Is this our perfect Knight?

A lot of Stan Musial fails think the bronze statue of him in front of Busch Stadium is--well they say it doesn't look anything like their beloved Cardinal slugger who had a unique batting stance. Post-Dispatch sports columnist Bryan Burwell called it "atrocious" in a June 30 column with a headline of, "Musial Statue Must Go."

In 1978, another Post columnist, the late Bob Broeg, had called it a "monstrosity" and said "it stinks." Burwell said the Cardinals should replace it with "something more pleasing and worthy of Musial's greatness." He said the "bat looks goofy," the legs are too thick, the head is too small, the bat too tiny, and Stan is "grossly out of proportion."

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Burwell said the 42-year-old statue, the second most noticeable landmark downtown, was sculpted by the late Carl Mose, a Washington University fine arts professor, who got the job funneled to him by a friend, then-Mayor Raymond Tucker. Burwell said Musial never liked it and told the Post-Dispatch in 2004: "He made me all bulky. I tried to get him to change it, but he just never would.... He never did get it right."

Even so, KTVI-TV reporter John Auble, after seing Burwell's column, interviewed Stan and his wife Lillian and they said they now liked the statue. "I've signed many wedding pictures taken in front of that statue," said Stan, ever the gentleman.

Photo by Dawn Majors, St Louis Post Dispatch.