Willie Stargell
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WILLIE STARGELL
A Life in Baseball
Frank Garland
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE
BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE
e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-0222-6
© 2013 Frank Garland. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover: Willie unleashes his mighty swing, the one that propelled 475 balls beyond outfield walls throughout the major leagues and made him one of the game’s all-time great sluggers (photograph courtesy of the Pittsburgh Pirates)
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
This book is dedicated to the biggest influences in my life—my brother, James J. Garland, who instilled in me a love of sports that has only grown over time; my children, Frankie Garland and Gina Garland Wilde, whose caring nature and enthusiasm for life have buoyed me in trying times; my sisters, Tina Blem and Mary Mackay, who have provided emotional support—and the world’s best cookies—for decades; and Larry Minner, the best boss who ever lived.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
1 — In the Beginning
2 — Life in the Bushes
3 — The Show
4 — Becoming a Force
5 — Changing of the Guard
6 — We Are Family
7 — Twilight Time
8 — The Bombs and the Victims
9 — A Whole New Ballgame
10 — The Hall Calls—and So Does Home
11 — “We Kiss You Goodbye”
12 — The Real Family
Epilogue
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
List of Names and Terms
Preface
A TRIP TO THE National Baseball Hall of Fame is a must for any true fan of the sport. The need to immerse myself in baseball history—and to share that history with my then-18-year-old son—sent me in the direction of Cooperstown, New York, in the summer of 2005. That and the desire to find an old pink house in West Saugerties, New York, where an under-the-radar rock ensemble known as The Band and a legend in hiding named Bob Dylan recorded some of the 20th century’s most memorable music. But that’s a story for another time.
The Baseball Hall of Fame tour unleashed a torrent of memories of my own boyhood days, when I would idle away the morning hours throwing a tennis ball off our brick house and onto a gravel driveway and trying to field the crazy caroms and unpredictable bounces that only those stones could generate. Afternoons were set aside for playing endless sessions of pickup baseball at Burkett School. Evenings were reserved for “official” Robinson Township Little League games where—as a good-field, no-hit second baseman—I had an unquenchable thirst for gobbling up ground balls. My nights, meanwhile, were spent drifting off to sleep to the melodic tones of Bob Prince, Jack Buck and any other play-by-play voice I could coax out of my sleek, space-age Panasonic radio. Prince, with his unique gravelly voice and his penchant for catchy phrases—“a bloop and a blast,” “bug on a rug,” and “spread some Chicken on the Hill with Will” were just a few of them—brought Pittsburgh Pirates games to life for a young boy who couldn’t make it out to Forbes Field and later Three Rivers Stadium often enough. Buck barked his call of St. Louis Cardinals games over a 50,000-watt blowtorch known as KMOX, which came in loud and clear at night in Pittsburgh—and, as it was in the Central Time Zone, right on cue to bring me the final few innings after the Pirates had finished their nightly eastern time zone battle. Prince, Buck and the other voices weren’t just calling big-league baseball games on the radio for a living—they were performers in an opera of sorts, played out in 162 acts over a six-month stretch that started with the promise of spring and ended with the chill of the autumn air. And the start of another school year.
No tour of the Hall of Fame could be complete without a quick stop in the gift shop or book store. It was there, on that August day in 2005, in that sea of books, that it dawned on me that the canon of baseball literature was missing a key element—a look at one of the greatest power hitters the game has ever seen. Yes, the store did have Willie Stargell’s autobiography, written with his friend and former Pittsburgh Pirates publicist Tom Bird. But the book was written in Stargell’s own voice—his life as he saw it. And while that certainly proved to be a captivating tale, I felt somewhat deprived, due not only to the reputation that Stargell had earned over the years as a slugger of Ruthian proportions (literally and figuratively), but also to the picture of him as a wise and caring individual, someone who went out of his way to include others and make teammates—and even some members of the opposition—feel like they were part of his “family.” Yes, I felt fortunate to read Stargell’s story through his own eyes, but I wondered how others saw the special slugger—how did he influence their careers and their lives? How did he cope with the overt racism that would rain on him during his first years in professional baseball? How did he cope with the trappings of stardom and reconcile the glamorous life of a major league ballplayer with that of a husband and father? Was his reputation as the wise “Pops,” cultivated during a splendid 20-year career but cemented during a memorable and magical championship run at the advanced age of 39, warranted?
It was there, in that room full of books, that the idea for this adventure materialized. Over the next five years, I would interview more than 80 people—Stargell family members, boyhood friends, teammates, opponents, coaches, managers, general managers, front-office co-workers and fans—to help bring Willie’s story to life. It started with a conversation with former Pittsburgh Pirates owner Kevin McClatchy in the fall of 2007, just as he was leaving his post and making way for a new club regime to take over. McClatchy talked about how rewarding it was to help bring Stargell “home” in the fall of 1997—back from a decade in Atlanta, where he had originally gone with Chuck Tanner to learn the coaching ropes with an eye toward one day succeeding Tanner as manager of the Braves. That plan fizzled, but Stargell found a soft landing spot in the Braves’ front office, working to evaluate and tutor what was rapidly becoming a system stocked with young stars such as Chipper Jones, Ron Gant, Ryan Klesko and David Justice.
