RetroSimba

(Updated Feb. 20, 2023)

Harmon Killebrew, long an admirer of Stan Musial, got to know the Cardinals icon best when both represented Major League Baseball on a tour of Vietnam.

Killebrew, the Hall of Fame slugger who hit 573 home runs in a 22-year American League career, played primarily for the Twins and Senators. Though he never played a regular-season or postseason game against the Cardinals, Killebrew did have a connection to and fondness for Musial.

In a radio interview with St. Louis station 1380 AM, Killebrew was asked to share his thoughts about Musial, who was about to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

“I always admired Stan from afar as a youngster,” Killebew told radio host Evan Makovsky. “I’ve known him now for over 40-some years and we’ve been good friends. I’ve always just marveled at the records Stan Musial put up. I always felt he did not get the credit he deserved … He has to rank, in my book, as one of the greatest players who ever lived.”

On Nov. 1, 1966, Musial, Killebrew, the Braves’ Hank Aaron and Joe Torre, the Orioles’ Brooks Robinson and broadcaster Mel Allen embarked on a trip to Vietnam to conduct clinics and boost morale of the U.S. troops.

“I got to know Stan very, very well (on that tour),” Killebrew said. “I got to know the kind of person he was, and it really magnified my feelings about Stan Musial.”

According to a November 1966 story by Lou Hatter of the Baltimore Sun, the tour was co-sponsored by the baseball commissioner’s office and the Department of Defense. The baseball group, which left from San Francisco, stopped in Honolulu, Guam and Manila on the way to Saigon. The return trip included stops in Tokyo and Anchorage before concluding in San Francisco.

In his autobiography, “I Had a Hammer,” Hank Aaron said, “Musial was one of my favorite ballplayers because he treated everybody the same _ black or white, superstar or scrub _ and he genuinely loved the game. When he and I were part of a group of players who toured Vietnam, Musial became the first white man I ever roomed with.”

Aaron added that the Vietnam trip enabled him to “develop a deeper friendship” with Musial, “who, for my money, was the greatest gentleman in the game.”

Brooks Robinson told the newspaper the group met with U.S. military personnel at field hospitals and battle stations. Robinson said the group was in daily earshot of gunfire and once saw a U.S. airstrike from their transport helicopter.

“A couple of our helicopters had taken bullet holes from snipers in the brush, though on the way to pick us up,” Robinson said. “We usually flew at about 3,000 feet to avoid sniper fire and never came in for a landing at a gradual descent. We normally came straight down from that altitude in a kind of screwdriver spiral descent. That was some kind of a thrill.”

In an interview for the 2003 Baseball Hall of Fame yearbook, Robinson recalled, “Stan and I visited one hospital where a kid had just lost both legs and was lying there in bed. Stan went over and said, ‘Hi, I’m Stan Musial with the St. Louis Cardinals.’ The kid actually apologized to Stan for not recognizing him. That tore me up right there. I had tears come to my eyes.”

Jim Lucas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American war correspondent based in Vietnam for Scripps Howard newspapers, told colleagues the baseball group accomplished its mission.

“Wherever I’ve gone, I’ve heard nothing but raves,” Lucas said. “Stan Musial apparently is quite a guy. He’s the one most often quoted … They did a lot for baseball as an entity with the top brass, from General Westmoreland on down, and they did a lot for the morale of the troops.”

In the book “Musial: From Stash to Stan the Man,” author James N. Giglio wrote, “Musial nearly became a fatality; his quarters were bombed while he was elsewhere in the area eating lunch. He flirted with danger at another outpost and in a helicopter over hostile territory.”

Author George Vecsey, in the book “Stan Musial: An American Life,” reported a different version while making the same point: “This was no meet-and-greet opportunity in a secured camp … In Da Nang, the players had lunch with General William Westmoreland, the commander of the U.S. operation in Vietnam, and dinner with Lieutenant General Lewis Walt, the commanding general of the III Marine Amphibious Force. Shortly after that, the general’s quarters were bombed by the Vietcong. Musial was still talking about that bombing when he got home a few weeks later.”

An editorial in the Nov. 19, 1966, edition of The Sporting News opined, “These men are members of baseball’s elite. All have been well-rewarded for their accomplishments _ in money, prestige, applause and publicity. They have captured no headlines in Vietnam nor will they gain financially. Their trip might not be necessary either, but it surely is worthwhile.”