Stan the Man

Stan ‘the Man’ Musial died earlier this year. Musial had enjoyed a long and succesful baseball career with the Saint Louis Cardinals, both on the field and off. I saw him once at intermission when Joanie invited me to the Saint Louis Symphony. He had long since retired from playing baseball by then, but was still a pillar of society. The Cardinals had honored Musial by retiring his jersey number, #6. After his death, both Saint Louis and Missouri wanted to honor his memory by naming the new bridge being built over the Mississippi after him.

Because the new bridge spans not only the river, but also the state line naming rights don’t solely belong to MODOT. IDOT has their say in this matter too. There are plenty of Cardinal fans on the east side, but Springfield and for that matter the rest of Illinois is dominated by Chicago, read Cub’s fans. They wanted to name the new bridge after American War Veterans. President Obama helped to broker a deal, the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge. Musial was also a WW II Navy vet. The bridge is scheduled to open next year.

This holiday weekend’s weather finally turned from oppressive to pleasant today. I used this break in the weather to get not one, but two last big training rides in before next weekend’s MS-150 challenge. To my small but generous cadre of donors, thank you. A more formal thank you note will be forthcoming, but I wanted to respond as quickly as possible. For the rest of you, it is not too late to donate. While I was getting one last good day of training in before the big ride, Anne chose a different tack, “Training? I don’t need no stinking training.”

Stan the Bridge