A bonus in the middle of a story

It was 1962, and the baseball season was over.

During the off season, Larry Jackson, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, joined our sports staff at the Idaho Statesman in Boise.

As a baseball player, Larry was not yet a household name, but he soon would be.

Larry was born in Nampa, and he still called the 

Valley his home. In the offseason, Larry would write for the Statesman. Technically, he worked for me, but I knew that my boss liked to talk baseball, so Larry was put on staff.

Larry told me that his friend Stan Musial was coming to Boise to stump for John Kennedy, who was running for president.

Musial was a household baseball figure, and I sensed there was a story there if I could find a way to get with Musial.

So I got Jackson aside and asked him if he would help me. He answered immediately that it was a done deal.

Jackson later worked his way into the pitching rotation with St. Louis, became the runner-up for the Cy Young pitching award and was an all star for several years.

I learned where Musial would be to start the Kennedy motorcade and made sure I was there. Jackson indeed paved the way for me. 

While entering the area where Musial’s convertible was, I ran into an old friend from Palouse, Joan Spencer. She had on a Kennedy costume and a straw hat, with Kennedy written on it. She was one of the Kennedy girls.

Spencer was a year behind me in school at Palouse and lived about four miles upriver from where I lived when I was in school there.

We had a short meeting of old friends and then it was time to meet Musial. 

It was my bonus in the middle of my story.

Musial was very pleasant and told me to get in the back seat with him. I was set, I found out, to ride through Boise.

I had read everything I could about Musial, so he was surprised when I started questioning him.

Stan “The Man,” as he was called, had played the outfield and first base as a Cardinal for 22 seasons.

He batted and threw as a lefty, and took a short year off while serving in the military. Musial died in 2013 at age 92. Jackson died in Boise in 1990 at age 59.

A few years later I ran into Spencer again, this time in Palouse, as we both returned the same year for a local celebration. 

Palouse was a small school, and it has always been a bonus when I ran into a classmate along the way.