HOUSTON — Pull up a seat for some baseball history from a man who is baseball history.
Larry Miggins, of Houston, recently turned 97 and is one of America's oldest living major leaguers.
"I got to the big leagues," he said.
His secret to a long and fulfilling life? We'll get to that, but first, you should know Miggins retired from playing in 1954.
An outfielder, his big-league career was limited to 43 games, mostly in 1952 with the St. Louis Cardinals. He could have played more, but he hurt his knee in 1948.
"I never was the same after that," he said.
Throughout his home, there are balls, plaques and hats.
Most of Miggins' career was spent in the minor leagues, but it's how he ended up in Houston, arriving in 1949 to play for the Buffs, a Cardinals farm team, that makes his journey interesting.
"I'm most proud of the fact that I came to Houston and stayed here. I’m from New York City, the Bronx," he said.
It's there that he dreamed of becoming a ball player while a classmate of his fantasized about being an announcer.
The legendary Vin Scully once told graduates of Pepperdine University what it was like to one day, miraculously, call a Miggins home run.
"It was the most emotional moment of my life outside the birth of my own children," Scully said.
Scully is now gone, as well as all but one of Miggins' Cardinal teammates, including infielder Solly Hemus.
"He could do anything," Miggins said of Hemus.
"Oh, Musial? He's in a class by himself," Miggins said.
But his greatest teammate? Kathleen: a nice Irish Catholic girl. They've been married for 67 years and had 12 children.
"That's the secret," Miggins said.
Finding the right wife, Miggins believes, leads to a long and fulfilling life. That along with his strong faith.
When Miggins brought Musial with him to a Houston church, the priest had no idea who "Stan the Man" was.
“'What do you play?'" the pastor asked Musial thinking he was talking about an instrument. "I play left field for the Cardinals. 'You must be here from Rome, then. Well, welcome to Houston.'"
That’s some real baseball history from not one, but two, baseball historians.