Wait! That’s Not Brandi Chastain!

Left: Game-show host? Ex-president? Male grass-court singles champ from 1927? Center: the very real Brandi Chastain.

Stan Musial would know how Brandi Chastain feels.

The great St. Louis Cardinal slugger went through his final decades honored by a huge statue outside the ball park, which, alas, did not at all capture his unique corkscrew, crouching batting style.
Musial hated it, but being a get-along kind of guy, he smiled and said very little in public.

The latest abomination is a plaque for Brandi Chastain, the great soccer player who converted the game-winning penalty kick in the final of the 1999 Women’s World Cup.

Chastain’s team nickname was “Hollywood,” given by teammate and locker-room leader Julie Foudy.
Asked to fill out a team questionnaire, Foudy came to the question: Favorite Actress?
She wrote: “Brandi Chastain.”

Brandi has panache. She showed it upon making the championship shot in 1999, and, just like Cristiano Ronaldo and all the guys, she ripped off her jersey – in the center of the Rose Bowl – revealing an industrial-strength sports bra and just a few more inches of herself, an athlete at the peak.  

Chastain was a terrific full-field player, a footballer, smart and competitive. She was recently voted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame and honored with a plaque depicting, well, somebody named Ellsworth or Percy who won a club championship in golf or tennis back in the 1920’s.

“Brandi Chastain is one of the most beautiful athletes I’ve ever covered. How this became her plaque is a freaking embarrassment,” tweeted Ann Killion of the San Francisco Chronicle.

The plaque will apparently be re-done. Chastain was gracious about it, as reported by Victor Mather in The New York Times. (Check out the links with other examples of wretched sports iconography.) 

This is the statue Musial hated. I took this photo in 2009 -- and a real-live cardinal perched on the Man's bat.

The real Musial stance. All-Star Game, 1952. St. Louis pal Yogi catching. Musial struck out twice.

Musial, who died in 2013, generally took the high road about the statue by Carl Mose. I wrote about it in my biography of Musial, and my late friend, Bryan Burwell, sports columnist of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, gave his art critique in 2010:
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/musial-statue-must-go/article_72b0bf1e-952f-582c-b52b-0b8ffe984b0f.html  

Stan the Man  did like a much smaller statue by Harry Weber, part of a series of St. Louis ball players outside the ball park, including Cool Papa Bell, immortal Negro League star. This one captures Musial’s energy in his follow-through.

Even on a plaque, Brandi Chastain deserves to look like herself and not Mickey Rooney or Jimmy Carter.
​
I’m not an artist, but how hard is that? 

NB: The Reply/Comments section seems to be out. I cannot add a comment from here. The company had this problem a month ago and took a week to fix -- or give out information.  I don't have the patience to deal with their tech department right now. Anybody with my email who has a comment, please be in touch. GV

Stan the Man liked this one, and would pose for photos and even play his harmonica.