The Man

 Paul de Man was a Belgian anti-Semite who worked for the Nazis in World War Two until they could no longer stand his sociopathic behavior. The Nazis fired him. Stan the Man Musial hit 475 home runs for the St. Louis Cardinals. He had 1815 hits in his home park and 1815 hits on the road. His lifetime batting average was .331. He was never ejected from a game.

Stan missed the 1945 season while serving in the American navy. Around the same time, Paul cheated his childhood nurse out of her life's savings. In 1951 he was convicted in absentia in a Belgian court of forgery, theft, etc., and sentenced to five years in prison. But he had left for New York in 1948, and soon he had forged himself a college degree and had become a very famous Harvard  professor. 

Stan won three MVP awards. Paul became a founding figure in literary theory, deconstruction and postmodernism. Barack Obama presented Stan with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Paul coauthored a collection of word-strings with J. Hillis Miller, Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey Hartman and Harold Bloom. 

Stan spent 22 years in major league baseball. He  played in 24 all-star games. Paul spent ten years married to two women. Stan made it into the hall of fame on his first ballot. He was selected for the all-century team in 1999.  His favorite player was Lefty Grove. Paul most admired Martin Heidegger, a philosopher, also a Nazi.

But was Paul de Man a Nazi?  Fascists have ghastly beliefs. As Louis Menand put it, Paul "believed in nothing."