As good as Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman have hit for the Cardinals in the first two months this season, their performances pale compared with what Stan Musial twice accomplished entering June.
Holliday is batting .349 and Berkman is batting .350 through May 26.
In 1950 and again in 1958, Musial ended May hitting better than .400.
Musial, 29, hit .415 (54-for-130) in 33 games entering June 1950.
“It had been agreed that the only sure way of getting Stan Musial out was to get him out of town,” columnist Red Smith wrote as the Cardinals completed a two-game series sweep of the Giants at New York’s Polo Grounds.
Musial’s hot start sparked talk about whether he could become the first big-leaguer since Ted Williams of the Red Sox in 1941 and the first National League player since Bill Terry of the Giants in 1930 to hit .400 for a season.
Asked about Musial, Giants manager Leo Durocher told Smith: “I don’t see much of Ted Williams. They tell me he’s a great hitter. But nobody compares him with this guy (Musial) as a ballplayer, do they?
“This guy (Musial) is a great hitter. He can run and field and throw and slide. He can play anywhere in the outfield for you, or come in and play first base, and he used to pitch, and I’d guess he’d catch if you asked him to.”
Bill Terry told a New York publication he would be rooting for Musial to hit .400 for the season. “My advice would be for Stan to take each game as it comes along and not even start thinking about the .400 average,” Terry said.
Musial agreed. “I’m not going to even think about a .400 year, much less talk about it,” Musial told St. Louis writer Bob Broeg.
Musial said it would take 250 hits to achieve a .400 season. “That’s why I couldn’t seriously think about .400 until August or September,” Musial said. “Averages fluctuate too much at this stage of the game.”
Sure enough, the arrival of June sent Musial into a slump. From June 1 through June 8, he hit .130 (3-for-23) and his batting average dropped 42 points to .373.
As late as Sept. 6, Musial was hitting .363. He finished the 1950 season at .346, earning the fourth of his seven National League batting crowns and finishing 18 points ahead of the runner-up, the Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson (.328).
In 1958, Musial, 37, got off to an even more sizzling start than he did in 1950.
He ended May hitting .431 (62-for-144) in 38 games. Included in that stretch was his 3,000th career hit on May 13. The focus then was more about whether Musial would threaten Ty Cobb’s career hits record and less about a possible .400 season.
In a May 1958 interview with San Francisco writer Jack McDonald in The Sporting News, Cobb said of Musial, “He would be a superstar in any era of baseball. Stan is a little different from some of the other fellows playing today. He’s a shining example of the old-style player. He is a clever hitter who can play anywhere … He hits to all fields, can hit the ball where it is pitched, and he doesn’t clog up the bases when he gets on.”
Musial still was hitting .406 as late as June 11, 1958. Then he went into a 4-for-33 slump (.121) from June 12 through June 22. His batting average fell to .360, a 71-point decrease from where it was as he entered June.
Musial finished the 1958 season with a .337 batting mark, good for third in the National League behind the Phillies’ Richie Ashburn (.350) and the Giants’ Willie Mays (.347).
