When Sher arrived in mid-December, Musial apologized for having no time because his father was dying inside the house. “Every time my dad is with me he gets sick,” Musial said, as if somehow he were more to blame than the toxic air of Donora. Sher later described the sadness in the house, how Lukasz had left Donora because of “the smog disaster,” but for many years the family did not link the dying man with his occupation or the Halloween calamity in Donora. When the writer from New York showed up at the door, Musial did something extraordinary for any athlete, any celebrity, then or now: he did not turn him away. Jack Sher had a job to do, a paycheck to earn. Musial seemed to honor that. The Stan Musial of December 1948 was an example of instinctive grace under pressure. In a moment of crisis, the Musials opened their lives to the stranger. And while Stan apologized for not having time, Lil, who rarely gave an interview, sat in the living room and told how she had been introduced to Stan by his basketball teammate, and her long-standing suspicion that Stan had gravitated to the family store more for cold cuts than a date.
