There is probably no more iconic figure still living in baseball than Stan Musial. Of all the adjectives hurled at superstars these days, Musial is one of the few who probably exemplifies words like grace and character and class more than any other, and probably for that reason, may be the least recognized icon still walking in professional sports. So with that in mind, it came as a refreshing surprise to read this week how the St. Louis Cardinals used some basic new age technology and some old fashioned lobbying to get Musual a well deserved Congressional Medal of Freedom as he hits his 90th birthday.
The New York Times‘ George Vecsey documented the story this past week, but in a nutshell the Cardinals found the best way to get the attention of Washington was through the grassroots, so they emplored fans to place images of Flat Stan, in the mode of the popular educational project Flat Stanley, everywhere they possibly could, and then post the images of Flat Stan on the newly created Facebook page. Flat Stan appeared everywhere…the mountains, the beaches, the Arch, baseball venues around the country, in lunch bags etc etc and the campaign migrated to twitter and YouTube, showing that Musial was truly loved by all and worthy of the support of the people. The media caught on to the campaign and the Cardinals used their own broadcast outlets to trumpet the plea, and Cardinals nation supported. Mush like the letter writing campaigns of old, Flat Stan became a cause celebre, and a very worthy one, and eventually local politicians bought in and brought the cause to the White House, which last week approved the plea and will present Musial with an award that virtually all of his contemporaries have already received.
What the campaign showed was that simple activation at the grassroots level really works. There were no over national campaigns linked to sponsors, no million dollar spokespeople. it was the low cost, high power work of the Cardinals staff, their comtrolled media, their fans, and most importantly, a good idea, that brough a well deserved honor to a man of dignity. While it is true that many controversial campaigns sometimes capture the public for a very short time, it is good to see how old fashioned campaigning mixed with new social media work can produce a winner and set an example for others to study going forward. A good story for the time leading into Turkey Day.
