May 2, 1954: The day Stan Musial hit five home runs

Best Podcast in Baseball

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Sports, Baseball

4.8 • 673 Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2022

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this bonus episode of the Best Podcast in Baseball, we bring you PlayBacks, an audio series that brings to life the archives of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

On May 2, 1954, baseball's "Perfect Knight" sent three baseballs over the wall at Busch Stadium in the first game of a doubleheader against the New York Giants. Stan Musial munched on a sandwich between games, washed it down with a glass of milk, then went out and hit two more in the nightcap.

Never considered a prototypical slugger, Musial became the first player in major-league history to club five homers in a doubleheader. Modest to a fault, Musial said afteward: "I still can't believe it. You mean real sluggers like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ralph Kiner — men like them — never hit five homers in a doubleheader?" Nope.

Eighteen years later, San Diego's Nate Colbert duplicated the feat with five homers in a twin bill in Atlanta on Aug. 1, 1972. Here's the rest of the story: Colbert, a St. Louis native and Sumner High graduate, was in the stands as an eight-year-old that day in 1954 when Musial hit his five at Busch.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The best podcast in baseball is brought to you by Closets by Design.
0:05.7	Update your closet, garage, office, pantry, and more.
0:09.0	Imagine your home totally organized with closets by design.
0:12.6	Call 1-800 by design.
0:14.4	That's 1-800 by design.
0:16.9	I'm Benjamin Hockman, and welcome to Playbacks, an audio series that brings to life the archives of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, recorded and edited by Chris Lay.
0:26.6	Today we turn the pages to 1954, when Stan the Man Musial had perhaps his greatest day of so many great days for the St. Louis Cardinals.
0:36.6	Musial's Five Homers. day of so many great days for the St. Louis Cardinals.
0:44.2	Musial's five homers in double-header, a new Major League mark.
0:49.3	Batting average now 400 with 21 RBIs.
0:57.0	By Bob Breg for the St. Louis Post Dispatch Monday, May 3rd, 1954.
1:12.6	About 1 o'clock yesterday afternoon, a New York newspaper man gathered material for a magazine story, asked manager Eddie Stanky a question on the steps of the Cardinals dugout at Bush Stadium. It was phrased carefully by Archibald Gordon Tiger Murray,
1:19.6	the eminent Princeton alumnus and sporting writer. Who, he inquired, is the best player in baseball?
1:27.0	Stan Musial?
1:28.5	Stanky's reply wasted as little time as one of Stan the 80 grand man's hardest hit drives
1:35.1	reaching the streetcar tracks. You, said manager to writer, have just asked and answered
1:41.2	your own question. The tiger nodded and explained that all other managers had agreed,
1:48.0	and certainly a crowd of 26,662 that sat through a seven-hour double-header yesterday,
1:55.0	wouldn't voice disapproval.
1:57.0	In fact, at about 7.55 p.m. there was an amazing phenomena of baseball.
2:02.4	As just before climbing over one another to get away for warmed over dinners,
2:07.6	spectators applauded Musial for, of all things, hitting a high pop fly to first base.
	...

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