Willie Stargell

by Frank Garland

  But for all of those memorable and earth-shattering events, the 1960s—which had started with the highest of highs in an improbable World Series championship over the vaunted New York Yankees—ended with barely a whimper for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Larry Shepard’s firing in the final week of the 1969 season created an opening in the dugout, and once again general manager Joe Brown turned to his trusted friend, Danny Murtaugh, to take over as manager. The two had gone back a ways, to the minor leagues when Brown was running a ballclub in New Orleans and Murtaugh was his field manager for three years. “We were poor together in New Orleans,” Brown said of Murtaugh. “I came to know and love him there. He was a marvelous man with a marvelous family.”1

  The decade of the ’70s would not enter with a whimper, but a bang. In May of 1970, campus unrest—fueled by rising dissatisfaction with the U.S. policies in Vietnam and continued racial tension—turned violent 10 days apart in two separate places, Kent State University in Ohio and Jackson State College in Mississippi. In both instances, protesters lost their lives, gunned down by those sent to quell the respective disturbances. In the case of Kent State, it was Ohio National Guardsmen, and at Jackson State, it was city police officers and Mississippi State Police. The President’s Commission, chaired by former Pennsylvania Governor William W. Scranton, found that at Kent State, “The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted and inexcusable.” At Jackson State, nearly 400 bullets or pieces of buckshot struck one of the school dormitories, resulting in the death of two people, one of whom was a Jackson State student and the other a local high school student.2

  Baseball, though, continued unabated—Flood’s challenging of the reserve clause notwithstanding. The Pittsburgh club that awaited Murtaugh in 1970 was far different from the one that he left at the end of the 1967 season. The young players who had risen to the big club in 1969—Hebner, Oliver, Sanguillen—had a full year of seasoning and, with plenty of help from holdover veterans Clemente, Mazeroski, Veale, Blass and Stargell, were about to lead the Pirates into a decade of unprecedented and unmatched success. And while they were at it, the Pirates shook baseball’s stodgy foundation to its core, particularly with regard to racial makeup and clubhouse attitude—and even on-field fashion.

  “It was an interesting group—the team that changed baseball,” said Blass, who won 78 games for the Pirates from 1969 through 1972 before inexplicably losing the ability to throw a strike; he struggled through the ’73 and ’74 seasons before retiring. “It was a unique atmosphere. We didn’t have cliques—we had three separate but equal entities. We had almost as many black, white and Latin guys. Think of the figureheads—Maz is white, Clemente Latin and Stargell black. Willie’s leadership was not a lot of verbal, nor was any of the three. Clemente would scream about things, but it had nothing to do with leadership. He’d scream in a fun way. He’d holler at (Dave) Giusti and Giusti would holler back in Italian. It never meant anything. Maz never said anything. I never referred to them as leaders, but examples of how to go about your business.” All of the club’s leaders were available for encouragement, but none pushed himself on any of the younger players. “I’d see Clemente and Stargell in other people’s lockers, talking,” Blass said. “The unique thing about Willie was, it didn’t matter if you were white, black or Latin, he’d be in your locker.”3

  While the Pirates of the early 1970s got along for the most part, they weren’t all choirboys. Murtaugh appointed Veale—the strapping 6-foot-6, 215-pound left-handed strikeout artist whose thick glasses had a tendency to fog up and create even more trepidation on the part of faint-hearted hitters—as the sheriff. “Anytime anyone got in trouble, I had to go get ’em,” Veale recalled. “Murtaugh would send me to go because he knew I would bring them back. They’d go out and get drunk and I’d come back walking with them or have them across my shoulders—it didn’t matter to me. As long as they didn’t bring any disrespect to the organization. I had a lot of guys the next day tell me, ‘Bob, I appreciate what you did.’ I might have saved the guy a couple thousand dollars in fines.” One time, Veale had to retrieve a player off the street and bring him in for a Sunday afternoon game at Forbes Field. Veale stuck him in a cold shower for 10 minutes and then in the bottom of the ninth, Murtaugh called on the player to pinch-hit and he delivered a game-winning triple. “He hit one of the most hellacious line drives to left center you’d ever want to see,” Veale said. “And he was highly inebriated.”4

