The door to room 218 of the art building at the University of Hawai'i reminds you that art is wide-ranging and, indeed, in the eye of the beholder.

For along with some miniature modern American prints is a baseball, hinting at the eclectic interests of the office's resident, associate professor of art history Joseph Stanton.

A historian by training and baseball fan by heart, Stanton's version of the American masters includes Stan Musial. The St. Louis Cardinals' Hall of Fame slugger being both a boyhood hero from his days in Overland, Mo. and the subject of a recent biography, "Stan Musial", for Greenwood Press' Baseball's All-Time Greatest Hitters series.

"For me, I think writing about baseball connects me with my childhood and past in St. Louis," said the 58-year-old Stanton, who has been teaching at UH for 35 years. "I try to merge my different interests."

Which would explain how he came to write not only the Musial book but "Cardinal Points: Poems on St. Louis Cardinals Baseball." It is why he is at work on a book on baseball-inspired paintings and teaches classes in "Baseball in American Culture."

"I think my house is going to fall over from the weight of baseball — and Cardinal — related material," said Stanton, apparently seeing it as more a curiosity than an impending disaster.

His treasures down through the years have included a collection of Musial autographs on popcorn containers and other items. "You used to be able to run into Musial in and around St. Louis and he'd have this big smile when he saw that you recognized him," Stanton said. Personal insight helps Stanton bring alive the legend of "Stan the Man" for fans like his students, who were born decades after the 1963 retirement from a 22-year major league career.

Stanton mines Musial's little-known connection to Hawai'i — the book even includes a photo of him in uniform at the Smile Cafe — and explains how Musial's time in the Navy at Pearl Harbor Shipyard during World War II, playing before crowds of as many as 26,000, helped to shape the slugger's batting style.

"The armed forces audience loved to see home runs. Noting this, Musial changed his batting stance and moved closer to the plate so that he could more frequently pull inside pitches over right-field walls. Musial claims these alterations, 'proved to be an important step in (his) evolution as a hitter.' After his return from the war, Musial became much more of a home run hitter."

In three seasons before Navy duty, Musial hit a combined 35 home runs. In the three seasons immediately following his return, Musial hit 74 .

"He was responsive to the audience and I think he sensed that people wanted to see home runs," Stanton said.

"There was a sense of the theatrical to him in spite of being famously shy and unpretentious."

Proving art is where you find it, even on a diamond.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.