McClatchy’s interview led to another interview and another and another until finally Stargell’s story began to take shape. Conversations with boyhood pals such as Nick Cabral and Curt Motton and coaches like George Read helped paint a picture of Stargell as a teenager. Minor-league teammates Ron Brand, Bob Priddy and Dick Doepker recalled the young Stargell, struggling to catch popups at first base and make contact at the plate, but every now and then flashing the power that would make him famous years after he’d left the dusty fields of Texas and New Mexico. Fellow African American teammates such as Bob Veale and Preston Bruce Jr. recounted the horrid conditions minority players had to endure in the late 1950s and early 1960s while America wrestled with race issues that remain unsettled to this day. Big-league teammates such as Steve Blass and Gene Clines told tales of the Pirates of the early ’70s—stocked with Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski and Stargell—while Phil Garner, Ed Ott, Tony Bartirome, Tanner and others brought to life the clubhouse that belonged to the “We Are Fam-A-Lee” Pirates of 1979. Others chimed in. Media members who observed Stargell at work on a daily basis—some for more than a decade—talked about his approach and what he mean
t to the club. John Schuerholz critiqued Stargell’s work as an assistant in the Braves’ front office. It was no coincidence that the Braves’ unprecedented run of success began during Stargell’s tenure there. Cam Bonifay and McClatchy discussed what Stargell brought to the Pirates’ front office after he returned in the late 1990s—a stint that likely would have continued had Stargell remained in good health.
Several family members were kind enough to offer their perspective—his sister, Sandrus Collier not only offered her lifelong observations of her famous brother, but also supplied several of the photographs used in this book. Lois Beard Booker, the first of three Mrs. Willie Stargells, talked about the young Stargell and how—despite the dissolution of their marriage—he welcomed and worked to keep in touch with all members of his family. His only son, Wilver Jr., recalled what it was like to grow up with a famous father. Several other family members agreed to be interviewed and related volumes of wonderful material, but ultimately chose not to allow that material to be used in the project, a decision that I of course respect.
In addition to the dozens of interviews, heaping helpings of valuable materials were obtained from the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Pittsburgh Pirates offices, the Heinz History Center and Western Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame, and municipal and university libraries in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Davis, California. Court and prothonotary employees in Oakland, California, and Pittsburgh helped uncover key information—such as salary figures—in various documents.
The book is organized largely in chronological fashion, starting with Stargell’s boyhood and working through his minor- and major-league careers before his life in retirement. A separate chapter is devoted to Stargell’s long-ball prowess, with that story told through the eyes of teammates, fans and experts in the field—and even a couple of pitchers who served up some of the slugger’s longest long balls. Yet another chapter focuses on Stargell’s real family—as opposed to the ’79 Pirates’ “Fam-A-Lee,” a crew highlighted in the book’s sixth chapter.
Several of the sources who provided priceless material for this book have passed and should be recognized individually—Motton, Tanner, Joe Brown, Nelson “Nellie” King, Ron Santo and Wayne Twitchell. Others who were interviewed for the book were Henry Aaron, Gene Alley, Anthony Arnerich, Tony Bartirome, Steve Blass, Bert Blyleven, Cam Bonifay, Lois Beard Booker, Ron Brand, Greg Brown, Preston Bruce, Ray Burris, Nick Cabral, Gene Clines, Gene Collier, Sandrus Collier, Ron Cook, Dick Doepker, Dan Donovan, David Effron, Lanny Frattare, Robert Freeman, Bob Friend, Phil Garner, Dave Giusti, Jim Grant, Franco Harris, Grant Jackson, Bill Jenkinson, Rex Johnston, Brady Keys, Joe King, Rudy May, Kevin McClatchy, Lindy McDaniel, Roy McHugh, Ron McKee, Joe Morgan, Steve Nicosia, Phil Niekro, Sam Nover, Al Oliver, Ed Ott, Dave Parker, William Patterson, Harding Peterson, Bob Priddy, George Read, Merv Rettenmund, Jerry Reuss, Don Robinson, Jim Rooker, Vic Roznovsky, Stan Savran, John Schuerholz, Joseph Schwantner, Bob Skinner, Bob Smizik, Ned Sokoloff, Willie Stargell Jr., Ron Taylor, Bob Veale and Bill Virdon.
I would also like to acknowledge the use of several online sources—Google News, with its treasure trove of newspaper clippings, enabled me to access key highlights and quotes from game stories during Stargell’s 20-year playing career. The archives of several publications—most notably the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and now-defunct Pittsburgh Press, but also others including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Beaver County Times, New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated, Pittsburgh Courier, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, USA Today, Wilmington Star News and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review—played major roles in helping fashion this story. Also invaluable were Retrosheet.org and Baseball-Reference.com, both of which featured a wealth of material free of charge that helped me reconstruct specific games and stretches of games.