  Murtaugh’s quiet, patient manner worked well with the blend of old and young Pirates. And unlike previous managers who often felt a need to bench Stargell against some left-handed pitchers, Murtaugh wrote his slugger’s name in the lineup on a regular basis. The confidence Murtaugh showed in Stargell certainly could have been questioned early in the 1970 campaign, as Stargell got off to a horrific start. He went hitless in his first 22 at-bats and wound up hitting just .093 through the month of April. Still, he managed to show off his Ruthian power on two occasions that month—on April 20, he sent a Jim Bouton offering over the right-field roof at Forbes Field, his sixth and penultimate rooftop blast. It was the 17th homer deposited over the roof at Forbes. “I like to think the hits will start coming now,” Stargell said after the game. “There’s no place to go but uphill. I looked at that Sunday paper and saw that I was last in the league.” Stargell wasn’t pressing; he recalled that in 1966, he ended the month of April hitting less than .100 and wound up the season with 33 homers and 102 RBIs.5

  Five days later, he entered the Pirates game against visiting Atlanta just 3-for-43 on the season, and his .070 batting mark was the lowest average among National League regulars that day. In the clubhouse before the game, broadcaster Nellie King was showing Stargell a plaque he was having made—a plaque commemorating the balls that Stargell had launched onto the Forbes Field roof. “Maybe,” King told Stargell, “it’d be a good idea to wait until Forbes Field closes before we send this thing to the engraver.” It was a splendid idea. Stargell, despite feeling weak from an undisclosed illness, jumped on the first pitch he saw from knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm in the last of the seventh and launched one, closing the curtain on his epic roof demolition show at the old ballpark. It was only the second time he had ever faced the 46-year-old Wilhelm, who had struck Stargell out two days earlier. This time, though, Wilhelm’s famous knuckler failed to dance. “The home run pitch didn’t do anything,” Wilhelm said afterward. “It didn’t dip and was out over the plate.”6

  About the only other good news that came from Stargell’s slow start was that he didn’t have to worry about many payoffs at a new chicken restaurant to which he had lent his name. The venture, emblematic of Stargell’s desire to invest in his adopted home city of Pittsburgh, involved a Hill District restaurant that was owned by a Pittsburgh Steelers defensive back named Brady Keys—an up-and-coming entrepreneur who, like Stargell, wanted to develop business ventures in Pittsburgh’s inner-city area. In this case, Keys said he owned the restaurant but paid Stargell to use his name. But it was widely reported that Stargell was the restaurant’s owner. Stargell said in a 1970 interview that he put money into the restaurant because “there weren’t any decent places for the people there to eat. I went into it expecting to lose money because black people don’t tend to support black businesses. But we went into it thinking we’d treat people who came in nice, treat them like they were somebody, and it’s done real well.”7

  Keys, who eventually would own more than 100 All-Pro Chicken restaurants, called the one in Pittsburgh “Chicken on the Hill with Will,” partly due to its Hill District location and partly in a tribute to the former slogan that fans in Asheville, North Carolina, took to using when Stargell was belting home runs onto the hillside behind McCormick Field during his 1961 season in the South Atlantic League.

  Prior to the 1970 season, Stargell and Keys had talked about launching a promotion that would enable all patrons ordering a meal in the restaurant at the time Sta
rgell hit a home run to receive their order for free. Bob Prince, the Pirates’ iconic broadcaster and a character of gargantuan proportions, was told about the promotion but somehow managed to convey the idea that if Stargell hit a home run, anyone coming into the restaurant would receive free food. The promotion turned into a nightmare, at least for Keys. “When Willie hit a home run, I’m telling you, the whole damn community came out,” he said in a 2011 interview. “From all over the Hill, 250 or 300 people would come. I’d have to rush over there and monitor the damn thing. We couldn’t feed all the people. We would feed until the food ran out, which was very difficult.” Keys said he couldn’t do anything to stop the onslaught. “Bob Prince said it,” he said, “so it was the law.” Keys said he went and talked to Prince—on the air, during a Pirate game—after the first incident in hopes of clearing up the misunderstanding. “We wanted to make sure Bob understood this was only for the people in the restaurant at the time Willie hit a home run,” Keys said. “But then Bob would get on the air the next game and mess it up again. This happened about five times. And we never stopped—we had to just keep serving the food. Finally, the season ended. And we did that for only one year.”8

