RetroSimba

In 1950 and again in 1958, Stan Musial entered June with a batting average above .400.

Musial hit .415 entering June 1950.

“It had been agreed that the only sure way of getting Stan Musial out was to get him out of town,” New York columnist Red Smith wrote.

Musial’s hot start sparked talk of 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.

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, 1950, he hit .130 and his batting average dropped 42 points to .373.

As late as Sept. 6, 1950, 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. Included in that stretch was his 3,000th career hit on May 13, 1958, sparking speculation about whether Musial would threaten Ty Cobb’s career hits record.

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 was hitting .406 as late as June 11, 1958, before he went into a 4-for-33 slump from June 12 through June 22. His batting average fell to .360, a 71-point decrease from where it was when 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).