May 25, 2020 - It was ten years ago today, when I worked for the St. Louis Cardinals, that we launched the Stand for Stan campaign by tweeting images of people posing with a paper doll. At that time, the Cardinals had just over 5,000 followers on Twitter. The Cardinals relatively new to social media and social media itself was relatively new. By all accounts, it was an extraordinary campaign that demonstrated the power of social media, as well as the global reach of the brand behind the birds on the bat.

Our goal was to celebrate Stan Musial, the greatest Cardinal, while also trying to convince President Obama to Award Musial the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest honor a civilian can receive in the United States. It is the American equivalent of being knighted by the Queen.

We felt strongly that baseball’s perfect warrior, baseball’s perfect knight deserved the honor.

Stan was more than a great athlete.

Stan was a good man.

Stan Musial was a role model you would want your kids to emulate.

Get this - Stan Musial was never thrown out of a single game during his 22 seasons in Major League Baseball. How about that? Not once.

Stan embodied great sportsmanship. Today the Musial Awards , which celebrate extraordinary sportsmanship, bear his name.

As I look back at the campaign, I see what a profound role it has had on my understanding of modern communications and our path forward. It shifted my view of the world and gave me insights into communication that continue to fuel my work today.

My idea for creating the campaign was born out of a personal sense of failure . We had made two prior attempts to get Musial the Medal of Freedom before we moved forward with the campaign. Up to that point, we had failed to convince two Presidents that the Man was worthy.

It was Senator Kit Bond’s idea to try to convince the President of the United States to award Musial the Medal of Freedom. The Senator approached the team during the twilight of President Bush’s administration. With the Senator's help, we took a run at it late in 2008. Despite Mr. DeWitt’s friendship with the President, we were not able to get it done. In the President’s defense, we were pretty late with the request. The bottom line: it was a swing and a miss .

The following year, after President Obama was sworn in, we took another run at it. While the effort remained behind the scenes from fans, we upped our game. We hired a professional writer to write a formal case statement on why Stan deserved the medal and we asked our regional Congressional delegation to help us make the case to the President. We pulled out a lot of stops to convince the White Sox Fan in the White House to honor the Man.

We honestly thought we had sealed the deal when we learned the President would attend the 2009 All-Star Game in St. Louis. But, alas, it was another swing and a miss . The day after the All-Star Game, I was exhausted and disappointed. I remember feeling like a complete failure.

Following the All-Star Game in St. Louis, in September 2009, I was asked to move into the Baseball Operations Department to begin working with the media relations unit, which had only two full time staffers. I was asked to learn the culture and help with baseball communications, as well as develop our business communication which had been outsourced to a PR agency. I was also expected to develop our approach to social media.

Social media was a relatively new thing then. I didn’t come from the sports information world like my new colleagues. Given my background in campaign and community work, I looked at things differently. To that end, I tried to focus my attention on new things that would add to the good work the two were already doing.

A lot was going on in my world in 2010. I lost my mother to cancer in February shortly after learning that my diabetic wife was pregnant. I lost a 110 pounds to get ready for being a dad. And I had a new job to figure out.

After a friend asked me to take a Flat Stanley to the ballpark for for a photo for his kid, I got this crazy idea for a campaign to engage our fans.

The power of a paper doll. The gifted Post-Dispatch cartoonist and good friend, Dan Martin created Flat Stan the Man.

Dan's compensation was lunch at Pappy’s. Yep, we were pulling out all stops. Spare no expense, it is the Cardinals' way!

We secured permission from Stan’s business manager Dick Zitzmann to turn Stan into a cartoon paper doll. We also secured permission from Dale Hubert, the Canadian educator who created Flat Stanley. Educators, parents and students for generations are likely familiar with Flat Stanley. I'd like to think our version is sorta like a new Fortnite skin...a turbo charged Flat Stan the Man.

We formed a front office committee to do a lot of leg work. We built a landing page that included a new interface that allowed fans to download the paper doll, sign a petition to the President of the United States and even upload a picture of themselves taking a Stand for Stan. While it seems funny to me to look back on it today, the truth is that this was state-of-the-art stuff at the time. MLBAM did a nice job helping us make it all happen.

The secret weapon of the campaign was Andy Cohen. I was introduced to Andy by my colleague Jeff Luhnow about the same time I was preparing the campaign. I helped coordinate a ceremonial “first pitch” for Andy who was coming into town to be inducted into the Clayton High School Hall of Fame. I had no idea what a big deal he was until I met him. Wow! Every woman in the front office showed up in my office when they learned he was coming to the ballpark. Who knew?!

Anyway, since we were in the throughs of getting the campaign together, I told Andy what we were trying to do. I sent Andy back to New York with a paper doll. He got us Sarah Jessica Parker, Mathew Broderick and a host of other celebrities.

Never underestimate the power of celebrity.

It helped fuel our campaign that entire summer. We were shameless in asking every celebrity in our little realm to take a picture with a paper doll. When we posted a picture with a celebrity, the fan photos came pouring in.

Before we launched the campaign, we built an archive of images of people with the paper doll.

The campaign launched at 10AM on May 25, 2010.

We tweeted photos every few minutes. We didn’t rely totally on social media to get the word out.

While we didn’t do a press release; we did give an “exclusive” to the Post-Dispatch which was really effective.

While our first choice was to give the story to Rick Hummel, the Commish was on a mandatory furlough from the Post-Dispatch given that the paper had purchased by Lee Enterprises. Derrick Gould had the honors. In hindsight, it was pure blessing he got the story. He was amazing. He got it. He understand what we were trying to do with social media and (thanks to his editors) gave the story big play.

Within hours the campaign went viral thanks to Derrick’s story.

That night, when I was watching the TV broadcast, some fans in San Diego brought a homemade sign to the ballpark. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

The next morning, when I was looking at the website, I saw a photograph of children in Jordan (yes in the Middle East) holding up the paper doll. The next photo I saw literally brought tears to my eyes. It was a photo of Stan Musial, standing in a parking lot with all of his grandchildren holding up the paper doll.

When I saw that image, I realized that this campaign really wasn’t about the Medal of Freedom. The campaign was really about community. It was about a community fans showing their love and affection for Stan Musial. And, more importantly, for Stan to feel that fan adoration again.

Also, this is something that sticks with me today, it was about linking generations. You had kids who were more technology adept, helping older generations figure out how to use technology. In the meantime, older fans were teaching younger fans about Stan.

Throughout the summer of 2010 we had fun and kept stoking the campaign in creative ways that kept it alive. We even hosted a Stand for Stan day at the ballpark in late October. It was my infant son Charlie’s first game. Pretty cool huh?

That fall, President Obama announced that Musial would be awarded the Medal of Freedom at a ceremony at the White House in early 2011. I remember learning the news when I was at the Winter Meetings in Florida and the news “breaking” as I made my way home with our General Counsel Mike Whittle.

To this day, I get teary eyed when I see the video of Stan receiving the medal from the President and seeing his grown children in the audience in the East Room of the White House waving the paper doll in celebration.

The Stand for Stan campaign showed me that social media could be used to bring people together in a positive way. Brands can use it to ratify a sense of belonging – a sense of being part of something bigger than themselves. Unselfish kindness.

It something to remember today as we live through a challenging period of pandemic induced isolation. At a time when we see near constant manipulation of social media to feed political division (ex. twitter bots), it is nice to take moment to reflect and realize that we once stood together to do something nice for a man who deserved it. Social media can and should be used in a positive - pro social manner.

Just remember the lessons we learned when we all took a Stand for Stan.