  Stargell’s April funk brightened a bit in May, as he slammed six homers, drove in 20 runs and finished the month with a .246 batting average. He held steady in June, as did the Bucs, who received a major shot in the arm on June 12 when Stargell’s roommate, Dock Ellis, no-hit the San Diego Padres in a 2–0 win in San Diego. It was hardly a masterpiece: Ellis walked eight and hit a batter, and was bailed out by a superb defensive play from the veteran Mazeroski, who from his second base position made a diving back-handed stab on a ball hit by Ramon Webster in the seventh inning. “I thought it was a base hit,” Maz told Charley Feeney of the Post-Gazette after the game, “but I dove and there it was in the glove.”9

  Stargell supplied all the firepower his roomie needed, belting a home run that just made it into the first row of the left-field seats in the second inning and then smashing one to right in the seventh. Bill Christine, covering the game for the Pittsburgh Press, noted that Ellis was breathing heavily in the ninth inning of his gem, but wrote that it wasn’t because the eclectic right-hander had never faced pressure before. Just five years earlier, Ellis’s neighborhood was ground zero for one of the nation’s worst race riots—Watts, in Los Angeles. There, Ellis’s light-complected mother was nearly shot because rioters mistook her for a white woman. “The tanks were parked right outside our house,” Ellis told Christine. “That was pressure.” Ellis said if his neighborhood nickname—Peanut—hadn’t been stenciled to his car, his mother might not have made it through Watts alive. “They thought she was white and they were going to kill her,” said Ellis, who at the time was the fifth pitcher in franchise history to throw a no-hitter and the second in two years; Bob Moose turned the trick against the Mets the previous September. “She got in my car and then they knew. She was Peanut’s mother.”10

  Ellis’s pitching gem took on added significance more than a decade later, when he claimed that he had taken LSD before pitching the no-no. Ellis, who by that time was a drug counselor in Los Angeles, told Bob Smizik of the Pittsburgh Press in April of 1984 that he didn’t even know the Pirates were scheduled to play that day until six hours before game time. Ellis told Smizik he had taken the drug in Los Angeles because he thought it was an off-day. A woman he was with looked at the paper and told him he was pitching that day. The woman drove him to the airport and he arrived in San Diego at 4:30 P.M. for a 6:05 start. Ellis said he could remember only portions of the game but he did remember feeling “psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria. I was zeroed in on the glove but I didn’t hit the glove too much.”11

  The Pirates’ 1970 schedule was top-heavy with road games from mid–June until mid–July to accommodate last-minute construction on the Pirates’ new home, Three Rivers Stadium. Pittsburgh’s last home date at venerable Forbes Field came on June 28 in a doubleheader against the Chicago Cubs. For Stargell, the day was a forgettable one, as he said good riddance to the ballpark that he believed could have robbed him of 100 home runs or more by going 0-for-8 in the two games. However, the Pirates were none the worse for Stargell’s woes, as they took a pair of games from the Cubs, 3–2 and 4–1, and found themselves 40–35 and in a first-place tie with the New York Mets. And heading into the All-Star break, which was to be followed by the long-awaited opener at Three Rivers Stadium on July 16 against the Cincinnati Reds, the Bucs owned a 50–39 record and a 1½-game lead over second-place New York in the National League East.

  That July evening, some 48,846 fans made their way into the glistening new ballpark, which took its name from the nearby Allegheny, Ohio and Monongahela rivers. What the fans saw stunned them—an ultramodern, wide $1 million scoreboard, spotless eateries that carried names like Zum Zum and Wienerstop, a new type of ersatz grass known as Tartan Turf and, unlike the heavily girdered Forbes Field, an unobstructed view of the playing field. The sports palace, which would also become home to the soon-to-be resurgent Pittsburgh Steelers, cost more than $35 million but would provide priceless sports memories for several generations of Pittsburghers.

  The stadium wasn’t the only new thing on the agenda for the fans who turned out that night. Perhaps most stunning of all, their beloved Pirates were bedecked in dazzling new white uniforms that would revolutionize the baseball fashion world. Rather than sporting their traditional sleeveless button-up flannel tops and belted pants—a look they began using in 1957—the Pirates took the field in short-sleeved pullover double-knit tops with no buttons and beltless pants that relied on an elastic waistband and a drawstring to hold them up. “It’s like taking off a girdle,” one player was quoted as saying.12 If that weren’t enough, the traditional black cap was gone, replaced by a two-tone job that boasted a black bill and a dark mustard beanie. No major-league team had ever worn a button-free pullover jersey or pants with an elastic waistband.13

