains that it helps break the fall.
 Two years ago, Musial took a dive in the Florida State League and landed hard on his left shoul- der. It put an end to his patching career and made him a full-time outfielder who was destined one year later to become a sensation in the National League.
 Musial, husky 6-foot, 175- pound southpaw was burning up the Class D league pitching for De Land. He had plenty of swift, fair control, a good assortment of stuff. BASEBALL KEPT HIM
 OUT OF STEEL MILLS
 Only 19 at the time, fresh out of the Pennsylvania coal belt, Mu- sial had a welcome versatility for minor league ball club. He could belt ball, which made him jack-o -all-trades. Not only did he win IS games, lose but 5 and pitch the club to the pennant, but he played 113 games in the out field and hit .311.
 Still, the Cardinals signed him as a pitcher and that was his pri- mary role. He feared the shoulder injury might put an end to his baseball.
 That would have been bad" he grins. Tt would have put me right back in the steel mills. That's all I know besides baseball"
 He says that with astonishing candor. A good many baseball players overlook the financial break the game provides, figure they would have been bank presidents anyway.
 Musial trained with the Colum- bus Red Birds, another Cardinal farm, in the spring of 1941. He didn't tell Burt Shotton about his arm, but it was soon evident that he had lost his speed.
 Shotton had heard of his batting prowess and after watching him tear around the bases and cover ground in the outfield, he advised Musial his pitching days were over.
 The year 1941 Is the most im- portant in Musiars baseball life. He | played in three leagues-Western, International and National and outhit the recognized batting cham pions of all three. JOINS CARDINALS IN STRETCH DRIVE
 Earned out to Springfield, he murdered West tern Association pitching. When they promoted him ing the league in hits, runs, homers, to Rochester in July, he was lead total bases and uns-batted-in. His batting average was .379. He was fielding sensationally.
 Musial hit 1926 at Rochester in 54 games, was forwarded to the Cardinals in September in the mid- dle of their stirring stretch drive with Brooklyn.
 Under this tremendous pressure, the kid who figured his baseball career might be over that spring and who started the season in Class c, hit cool .426 in seven games.
 "The only time I was nervous" he recalls, was the first time went to bat. After that, it was just another ball game to me. I never hit any better than in those seven games.
 This season started out fairly well but fell off in May. They benched me for awhile against southpaws but started to hit again and began to work every day"
 MuSial won't be p until Mo- vember. Married, father of a two- year-old son, he is fairly secure from the draft.
 With his batting average in the 1925 bracket, Stanley Frank Mu- sial is showing the cynics that his splurge of last season was no fash