St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame pitcher Dizzy Dean famously said that "it ain't bragging if you've done it." So, it's with all humility that today we welcome President Barack Obama and tens of thousands of fans from across to the nation to St. Louis - the greatest baseball city in America - for the 80th Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

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We mention our superlative status as a baseball city not to brag, but to teach, especially children from out of town who haven't been to a ball game in St. Louis or who otherwise aren't a part of Cardinal Nation.

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St. Louis hasn't always gotten it right when it comes to the National Pastime. If you doubt it, walk up to St. Louis' Main Library downtown at 13th and Olive streets. The library is hosting a traveling exhibit from Cooperstown called "Pride & Passion - The African-American Baseball Experience." Clearly, we shut out and missed out on some great baseball here.

 

But, still, as baseball beat writers in the press box know, St. Louis is the best baseball town. As do players who have played in the National League. Even those whose careers have been confined to the Junior Circuit suspect that it is true. That's what they've heard.

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The Redbirds, of course, are just one of many storied National League franchises, so what makes St. Louis the best baseball city? It isn't the Cardinals' 10 World Series wins, the most of any National League team (second in all of baseball only to the Yankees).

 

And it's not the Cardinals' status as the only National League club with a winning record against the Yankees in World Series play (three of five series) - although we don't mind it when people mention it.

 

Nor is it the sea of red that fills the stands, often 3 million or more strong, at home games throughout the year in weather fair or foul. Although that's part of it.

 

St. Louis' distinctive baseball tradition is best explained - and exemplified - by the hall-of-famer and 24-time All-Star set to receive special recognition during tonight's pre-game ceremony.

Stan Musial is the greatest all-around player ever to wear a Cardinal uniform. No. 6's stats are familiar to true fans. Over 22 seasons, from 1941 to 1963, he amassed 3,630 hits (a longtime National League record), 1,951 runs batted in, 1,949 runs scored, 725 doubles, 475 home runs and a lifetime batting average of .331. He won seven batting titles, three Most Valuable Player awards and three World Series rings.

 

But numbers alone didn't make Stan "The Man." He was a fearsome clutch hitter, but also a great fielder, a brilliant student of the game, a clubhouse leader, a heads-up guy who always hustled, a good sport and a happy warrior who played by the rules and always offered a good word.

 

When he spoke at Cooperstown in 1969 to accept his induction into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility and by near unanimous vote, of course, he thanked his mom. He talked about how his dad always had wished that he had gone to college - and then spent the rest of his talk encouraging kids to get a good education.

 

That's St. Louis baseball.

 

Stan Musial, now 88, remains a big part of life in St. Louis more than 45 years after his retirement as a player. Many people in town have personal or favorite Stan Musial stories.

Phil Gagliano, the sturdy Cardinal utility player who played a dozen years in the big leagues, still has stars in his eyes. He told us about how, as a 22-year-old rookie from Memphis, Tenn., he spent 30 days with the club in 1963, Musial's final season. "To break spring training camp and travel north on the same team as the guy I had idolized since I was a kid, my gosh, how do you put it in words other than it was a dream come true."

 

St. Louis Circuit Judge Jack Garvey crossed paths with Musial 10 years ago at an amateur softball association's national convention in St. Louis. The group was deciding where to hold its annual tournament, a very big tourism deal. Mr. Garvey served as a convention "parliamentarian" when the three finalist cities made their pitches to the association. Presentations from Phoenix and Orlando were multimedia masterpieces, he said.

 

St. Louis went last. Stan Musial suddenly took the stage. The crowd was on its feet. He removed a harmonica from his red-checkered sports coat and accompanied the convention in singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." He said few kind words about St. Louis.

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That was it. St. Louis won by a landslide.

 

In the era of the reserve clause, star ballplayers tended to stay in one town for their whole careers. Stan Musial spent a lot of the winter in Florida, but he often was around town. Folks would run into him when he did charity work, or at his restaurant, or at the old Red Bird Bowling Lanes on Gravois or even at a grocery. Not only did he not mind signing autographs, he carried around postcard-sized photographs of himself for when people would ask.

 

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay got his when he was a kid in the 1960s. "I don't even have to look," he told us. "I know that I still have mine."

 

Stan Musial didn't just play for St. Louis. He is of St. Louis - a working-class kid who never lost the common touch.

 

Now you know. That's the heart of St. Louis baseball.

 

So, let's play ball! And may the National League win.

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("Play Ball!" first appeared as an unsigned editorial by Eddie Roth in the July 14, 2009 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch)