Stan Musial
Stan Musial was one of the most consistent hitters in baseball for over a decade, and held many NL and major league records at the time of his retirement.
Musial was called up by the Cardinals in the final month of the 1941 season, and he hit .426 in the 20 games he played. The Cardinals faced the Yankees in the 1942 World Series, Musial's first full season, and he contributed the winning RBI in game 2 of a series that resulted in his first championship.
The next season he won his first MVP, when he was just 22. He led the league in hits with 220, along with doubles, triples, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and total bases. The Cardinals had a World Series rematch with the Yankees that year, but this time they fell in 5 games.
He should have won another MVP the next year, but his average fell to .347, and apparently that was too low for the voters. He led the Cardinals to the World Series for the third year in a row, and had his best championship performance, hitting .302 as the Cardinals took down the crosstown Browns in 6 games for another championship.
He missed the 1945 season after joining the Navy, but returned in 1946 even better than before. He won his second MVP that year after taking home another batting title with a .365 average, with 228 hits, while also leading the league in doubles, triples, and runs. The Cardinals won another championship that year, his third in 4 full seasons in the majors.
He struggled in 1947, when it was discovered that he was suffering from appendicitis and tonsillitis, but he put on having them removed until after the season. He still hit .312, but it was far below the standard he had set.
He had his best season when he came back healthy in 1948, falling just one home run short of winning the Triple Crown, while leading the league in hits, doubles, triples, runs, RBI's, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and total bases. As he led the league in almost every single category, he was an easy choice to win his third MVP, becoming the first NL player to achieve that.
Musial was the MVP runner-up in each of the next 3 seasons, though this may have been because the voters were tired of voting for the same player every year. In 1954, he accomplished an amazing feat, hitting 5 home runs in one day, 3 in the first game and 2 in the second game of a doubleheader. He was the first ever to do that, and it's only happened once since.
Musial's stats began to decline starting in 1959, but he still had plenty of impressive accomplishments and milestones during that time. In 1962, he became the oldest player ever to hit 3 home runs in one game, at 41 years of age. The following season, he became a grandfather for the first time, and hit a home run in his first at bat that evening.
At the time of his retirement, he held 17 different MLB records, and though many have been eclipsed, he is still near the top of many leaderboards. He is #4 on the all-time hits list, #2 in total bases, #3 in doubles, #8 in RBI, and #10 in runs scored. He hit 475 home runs in his career without ever leading the league in a single season, and was the first person with 400 home runs and 3000 hits. He was a 3-time MVP, a 3-time champion, hit over .300 in 16 straight seasons, and is definitely one of the greatest players of all time.
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