Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin was grieving Wednesday.

“You know, when you’ve reached my age and, maybe, my station in life, you’re supposed to be beyond the stage of swooning, but when it comes to Stan Musial, I’m a kid all over again,” the Illinois Democrat said. Baseball Hall of Famer Stan “The Man” Musial died Saturday. On the Senate floor, Durbin recalled when he was a young kid, “buying more bubble gum than I can possibly afford in the hope that I would open up one of those packages and find, covered with pink powder, that card that had Stan Musial’s picture on it.”

He did finally get his card. “It was the treasure of my youth,” Durbin recalled. “And it would be so today if my mom hadn’t thrown all those cards away.”