  “They’re outta sight, man, they’re outta sight,” exclaimed Ellis, the Pirates’ starting pitcher for the historic event. The media weren’t as kind; local newspaper columnist Phil Musick wrote in the next day’s Pittsburgh Press that it looked like the uniform designer had “crossed a softball outfit with a pair of Carol Burnett’s old pajamas.”14 Neither was the enemy enthralled; Reds first baseman Tony Perez, whose ballclub debuted in a similar stadium the same year in Cincinnati, told members of the press that the Pirates looked like “sissies” in their new duds.15

  A huge portion of the 48,846 fans who witnessed the first game came away impressed with the new stadium. “There’s just one word for it,” said Pittsburgh native Al Udell, who made the trek from Youngstown, Ohio. “It’s class.” Even the price tag didn’t seem to bother some, at least on Opening Night. “From what I can see, it was worth all the money they spent on it,” Herb Soltman of Mount Lebanon told Robert Voelker of the Post-Gazette.16 Just about everything was perfect that night. Even the politicians kept their remarks short. About the only thing that wasn’t perfect was the outcome, as the Reds edged the Pirates 3–2. Stargell crushed the first Pirates home run in their new playground, a sixth-inning shot into the second-tier box seats that earned him nearly $1,000 in a promotional giveaway from a local lumber yard. The homer certainly caught the attention of the Reds’ right fielder Ty Cline, over whose head Stargell’s drive sailed before landing in the new seats. “Did anybody measure it?” Cline asked later. “It had to travel 450 feet, at least. It was 200 feet over my head.”17

  It only took one game for people to realize that the Pirates were not playing at Forbes Field anymore. That moment of clarity materialized when Perez launched one to center field with a man on base and two outs in the fifth inning. At Forbes Field, Perez’s drive would have been a long out. At Three Rivers, the ball cleared the center-field wall for a two-run homer. “You had better forget Forbes,” wrote the Post-Gazette’s Feeney following the game, “because it’s just a ball yard with a history now.”18
Stargell certainly was looking forward to the move to Three Rivers Stadium, with its symmetrical outfield and the friendlier-than-Forbes dimensions—340 feet down both lines, 410 feet to straightaway center and 385 feet to the right- and left-center field power alleys. He figured those numbers would enhance his own numbers; in fact, Stargell claimed on several occasions that his wife Dolores had tracked Stargell’s at-bats in 1969 and concluded that he would have hit 22 more homers that season if he had been playing in Three Rivers Stadium rather than Forbes Field.

  Stargell continued to flex his power muscles both in his new ballpark and on the road, including a major display on August 1, when he rapped out two home runs and three doubles and drove in six runs in a 20–10 victory over the Braves in Atlanta. Stargell became only the third player at the time to manage five extra-base hits in a game, joining Lou Boudreau and Joe Adcock. “I know I’m one whipped man,” Stargell said after the game. “I can’t ever remember being this tired.”19 By August 9, Pittsburgh had surged in front of the NL East pack and an 8–3 win over New York that day that was punctuated by the first of what would be many tape-measure homers by Stargell at Three Rivers left the Pirates with a 3½-game lead over the Mets.

  It was the first home run hit into the upper deck of the new park and it came off Ron Taylor, a Mets reliever who said after the game that, despite the distance, the blast was “still only one run.” Christine of the Press wrote that Stargell hit the ball “so hard and so far so quick yesterday that there were at least 43,000 opinions regarding where it landed.”20 He noted that Pirate owners John and Dan Galbreath planned to visit the upper-deck section in right field to find anyone who might have witnessed Stargell’s blast. Dan Galbreath said if the shot made it to the seats, he would paint the ultimate destination seat a different color and have the date placed on it. “If it hit the concrete façade in front of the upper deck, we might put an X there. We don’t feel that there’ll be a lot of balls hit that far in this stadium.” He was right; only 13 balls reached Three Rivers’ upper deck before it gave way to PNC Park for the start of the 2001 season. Stargell was responsible for the first three, and four in all. As was his custom, Stargell downplayed the 469-foot distance afterward. “At contract time, distance doesn’t mean a thing,” he said. “It’s how many you hit out that does the talking for you.” While Stargell was not impressed, teammate Oliver was. “If somebody had tried to catch that ball,” Oliver said, “his hands would have come off.”21