I woke up this morning to the news of legendary Orioles manager Earl Weaver passing away and now word has surfaced that Hall of Fame player Stan Musial passed away at the age of 92.

What a sad day for baseball.

I remember watching Weaver’s Orioles as a kid and I remember him being very fiery, so fiery that he was once ejected from both games of a doubleheader. I also recall thinking that he was so much older than he actually was – I guess it was the white hair and because when you’re a kid, every man with white hair looks like a grandpa.

Weaver led his Orioles to four pennants and one World Series title during his managerial career and was known as being a sabermetrics early adopter of sorts. He’d keep notebooks of pitching and hitting match-up and because of that, Weaver was ahead of his time. He also notoriously hated bunts and he loved the three-run home run.

Earl Weaver passed away after an apparent heart attack at the age of 82.

Now, I obviously never got to see Stan Musial play and I had heard of him but I never knew just how good he was until I took a gander at his baseball reference page.

My jaw actually dropped.

Musial was so good that he made the All-Star team 20 times, he finished in the Top 10 of MVP voting 13 out of the 18 times he appeared on the list and won the award three times. He won seven batting titles and hit 177 triples in his career – leading the league five times in that stat. Musial also finished his career with 3,630 hits – 1,815 at home and 1,815 on the road and his career line was .331/.417/.559/.976.

Stan Musial passed away today at the age of 92.

And it doesn’t matter if you don’t root for the two teams these two men were synonymous with, you mourn their loss as a fan of the game of baseball and you respect both men for what they brought to the game we all love.

So rest in peace to Earl Weaver and Stan “The Man” Musial. The game of baseball is better off after having you both around for so many years.