While dozens of people helped make this project a reality, several deserve special thanks. Eric Compton, a veteran sports journalist who can spin yarns with the best of them, provided much-needed editing help and advice. Sally O’Leary, a longtime Pirate employee who now works with the club’s alumni group, supplied contact information for dozens of former players. Jim Trdinich and Dan Hart of the Pirates’ media relations department helped open doors to the club’s front office, and Dave Arrigo, the team’s photographer, provided dozens of photographs. Pat Kelly of the Baseball Hall of Fame also was a major help in terms of acquiring photographs for the project, as was Stargell’s sister, Sandrus Collier, and David Coppen at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester. Nick Cabral, the “unofficial” mayor of Alameda, California, took an entire afternoon to show me around the town where both he and Stargell came of age.
The danger in thanking people for their help is that someone is bound to be overlooked. Suffice it to say, this project could not have come to fruition without the help and cooperation of more than a hundred people. It’s no surprise that it took that many. Willie Stargell was a big man. And his story is a big story.
Introduction
THOUSANDS OF MEN have carved out careers as major-league baseball players in the nearly 150 years that the game has been played professionally. More than 200 have achieved the ultimate recognition—enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Those honored players earned their place in Cooperstown, New York, by virtue of their playing prowess, compiling statistics that vaulted them to the top of their respective eras. One of them, however, not only managed to amass numbers that placed him among the elite offensive players of all time, but created a magical mystique that prevailed both inside and outside the clubhouse, on and off the field.
Willie Stargell was that player, a one-of-a-kind spiritual leader whose impact left a lasting impression on teammates and rivals alike, not to mention a city that embraced him like virtually no other athlete before him.
Stargell’s legacy goes far beyond the 20 seasons he played in Pittsburgh, the 475 home runs he hit, the 1,540 RBIs he collected, the 2,232 career hits he compiled and his seven All-Star game appearances. His legacy is that of a man to whom family meant everything—his actual family as well as his baseball family. He was a man who liked fine things and his talents afforded him the opportunity to experience expensive wines, fur coats and even a Rolls Royce. Yet he could be just as happy cooking up a storm for his family on the grill and mixing up a concoction he called “Purple Passion” for his teammates and friends.
He grew up in an era when racial issues were fracturing the nation. But despite experiencing the horrifying conditions that prevailed in the segregated South during his early days as a professional—even being threatened with a shotgun before a minor-league game during his first season in the minor leagues—he maintained an upbeat attitude and stressed the importance of keeping an even keel. Never get too high or too low in the game, he would caution teammates. But never forget that baseball is a game. One of his favorite sayings was that the umpire says “Play ball”—not “Work ball”—at the start of a game.
He came from humble beginnings and he was proud of his heritage, which included African American and American Indian blood. He experienced a bewildering early childhood stretch that saw him living in Florida with an aunt for several years before he returned to his mother and stepfather in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he came of age in a melting pot community called Alameda. He would play on a high school team that featured two other players who would go on to carve out major league careers and while he was not a high-profile prospect, he had something special that caught the eye of an inexperienced Pittsburgh Pirate scout named Bob Zuk.
Stargell made his way through the Pirates’ farm system, methodically climbing the ladder and growing into his large frame and finally exhibiting the power that Zuk envisioned when he first saw Stargell as a 5-11, 170-pound amateur. And after two fairly nondescript seasons to start his big-league career, he began to establish himself as one of the game’s great sluggers, both in terms of frequency and distanc
e. He would go on to crush some of the longest home runs ever hit in more than a half-dozen ballparks; he personally accounted for seven of the 16 balls to clear the right-field roof at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field and hit the first two balls—and two of only four total—to leave Dodger Stadium. He hit the longest home runs at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium and Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium, sent one into the swimming pool outside Montreal’s Jarry Park and deposited four into the upper deck at Three Rivers Stadium. His career total of 475 home runs is somewhat misleading, as he played the first half of his career in mammoth Forbes Field, which some say could have deprived him of another 100 or so round-trippers.
For such a huge and powerful man, one known for feats of heroic strength on the baseball field, Willie’s gentle, caring nature seemed to best define him. That, and his interest in the causes that affected those close to him—sickle cell anemia, for one, and an organization created to increase opportunities for African Americans in baseball leadership positions, both on the field and in the front office. Stargell seemed to be decades ahead of his time in seeing the “big picture”—that one could use athletic accomplishments and celebrity as a way to bring about meaningful change in the world. And even though he died in 2001, his name lives on in a foundation that raises money to fund kidney disease research and to support those suffering from the disease.
Those who knew Stargell talked freely about his leadership qualities, and the fact that he never sought to be a leader, but rather the role just seemed to come naturally to him. And he embraced it, setting the tone as a youngster in Alameda and then later in the raucous clubhouse in Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium through the magical decade of the 1970s. It wasn’t only teammates who admired his leadership qualities; word spread of his special gifts around the major leagues until it was understood that Stargell was one of the finest teammates a big-league player could have. One of fellow Hall of Famer Joe Morgan’s few regrets in baseball was that he never had a chance to play on a team with Stargell.